Heldt's car breaks down on the way to a course imposed by captain Grün, so they drop it at slick welcoming mechanic Tobias Wachowiak's cheap garage. Continuing in his loan car, they must stop for the non-fatal crash of Meike Behling to hospitalize her, and hear the breaks were sabotaged before finding Tobias fatally crushed under Heldt's car. Gardening for Meike's generous grandma and landlady and questioning her suspiciously absent boyfriend Thomas Pischzek, Heldt can't resist meddling in Grün's questioning of Tobias's ex Michaela and catching her picking up cash ...

Heldt returns to his native neighborhood when baker Manni Gießen, a family friend since Nikolas was a troublesome urchin, was pulled out just in time from his bakery, where he was sedated before arson, by apprentice and protege Kevin Patschulke, a paternal lush-abused knave who works out his frustration in a wave of vandalism but swears he would never hurt anyone, least 'second father' Manni. Heldt thus also bumps into his closest youth buddy Markus Koslowski, now a fancy real estate agent, against whom Carlo still warns. Baker's wife Marion is found out having an ...

Chinese restaurant owner Wao Huan is found murdered at a pigeon launching spot, with next to him baseball-carrying falconer Monika Hamm, who claims she came to confront grumpy old pigeon amateur Heinz Ritter, who made many enemies. * Heldt sympathizes with native German widow Rita Wao, and traces a pigeon found in the kitchen to pro-dodgy Sven Lattbeck, who plots to tamper with the electronic arrival recording. Heldt finds longtime disappointments most relevant.

Prosecutor Bannenberg wants to lock up Bochumer mobster Magnus Winschewski at last. Commissioner Heldt must save her from a killer at a trap she naively walked into, then is ordered to move in her home as bodyguard, and bonds surprisingly well with her fatherless brat daughter. The crook's lawyer gets him off on bail, but Heldt works on his fiancée.

Heldt's trusted informer Achmed is convinced that the near-fatal fall of his construction site workmate Matze Hellwig can't be accidental. Forensics indeed find sabotage. Heldt must consider insurance fraud or firm secrets, but is most inclined to suspect bigot macho laborer Tobias, who hates his many immigrant colleagues and flirts rudely with Matze's Rosa.

Heldt sympathizes with laborers demonstrating against their Bochum plant being closed down due to production transfer to Asia, enough to try the male version of Ukrainian nude protesters, handcuffing himself to the entrance briefs-only. Alas, he's thus unable to react timely when an alarm is given about a break-in, at first sight hothead vandalism, but student Lena Herzog is found fatally skull-smashed. Heldt must find out about the protesters, yet to his horror leftist students are hard to find nowadays. However, more personal motives are found, and a memory-stick ...

Heldt eagerly attends a private gym's kick-boxing event and meets a girl there, but she becomes the next in a series of presumed kidnappings. Possible leads, won by several undercover team members, point at the dodgy organizer, match-fixing, theft and scorned lovers.

Young Lukas Grauer is shot during a hold-up in Rüdiger Kopp's pawnshop when a staff member attack the robber during is till then non-violent robber's exit. The victim's ruthless rich mother Judith offers a fat reward, which attracts would be-bounty hunters. The owner is caught at fraud, slick Joachim Pöls's robbers gang is linked and the Grauer family involved in old grudges.

Detective inspector Heldt attends a circus magic show starring his childhood idol "Unglaublichen Harry", but witnesses him nearly drowning in an aquarium during an escape artist trick. Heldt doesn't believe in an accident and starts investigating magician Harry's equipment, rival, past and love-life, all yielding possible motives.

Plastic surgeon Martin Sobotka was poisoned in his Buchum villa. His safe is empty, his last caller and Internet date Michaela Weber claims Sobotka handed her his precious coins collections to estimate and catalog to be exposed indefinitely in a museum. Given her husband's suspicious end -no court case however- Heldt suspects a 'black widow' and convinces commissioner Grun to postpone his wedding anniversary to play the perfect prey under alias Herr van Verde. Flirting with a uniformed cop makes Heldt ruin a precious prop and sneaking off to illegally search her home ...

As punishment for the chief's ruined painting, Heldt must assist instructor Manfred Sievers in regional police academy, but goes about it his own unorthodox way, yielding divided reactions from the cadets. Maverick Muslim Layla Chalid, whose bacon he saves, terrifies even him with reckless initiative, which soon finds her electrocuted unconscious. Heldt couldn't resist 'tailing' Grüns and Bannenberg's case, addict Jablonsky's fatal OD with a new synthetic drug never spotted in Germany before, which heavily leaned-on cocaine dealer "Wild Willy" Wilke helps trail to ...

A pimp is shot, lightly wounded, with the gun used decades ago to kill Nikolas Heldt's parents before his eyes at their disco when he was eleven. The weapons was scheduled for proof after years in evidence conservation, but the only one never processed in the forge. Heldt is taken off the case, but immediately resorts to his massive vacation stack, in vindictive killer mode. He kidnaps and smartly tortures Bochum's prostitution baron, Lutz "Luzifer" Büttge, who swears his innocence convincingly. First diverted, then helped by Heldt's buddies Achmed and Carlo, Grün and...