The Hangman's Daughter

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / Historical / Potzsch, Oliver
On Shelf At: Malletts Creek Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / Historical / Potzsch, Oliver	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"Mariner Books."
"First published in Germany in 2008 by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH as Die henkerstochter"--T.p. verso.
Germany, 1659: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and the women burned at stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau. When more children disappear and an orphan boy is found dead, marked by the same tattoo, the mounting hysteria threatens to erupt into chaos. Before the unrest forces him to torture and execute the very woman who aided in the birth of his children, Jakob must unravel the truth. With the help of his clever daughter, Magdelena, and Simon, the university-educated son of the town's physician, Jakob discovers that a devil is indeed loose in Schongau. But it may be too late to prevent bloodshed.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Historical Hangmen submitted by LisaMarieC on July 21, 2013, 7:19pm This was a unique and engaging read! It is an entertaining mystery that provides some fascinating information about the role of the executioner and, in this case, healer.

clunky submitted by apknapp on August 11, 2013, 11:31am I never finished this, so I can't comment on the plot, but I'll comment on the writing--the reason I never finished it is because it was so awkward to read. Not sure if it was the writer or the translator at fault, but the language was so clunky, with odd turns of phrase, arbitrary descriptive blurbs interrupting the narrative instead of supporting it (felt like the writer was trying to squeeze in all the details he'd discovered in his research). I found I wasn't reading the story, I was reading the odd language of it, so I quit.

Hangman's Daughter submitted by SBNB on August 5, 2014, 3:05pm I enjoyed reading this. It wasn't the best book ever, but it's worth reading.

Good, but possibly badly translated submitted by megu11 on July 29, 2015, 12:15pm Overall, I enjoyed the plot of this book. However, I agree with the author of "clunky" - descriptions were sometimes oddly phrased, and there were other inconsistencies and contradictions that I noticed in the narrative. I was able to get past this and enjoy the book, but it might be too distracting for others.