The inventor of the regional crime novel brings his cult investigator back to life. Believing that they had killed his five-year-old daughter Marie, Manni Thielen once took bloody revenge on two Cologne gang bosses and fled his hometown. But the double murder was a fatal mistake, as Marie is alive and had gone into hiding in Southern Italy with her mother. After a twenty-five-year odyssey, Manni now returns to Cologne under a false name to search for his daughter. But then fate strikes mercilessly once again...