The Murder of Anton Livius: 3

For Inspector Hunkeler the New Year begins with a most unwelcome phone call. He is summoned back to Basel from his holiday to unravel a gruesome killing in a gardening allotment on the city's outskirts. An old man known as Anton Fluckiger has been shot in the head and found hanging from a butcher's hook from the roof of his garden shed - like butchers hang the carcasses of dead animals. Hunkeler must deal not only with the quarrelsome tenants of the allotment but with the challenges of investigating a murder that has taken place outside his jurisdiction, across the French border in Alsace. The clues lead to the Emmental in Berne, and then events from the last weeks of the Second World War in Alsace come to light, the wounds of which have never healed in the region.

For Inspector Peter Hunkeler, New Year brings a gruesome case. A badly ravaged male corpse is found in a garden allotment on the edge of Basel. During his search for the killer, the wayward inspector has to deal with quarrelsome allotment holders and the trials and tribulations of cross-border police work. The case becomes increasingly mystifying when Hunkeler stumbles upon a sinister Second World War connection. What exactly happened in the Alsatian village of Ballersdorf in February 1943? And how are those events connected to the case?