Ostfriesenfeuer (2023)

Chief Detective Ann Kathrin Klaasen and her colleague Frank Weller have just got married and are celebrating on the beach at the annual St. Martin’s bonfire. The next morning, a charred body is found in the ashes. Dental implants and a missing-person report suggest that it is Christoph Willbrandt. Klaasen and Weller immediately begin investigating, even though they were supposed to be leaving for their honeymoon. Their first stop is Bernd Küppers, who was partly responsible for setting up the firewood. He says he saw a man driving a blue van who acted very suspiciously. However, since he only moved here three months ago, he unfortunately doesn’t know who the man was. The investigators then question Ulrike Willbrandt, who admits that she and her ex-husband were not on good terms. She blames him in part for the death of their nineteen-year-old daughter, who died after taking a mix of drugs at a party. Meanwhile, the driver of the blue van is identified as the dealer known as “Pik.” In a panic, he stabs Klaasen’s superior, seriously injuring him. After his arrest, the young man denies having delivered firewood for the bonfire that evening. Bernd Küppers, however, sticks to his claim that he saw him there. It turns out that “Pik” was the dealer who sold drugs to Willbrandt’s daughter. He insists, though, that he only got her good-quality “stuff.” Since her death, he has felt watched and threatened, which was also why he had defended himself with a knife against the police chief, whom he didn’t know. During the investigation, Michaela Warfmann suddenly disappears. The party at which Ines Willbrandt died had been held at her house. The next day, Warfmann is found dead in a bouncy castle on the beach. The method of killing points to the same perpetrator as in the first case and leaves no doubt that the murders are connected to the young girl’s death—especially when Ines Willbrandt’s boyfriend is also found hanged. This time, the investigators find a note that reads: “You are to blame for Ines killing herself.” Klaasen has meanwhile discovered that Christoph Willbrandt was not Ines’s biological father; Bernd Küppers was. He had travelled to East Frisia after learning of his daughter’s death from the press. From their very first meeting, Küppers had seemed threatening to Klaasen, but there is no solid evidence to arrest him. She hopes that a carefully targeted interrogation will make him confess. But he turns the tables on her, saying that she too will learn what it is like to endure the torment he has suffered. The detective is horrified to discover that Küppers has taken her son Eike. Since he won’t confess, she resorts to a ruse and gets him to reveal where Eike is being held. After searching for a while, she manages to free her son.