Two men, different in body weight and height and wanted by the police, are hired by a landowner. She employs vacation helpers for their " leisure time activities.

Odd couple Ivo Salvini, recently released from a mental asylum, and former prefect Gonnella wander through the countryside and discover a dystopia made of television commercials, beauty pageants, rock music, Catholicism, and pagan rituals.

Shortly before his retirement, provincial detective Hartwich has more mysteries to solve than in his last 20 years of service put together: First, the charred body of a man in a diving suit is discovered after a forest fire, but the nearest lake is miles away. Then a dismembered female corpse turns up, wrapped in the bag of a drinks store that has sent out 1000 of them. And to make matters worse, Hartwich's successor, the eager Tobias Kutschke, starts work just as the investigation begins...