The body of old Theodor Reifenrath is found in Mammolshain in the Taunus. Accident or Murder? Because the safe is open and empty, inspectors Pia Sander and Oliver von Bodenstein start investigations. In the dog kennel in front of the house, they make a horrifying discovery. Alongside to a nearly starved dog, she finds human bones in the ground. Three women's bodies are recovered by the forensic experts. But who are the murdered women? The dead man and his deceased wife Rita had used the large house by the lake as a kind of children's home and had raised many foster children here over the years. However, the two were not loving foster parents. Rita has been missing for many years. Probably suicide, but her body was never found. The investigators are concentrating on the foster children, who are now all grown up and in the middle of life. The pattern of killings is striking: Apparently the perpetrator always kills on Mother's Day. And that day is near.

Jan is an absolute heartthrob and a diehard Hertha fan. Katrin is attractive, just as successful and an incorrigible romantic. Chance makes the two the ideal couple. At least almost. Everything would be perfect if the two flagship models of their species did not lapse into primeval behavioral patterns. And so Jan sinks a little too deep in the cleavage of his secretary Melanie, and Katrin can not resist the adventurer Jonathan's lead role.

In October 1989, the part of the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg called SO 36, had been largely shut off by the Wall from the rest of the city for 28 years. A lethargic sub-culture of students, artists, bohemians and barflys had flourished among crumbling buildings. Part of that microcosm is barkeeper Frank, semi-formally called 'Herr Lehmann' by friends and patrons. He hangs out drinking, sports utter disregard for anything beyond SO 36 and lazily pursues an affair with cook Katrin. His lifestyle is gradually disturbed, when his parents show up for a visit, things go awry with Katrin and his best friend Karl starts to act strange. Meanwhile, political turmoil mounts on the other side of the Wall.

A group of kids grow up on the short, wrong (east) side of the Sonnenallee in Berlin, right next to one of the few border crossings between East and West reserved for German citizens. The antics of these kids, their families, of the "West German" friends and relatives who come to visit, and of the East German border guards, all serve to illustrate the absurdity of everyday life on the Sonnenallee, and therefore throughout the former East Germany.