For Waldemar Leverkuhn, a retiree living with his wife in a small unit in an unassuming block of apartments, the day couldn't begin more auspiciously. He, along with three friends, have won the lottery. It's a modest but healthy sum of money and the old men toast to their good luck with a celebratory dinner at their usual haunt. The day ends, however, with Leverkuhn drunk, stumbling, belligerent, and eventually dead in his bed, stabbed 28 times in the chest with a carving knife.

After a cursory investigation on Leverkuhn's few friends and irritable family members that leads to more questions than answers, Leverkuhn's quiet, weary wife incredibly confesses to her husband's murder. The case seems to have solved itself, but when the Leverkuhn's formidable neighbor, Else Van Eck, goes missing and is later discovered in gruesome fashion, Detective Münster and his team find themselves back in the fog and chasing after whisps of clues that indicate that the murders are inextricably linked.