On the night of the 11th of July, two guardsmen from the Serbian elite unit are making their rounds in the Topcider military camp. The next morning, they are found dead. The military court issues an official report claiming that they were the victims of a dishonourable ritual suicide, and the investigation is promptly closed. Lawyer Sinisa Stojkovic is commissioned by the parents of the dead guardsmen to launch a private investigation. He asks his old friend, Milena Lukin, a specialist in international law, for her assistance. But her investigations start to irritate certain individuals, and her life ends up in grave danger. A dreadful suspicion begins to build: it seems that the guards saw something they shouldn't have seen. Could it have had something to do with the anniversary of the worst massacre in European history since World War II?

It’s 1983. Daniel is about to have his Confirmation, and is dreaming of a blue velvet jacket and grey flannel trousers – but then he overhears his parents talking, and it dawns on him that he won’t be getting them. The Hormanns are broke, and have no idea how to make ends meet for their family of six. As imaginative as the parents are, money management isnʼt their strong point. What they are great at, though, is keeping up appearances, even when the bailiff is outside the door.

He styles his customers' hair with a delicate touch. And he never has to prompt them into conversation, because if there is anyone they come to talk to, then it is him – the hairdresser. When his customers call him, he knows that it is always urgent – their need for beauty brooks no delay. But when Alexandra Kaspari, editor of the beauty section of Vamp magazine, calls for an appointment, it sounds like a matter of life and death. And later that evening, her newly styled head does indeed have an encounter with a lethal weapon. The police are faced with a baffling mystery: they cannot find the murder weapon, the motive remains unclear and the world of the beautiful and well-dressed is keeping its secret close to its chest. But Tomas Prinz is able to move more freely within this labyrinth of rivalry, careers and corruption – as even the murder suspects are willing visitors of his hairdressing salon. And the case will now just not leave him in peace. The colour stylist Bea, with her keen intuition and penchant for astrology, becomes Prinz' accomplice, while Alyosha – his lover from Moscow, who unexpectedly turns up in Munich – is more of a distraction.

»Only here does the peony bloom in such strong shades of red, because the ground was soaked in so much blood.« What happened on the night when a Serbian couple were brutally murdered in their house in Kosovo? Milena Lukin might never have looked into the matter if her uncle Miodrag had not recognized the murdered woman as his first love. She contacts the couple’s children and ventures to the scene of the crime – and into the dark depths of politics. Gradually, she comes to suspect that the killers are not from far away, but very close to her, in beautiful Belgrade. Peony Red tells a story of how the flames of political conflict are fanned and kept alive behind the scenes because Serbs and Kosovars profit from that conflict.

Good times, bad times! Up in shining lights or up for the chop, record viewing figures or rock-bottom ratings: nerves are ragged among members of the daily soap's television crew.Tragedy galore in front of the camera, but even more looms behind the lens. Tomas Prinz invents a new hairstyle for his client, Tina Schmale, who has recently taken on the television soap opera ›That's Life‹.The producer has stepped in to rescue the series from plunging ratings. She has an idea: what she needs is for her new lead to be a publicity magnet. But where do you find a star willing to lend her face to a daily soap? The hairdresser knows the very person: Charlotte Auerbach, an icon in her youth in the 70s and just back from California, would be up for it. And, as her personal stylist, he finds himself in the very heart of a team of actors, directors, writers, cameramen and set designers who churn out, conveyor belt-fashion, twenty-five minutes worth of evening entertainment every day. Intrigue and petty jealousies have their place, too, of course. There's a murder to boot. And it's not in the script.

A new challenge for criminologist Milena Lukin, inspired by real-life crimes with fateful consequences and set in Belgrade, a city in flux, between East and West.

Still today bouquets of white lilies-of-the-valley are laid in Belgrade Street, where a small Romani boy was once beaten to death by two youths. One of the teenagers was imprisoned, while the other was able to flee. Twenty-five years later, he returns to Belgrade to confront his past – and is found dead in the Danube river a short while later. The police declare it to be a suicide and promptly close the case. The lawyer of the dead man and criminologist Milena Lukin find themselves confronted by a puzzle – that is, until they stumble upon a clue which leads them into the darkest recesses of Serbian politics, and to a murder which shaped the fate of an entire country.

The nightmare of every star hairdresser: just before the show of the world's best hairdressers begins in London, the supermodel cancels her appearance. Thomas Prinz handles the situation well, however. He quickly engages the services of Rosemary, the English au-pair girl who is already on standby to accompany him to Munich where she is expected by the family of Thomas' sister Regula. Rosemary for her part introduces him to the Munich university scene where Prinz roams around like a curious tourist. He can't really follow the academic debates, but he immediately grasps the human vices – intrigues and ruthless career plans – that he encounters. And before he knows it he is stuck with a new case. Whereas the police laboriously has to gather the facts, his visually trained eye allows him to grasp hidden criminal connections within seconds.