When his partner Susanne Koch is not lying in bed next to him as usual in the morning, Inspector Martin Brühl knows immediately that something is wrong. What he doesn't know is that Susanne has witnessed a crime on her way home at night. She was seriously injured when an ATM was blown up and was quickly taken away by the perpetrators.
A kidnapping case starts a dangerous game of cat and mouse for Berlin detective Martin Brühl in the world of illegal car racing. 19-year-old Tim Jatzkowski doesn't come home. At first this is nothing to worry about. But then his father, luxury car dealer Heiner Jatzkowski, receives a ransom demand. Martin Brühl and his team encounter a shocked mother and a rather shirt-sleeved father who thinks the police should do their job and find Tim. The detective tries to convince Jatzkowski to pay the ransom. Among Jatzkowski's regular customers, whom he supplies with tuned luxury sports cars, there are plenty with contacts to the Berlin clans. He decides against paying the ransom.
Empathy is a two-edged sword, especially for Martin. Tormented by the past, haunted by the present, the chief inspector is a brilliant investigator and, together with his team, solves the most convoluted cases. From kidnapping to hostage situations, to murder. Unable to eat or sleep until a case is solved, they all take their toll.
On the site of a former children's home, the remains of ten babies and one adult are found. At the dead man's ring, a former psychologist recognizes her missing husband. But the police do not believe her and so she goes on her own tracks.
Two-year-old Paulina is suddenly no longer in her crib, and everything points to an abduction. But the hijacker does not answer.
High school graduate Simon has a crush on lifeguard Mira. The outdoor pool in Niederwülst at the end of the 90s becomes a place of longing for the 19-year-old, far away from the pressure of family expectations.
For a job, Alina has to accept longer working hours and long business trips. The single mother has to reorganize her everyday life with her daughter Lilia and asks her ex-boyfriend Jarek to teach her the violin lessons. While Lilia finds it difficult to come to terms with the new situation, Jarek soon finds pleasure in contacting violin teacher Clara and her sons - much to the dismay of Clara's husband. When Lilia gets the chance to change to another teacher as a master student, the contact with Clara breaks off. Until Jarek and Clara meet again by chance a few months later.
A student of Cathrin is murdered and draped like a doll found on the beach. The dead body corresponds to the imagination of one of Cathrin's patients. Kelly, however, suspects a friend of the dead.
The psychologist Cathrin Blake actually wants to withdraw from her work for the police. After a mysterious murder during the ghost parade of the "Samhain" harvest festival, however, Superintendent Kelly asks for her support. It's not just about the bloody act, but also about the disappearance of Holly Reid, the victim's friend.
The decades of struggle in Northern Ireland left deep wounds that have not yet healed. Criminal psychologist Cathrin Blake is faced with the delicate task of mediating in a perpetrator-victim conversation.
