The novel “The Pacific Ocean” (1980) by the famous Austrian writer Gerhard Roth combines the features of an idyll, a detective story and a mysterious story. Rural solitude, serene forests and valleys, among which the hero, a successful metropolitan doctor who left his practice in the city, seeks to get lost, hide dark, sinister secrets. Cruel morals reign in the idyllic village, and its inhabitants gradually begin to remind the hero of the eerie characters in Bruegel’s paintings. However, is the hero himself so different from them, and what made him flee the capital?..