The story of the unusual Wirring family is a hymn to freedom, rebellion and anarchy. Just like the famous Gallic village the Wirring’s old farmhouse defies the surrounding concrete apartment blocks in Salzburg. For the narrow-minded neighbourhoods it’s a thorn in their side, but for the shameless everyday anarchy of the four family members, it offers a reliable home: Claudia, campaigner for environmental and social renewal, Werner, former advertising guru and now life scientist, grandfather Peter, called Pete Wire, rock musician, and son Rolf, who tries to make sense of it all. That is until the day a terminally ill man stands in the doorway claiming to be an illegitimate child produced from an encounter between their rock star grandpa and a waitress…and with this he sets a turbulent family story spanning three decades in motion.

Where is the child prodigy? In the shadow of Mozart, even murder becomes art. Birgit has disappeared: The ten year-old musical prodigy is abducted in Salzburg, right under Mozart’s eyes, so to speak. This happens just when she is supposed to compete in the finals of an international piano competition after beating her friend Anja, daughter of a respectable family, in the semi-finals. Her friend’s father, manager of the state’s largest energy corporation, political lackey and pawn declared fair game in the local political scene, is definitely keen on seeing his daughter make a quick career. His ambition catches the attention of chief inspector Laber, who, struggling to solve his first case, must find his place in an intricate web of power and music, beauty and cruelty. From one day to the next, fingers in the city start pointing in several directions – to the murderer as well? All the while, Mozart silently weeps on his pedestal: full of anger, but also full of laughter and ardor for this book.

The idyll is elsewhere... Once again, O.P. Zier is not willing to let sleeping dogs lie. A story of the powerful, their puppets and a murder – and all evidence is against the narrator... Barbara Lochner is dead, but who killed her? Everything speaks against Werner Burger, the narrator, except the characters in his book, who line up to admit freely how much each of them would like to kill Barbara Lochner. But when the murder happened, Burger was the only one at the crime scene to confront her with the criminal manipulations of a bureaucracy corrupted by politics. One of her victims is Erwin Lang, an upright man who thought he was about to trace conspiratorial activities but then finds himself in the nuthouse. Or did he just fall prey to his own mind? Against his will, Burger becomes Lang’s advocate in his fight against “the secret system”, and is soon confronted with some crazy small-town dignitaries who aim to reinvent the seasons... This novel takes place on the shady side of an alpine holiday region, in the dreariness between peak season and peak season. Scrutinizing and unrelenting like a detective, O.P. Zier illuminates all corners on which the flashing cameras have not yet shed their light. The result is not only a thrilling story, but also a novel on the pitfalls of story-telling and an author who is always offender and victim at the same time.