Deutsche Buchgemeinschaft

Paris 1888: With the help of forensic medicine, a sensational criminal case is uncovered. The chief of the Paris Sûreté, Inspector Goron, with the help of Lyon University Professor Lacassagne, is able to solve a capital crime that seemed unsolvable according to the methods of forensic science at the time. By analyzing the bone structure, Lacassagne identifies an unknown dead man as the Parisian civil servant Alphonse Gouffé, who disappeared months ago, and is also able to prove that he was murdered. The murder suspects include Gabrielle Bompard and her lover Michele Eyraudt.

Joseph Völz, a punctual, rule-bound tax officer from Cologne’s Bergisches Land, expects life to run like his orderly forms, until his daughter Grete, back from Scotland, rejects his small-town ways for big-city Berlin. Unable to reach her in Cologne, Völz and his friend Schickedanz follow her to the capital. There, Joseph is charmed by a hotel clerk and briefly considers remarriage, while Schickedanz’s own advances also fail. Ultimately, Grete returns home, teaching Joseph that his rigid world only seems turbulent to himself.

Grete, the daughter of the widowed Cologne dog tax inspector Joseph Völz, once married a British occupying soldier and followed him to the Scottish provinces. When she now visits her father, he soon realizes that her marriage has gone awry. He tries to resolve the crisis by taking a trip to Scotland, but his insensitive nature causes even more damage, even though he gets on well with his son-in-law - who ensures that the whisky is properly taxed at the local factory.