Munich in the year 1672 is a city on the verge of change. Under the new Elector Ferdinand Maria, courtly life is flourishing. Master architects and musicians stream into the city, which takes its place beside Rome, Paris and Madrid as one of the centres of the European cultural world.
In a grim suburb on the outskirts of Munich frequented by beggars, criminals, whores and other lost souls, a major meeting of executioners is taking place for the first time in years. Also for the first time, Jakob Kuisl has been invited, and tradition demands that the newcomer introduces his family to the committee. He hopes, too, to find a suitable bridegroom for his youngest daughter Barbara, and is looking forward to seeing his son Georg again, who is finishing an apprenticeship in Bamberg. What Jakob doesn’t know is that his daughter is at her wits’ end: she’s fallen pregnant after being raped, and doesn’t dare tell her father. As the Kuisl family arrives at the meeting, a young woman is pulled out of the Auer River. She’s been drugged then drowned. In the girl’s purse are a number of forged coins, lighter than real currency. Over the past few months, girls of marriageable age have been dying in particularly gruesome ways, and specifically by methods normally used by executioners. Once word gets out, unrest begins to spread among the populace. Are the murders being committed by a travelling executioner or executioner’s apprentice? Kuisl doesn’t have much time. If the killer really is a member of his own profession, then he only has two days to solve the case: after that the Council of Twelve will disperse again …