In Münster suburb Horsthausen, Thomas and Melanie Rensing's schoolboy son Max is reported missing, presumed kidnapped. Kinsman Ekki Talkötter provides a 10,000 Euro loan and gets buddy Georg Wilsberg to help deliver a ransom, but the police sabotages that and concentrates on the arrest on local pedophilia suspect Wolfgang Schwendter, believed to have avoided conviction a technicality years ago, now Alex's first major criminal client. Wilsberg smells a rat as Ekki's attempt to deliver ransom is sabotaged by his flirtatious youth neighbor and future fiancee according to his parents, Silke Sestendrup. Thomas's firm is in deep trouble, his partner plotted with him, but not to kidnap. Wilsberg investigates the mentally challenged soccer coach Nils Erdel and his rowdy brother Kevin, and the mother's adulterous affair.
—KGF Vissers