Die Patriarchin

Nina Vandenberg is married to a coffee entrepreneur and a frustrated housewife. While the whole family celebrates her husband Gero's birthday in Switzerland, she sits lonley and drunken in their mansion in Hamburg and burns down the living-room. After she is released from hospital, Gero dies in a plane crash. His legacy reveals some very bad news for Nina: illegal money was found in the wreck, the company is nearly bankrupt and she is accused of tax fraud now. While Nina learns that her whole life has been a lie, the company's intriguing vice CEO Wolf Sevening tries to take control. Although some members of her own family also fight against her, Nina starts to search vanished money -40 million euros- which could save the enterprise and her life. Three men are her allies: Bent Peerson, her husband's former business partner, Jens Thiede, official in charge of the tax office, and Gero's older brother Arno who emigrated to Kenya many years ago. As the family owns a big plantation there, Nina thinks she could find the money, but reveals a bitter secret of her own past in Africa instead... —fippi2000