Harry Ritter was imprisoned for 15 years for murder in a robbery at a jewelry store in Berlin. Now he returns to the Spreewald, his old home, – to secure the hidden prey from back then, and to reconcile himself with his son Matthias, who had broken off any contact with him.
Matthias has very different concerns: he investigates together with Commissioner Krüger in his first murder case as a public prosecutor. A private detective was found shot on the banks of a Spreewald Canal the day after Harry's release. The Dead is an old acquaintance: boar, a former accomplice of Harry. And then snake appears, the third from the then robbery trio, and demands its part of the captured jewels. Sociologist Sandra, who fell in love with Harry, wants to be with him far from old quarrels start a new life. And Mona, Matthias' wife, tries to reconcile her husband with his father Harry – especially since she finds the surprisingly returning Harry sympathetic and Mäxchen, the little son of her and Matthias, happily and proudly accepts his grandfather, who was previously unknown to him. Harry is torn between the bitter consequences of his criminal past and the dream of a new beginning in a loving family circle.

Commissioner Krüger senses the dark secret behind the idiosyncratic behavior of the young prosecutor. Old wounds break open. When Mäxchen disappears from the pumpkin ghost festival and the search in the nightly Spreewald is unsuccessful, Matthias is forced to ally himself with his father. Can Commissioner Krüger avert a disaster?