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Murder in Waldheim
Once upon a time in the Zschopau valley


Cover picture: Max Glimm
1st edition 2018, paperback,
18 x 11.4 cm, 162 pages
Price: 12.80 EUR | Order

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A murder occurs in a small town in Saxony, but the corpse disappears. An important man in the city is also missing, but nobody knows where he has gone. The policeman Werner there investigates both cases and conducts interviews, acts as the narrator and main character and immediately comes across a series of character murders. An entertaining novella, which on the one hand is imaginatively decorated and on the other hand also opens a social study about the character of a small town in Saxony and its residents - with the status quo of the milieu - almost 30 years after the fall of the Wall. The author exaggerates the real characters and gives the novel a surreal esprit.
François Maher Presley breaks with classic crime drama; Not only does Presley seem too mundane to provide a mandatory resolution to the murder, he is pursuing an entirely different goal.
Sometimes ironic, sometimes sarcastic, but always close to reality, the author processes his visits to the central Saxon town of Waldheim and the encounters there in 2016 in a playful way and most recently helps Werner solve his cases. An unconventional twist that works out homogeneously in the context of language and a mixture of real and surreal notes - literary.
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With “Mord in Waldheim”, Waldheim patron François Maher Presley is not only presenting a satire about the small-town society that is friendly to gossip and intrigue. It is also in the approach a social study. With the exception of the main character, many of the characters are drawn with little depth; It seems that the author has packed a lot of negative experiences that he had to gain during his visits to Waldheim into these characters and is now presenting us with a comedy about the absurdist Saxony. That is why this book is a tightrope walk in which the hiker's balance is in great danger, only catches on in the last few meters and reaches the destination safely. The question is whether one should write and publish such a book that presents a number of people from the social life of a small town to the limit of what is justifiable? Sure, of course. Because behind all the bizarre and bizarre batches, the story also hides a message about living together and dealing with one another. For that reason alone, “Murder in Waldheim” is justified. And if you learn to laugh at yourself from it. Dirk Wurzel, Leipziger Volkszeitung, November 16, 2018

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Leipziger Volkszeitung
Murder in Waldheim - shark alarm at Kriebsteinsee

Women climbing lanterns; Haialarm am Kriebsteinsee, a mayor who drives up in a sheep horse-drawn carriage and an ominous crime: “Mord in Waldheim” by François Maher Presley is an evil small-town satire.

Waldheim
Mr. Hecht is mayor, but feels like a duke. He is traveling in a four-in-hand carriage that pulls sheep. Ms. Schuster is a critical city councilor and feuds with the mayor. He even harbors thoughts of murder against Ms. Schuster, which the following passage makes clear: “... to kidnap her and drive straight to the Kriebstein dam so that she can be used as bait for hunting freshwater sharks, which the population often uses spoke, although no one had seen her either. "

Tragedy in secondary lines
But that is not the murder that policeman Werner, the main character in "Mord in Waldheim", wants to solve, and that he experiences all sorts of bizarre scenes and no less bizarre people during his research. Werner's research tour through Waldheim offers François Maher Presley the opportunity, in side strands of the plot, to evoke tragic stories of overreaching and corruption, which one does not know for sure whether they are invented or have a real background that the author has further processed in literary terms.

This scene is definitely spun: Ingrid Schuster, the mayor's nemesis, speaks to Werner while she sits on a lantern on Schlossstrasse “and blows towards the town hall.” It is a conversation full of misunderstandings in which Werner does something about that Schuster's relationship with a famous mini book author, esthete and understanding woman named Peter Punze learns, but nothing about the crime. The challenge for knowledgeable readers is: The characters in the book have real models, are drawn from living people from Waldheim and the old district of Döbeln. And this figure drawing is not always advantageous, which those affected have to deal with first. Just as the author of this article finds himself in the book character "Thomas R. Wut-Zell", Waldheim reporter for a local newspaper, the same should happen to many others. Incidentally, Presley lets Wut-Zell lose his job and eke out the rest of his existence in the Kellerberg - what a nightmare!

Govinda brings (he) solution
François Maher Presley lets himself appear as Franz Pressler in the story. As in real life, he is an author and brings Chief Inspector Werner a book about Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, which the investigator delves into, learns a lot about Lama Anagarika Govinda and approaches the solution to the case. However, the figure "Franz Pressler" does not have to go to the Kellerberg or as a bizarre, embarrassing duke with the Schöpsenkutsche through Waldheim, he does not blow from lanterns in the direction of the town hall, but appears relatively neutral without any attributions.

Lots of commas
Above all, the readers of “Mord in Waldheim” should bring concentration. The sentence structure is nested, the comma is probably the most commonly used punctuation mark. It doesn't hurt to be able to laugh at yourself, especially when you find yourself in one of the characters. As a running gag, the changing name of a well-known Waldheim hotel runs through the pages of the book.

More harmless again in the future
"Mord in Waldheim" is badly funny and funny in a funny way. Some people from Waldheim have already read it, and yet the author still dared to go into town. Incidentally, his next book about the pearl of the Zschopautal will be more harmless and a children's book.
Once upon a time in the Zschopau valley, a murder happened in Waldheim that a responsible chief inspector is trying to solve. He encounters all sorts of resistance from the population, who primarily have their own interests in mind, but not the interests of the police officer, if they seem to have anything in mind, which is why the investigation of the case is associated with considerable difficulties for the investigating Werner. As if that wasn't enough, Werner also has to investigate the disappearance of a personality at the same time as the murder. This fairy-tale satire is not a classic crime thriller, on the contrary, it illuminates a small town in Saxony, its residents and, above all, its politicians in a completely exaggerated and therefore so effective way, and the book ends in a completely different way than would generally be expected. The entire staff in this piece flourishes due to its dramaturgy into bizarre personalities, because as it says on the back of the book "(...) the author processes his visits to the central Saxon town of Waldheim and the encounters there in a playful way (...)" and ensures that, in addition to the ironic-sarcastic spotlight on the people in this small town, the town of Waldheim itself is made palatable to the reader, presented to him as an attractive tourist area, which due to the diverse sights, starting with the 13 wooded hills over the nearby Kriebstein Castle to Germany's oldest prison, well worth a visit. But the visitor must not be disappointed if he does not find any freshwater sharks in Zschopau, also no "Zschopauperle", just as little can climb a temple mountain or even want to look over the shoulders of a bosom artist. But if the visitor, who gets lost in this area, keeps his eyes open, he will encounter most of the streets and places described in it, if he takes good note of the book, serving as a travel guide, in any case a very important one beforehand if he is directly in the “Hotel Zum Gossiping Lions ”and stayed there for a few days. With the help of the book, he can also check whether he is there in reality or just in the setting of this play. It won't be easy to distinguish the book from the original, or the original from the book, but the adventurer is guaranteed to get his money's worth, especially when he strolls unsuspectingly through Waldheim, inspects every street lamp as a precaution, examines every garbage truck for suspicious noises while he wants to track down the murderer himself, and is suddenly surprised by the lovely tones of a ballad singer. Finally, an urgent note: Humorous readers should suppress their desire to read in order to save themselves and go straight to the shoemaker's cellar to laugh, while those with a humorous order should order the book immediately. Verena Lüthje, Kiel, blogger
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