Like a lot of people in Cologne in 1959, Adi, Hagen and Gisela listen to rock ‘n’ roll. But they also spend plenty of time on the trail of Salz, the owner of the BMW that ran over their friend Karl. They are none too pleased that Salz’s son gets about painting swastikas all over the city, but what gets at the even more is that the police don’t seem to care at all.

At the same time, Reinhard Clausen is tracking down a list of middle-aged men. He is curious about these three kids following Salz, because Salz is one of the names on his list. He was the one who threw the first stone through the window of his parent’s fashion boutique on that fateful November night in 1938. But Reinhard Clausen is not his real name, and he is only in Cologne to avenge his family.

Then there is Chief Inspector Siegfried Hartmann. Drawing ever closer to his retirement, he gets the cases nobody else wants. Like that of the young man named Karl, who was killed on the day of the big protest against the rearmament of Germany. The man driving the big BMW is familiar to him, but he can’t figure out where he knows him from. And gradually, he begins to wonder if there might be something more to all these murders in the city…