Loosely based on the novels of bestselling author Michael Robotham, seven films in the crime series “Neben der Spur” have been produced for ZDF to date. The latest thriller “Schließe deine Augen” was made in Husum, St. Peter-Ording and Hamburg in February/ March 2020, loosely based on the novel “Der Schlafmacher” by Michael Robotham.
Psychiatrist Joe Jessen is overjoyed: after years of separation from his wife Nora, she invites him to go to the North Sea with him and daughter Lotte for a few weeks.
Fittingly, Vincent Ruiz asks him to take a look at an unsolved case nearby, in Husum, on which his former colleague Anna Bartholomé has been cutting her teeth for weeks.
But first, a gruesome picture opens up to Joe in an old farmhouse. The victims are a mother and daughter. A bible lies open on the floor, a painted pentagram on the wall. Has a ritual murder taken place here? Lotte, who now wants to follow in her father’s footsteps, is determined to help with the investigation. On the Internet, she hunts down self-proclaimed profiler Milosz Zanussi, who has been reporting on the case online for days and attracting a lot of press. To make matters worse, he is a former student of Jessen’s.
Zanussi incites relatives against the police and draws a connection to several recent robberies in the area. Jessen and Anna investigate: an unknown perpetrator who strangles his victims into unconsciousness, accuses them of cheating on their partners, and then carves a strange triangle into their foreheads. But as macabre as this perpetrator acts, there seems to be no connection to the double murder at the farmhouse.
Meanwhile, Joe learns the real reason for Nora’s approach: she has been diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer and will soon need surgery. For Joe, a world comes crashing down. He wants to hand over the case immediately. Then, of all things, another murder occurs, forcing him to move on.