Trama

Franz Eberhofer, suspended from the homicide squad in Munich relocates to his sleepy hometown, and takes over the job of local policeman. Suspicious deaths occur, he uses his knowledge to investigate them.

'Die, you pig!'. The words are emblazoned on the wall of school principal Höpfl's home for all the villagers to see. Soon after, this very man is found lying dead as a doornail on the train tracks. Franz Eberhofer, the local policeman in the sleepy Lower Bavarian province of Niederkaltenkirchen, suspects murder. And the prospect is one that does not entirely displease him, as this backwoods offers very little excitement other than the fantastic meals with his cooking-obsessed Grandma or the constant stress with his Beatles-loving Dad. He is supported by Rudi Birkenberger, now a department-store detective but previously with Franz in the Munich detective squad until both were suspended. The Höpfl case gets even more tangled when a second corpse is found, that of a drug-addict hustler with whom Höpfl had been in contact. Franz must also cope with the fact that his Susi is having an affair and he thinks the lover is the Thai offspring of his estranged brother, who is supposed to be their babysitter.—Constantin Television

Franz Eberhofer resigned to quitting Münich PD back to his native village Niederkaltenkirchen near Landshut as a sanction, living inconspicuously on the family farm, drinking at the pub with local hick mates like butcher Simmerl and heating-cleaner Flötzinger. Granny cooks great for Franz and his Beatles-fanatical deadbeat Vater, left by Franz's mother years before; for brother Leopold and his Thai mail-order wife and their baby Uschi, who only quiets down for Franz; and Franz's steady, wedding-eager girl Susi. Shortly after troublesome reverend and hated school principal Höpfl complains about a death-threat graffiti on his house, he's atypically absent; Police Chief Moratschek rules his decapitation on the rail-track suicide. Franz doubts that, wriggles out of babysitting the soccer team's African 'star,' and starts an informal murder investigation. Then his former Munich partner Rudi Birkenberger--who got Franz suspended, was duly fired and now turned PI--arrives and won't be turned away from meddling as if he were still on the force. While they snoop, another corpse turns up: junkie Marcel, son of recently-returned Bruno, who left town after knocking up Angie 20 years before. Marcel and Höpfl had contact in his cellar dungeon.—KGF Vissers