Major, domineering farmer near Wiesbaden Thomas Dittmann is shot dead while cuffed on his tractor. He made enemies of most villagers. Ex-girlfriend Saskia Loos lost her family heritage to him. Former youth and pub buddies Jens Ruff and Rudi Manske returned to town the previous day and had a row with him, as he blackmailed each of them to sign over the rights to a novel apple cider-like beverage which he got a contract for with a major firm to commercialize nation-wide. The fatal gun refers to he unsolved non-lethal shooting of publican Klaus Brandes, who runs the inn with wife Carmen Brandes and teen model son Gerold, but Reuther senses dark secrets, also with Thmas's uncooperative crone mother Ilse Dittmann, who mysteriously tried to delete an old child picture from his notebook.
—KGF Vissers