Batic - 41 - Tod auf der Walz

On the waltz, work follows you: Journeyman craftsman Mario Leitgeb leaves his home village of Wurmannsreuth with an axe, square and latt hammer. Gerry Neuner, an older journeyman, accompanies Mario on his first journey. They find work on a construction site in Munich. The young woodpecker Mario seems to have a score to settle with the ill-reputed Munich building contractor Pirner. There is no other way to explain his holding on to the lousy job and the mysterious postcard home. In Vadder Kolo Koydl's inn on Lake Starnberg, Mario is looking forward to his hike. For the initiation, Mario's secret childhood love, the traveling companion Franzi Brandl, also arrives from the meeting shaft. Both come from the same place. It used to be that there were no women. But times have changed.
Journeyman craftsmen have to "tip" for three years and a day, i.e. be on the move, and are only allowed to stay a few weeks in each place. But when they meet, Franzi only has eyes for Gerry, much to Mario's disappointment. Shortly thereafter, Mario is murdered. His body is found below the Großhesseloher Bridge. The Munich commissioners are faced with the task of looking for a murderer in the area of the traditional craft shafts, among men who speak a foreign language and feel obliged to honor venerable, secret rites. And it gets even worse during the investigation: Franzi seems to be under an old curse. Leitmayr has to mingle with the journeymen without being recognized.