The chief inspectors Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk are called to a canal on the outskirts of the city. A 19-year-old drug addict has been murdered. It quickly turns out that the victim, Lara Krohn, became a street prostitute because of her addiction. Her best friend, Kim, who is the same age, suspects that Lara was killed by a customer.

Almost all of Alt-Bützenich is deserted and boarded up. At night a security service checks on everything. It was decided that the houses and the church would have to give way to open-cast mining. Then the climate change brings new hope: the old village can stay.

But the once close-knit village community has long since disappeared with the move to Neu-Bützenich. As Dr. When Christian Franzen, the local doctor, is informed that his empty house has been broken into, he immediately sets off - but never returns home. His wife Betje turns to the police, who find her husband - shot dead in the old village. Even though everyone here was a patient of the doctor, he was still not particularly popular. During their investigation, detectives Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk uncover a torn community. Time cannot simply be turned back here in the lignite mining area.

A man was killed in a secret location under a bridge. The chief inspectors Ballauf and Schenk find out that the victim, the unemployed Peer Schwarz, was deliberately run over by a car. In his apartment they find large amounts of cash and documents that point to the systematic blackmail of well-known personalities. Did Peer Schwarz have to die at the hands of one of his own blackmail victims? A trail also leads Ballauf and Schenk to the popular former pop singer Mariella Rosanelli, who now runs a youth center. During the investigation, an argument breaks out between Ballauf and Schenk. Freddy accuses Max of not really paying attention. He isn't either, because Nicola Koch has recently won Max Ballauf's heart. Just another short affair, as Schenk suspects, or will Max Ballauf finally settle down? When Ballauf realizes that there could be a possible connection between his private happiness and the current case, his newfound work-love balance becomes a tightrope walk for him...