Oliver Pötzsch

Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin. Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy. Page Numbers Source ISBN: 054774501X

1660: Winter has settled thick over a sleepy village in the Bavarian Alps, ensuring every farmer and servant is indoors on the night a parish priest discovers he's been poisoned. As numbness creeps up his body, he summons the last of his strength to scratch a cryptic sign in the frost.Following a trail of riddles, hangman Jakob Kuisl, his headstrong daughter, Magdalena, and the town physician’s son team up with the priest’s aristocratic sister to investigate. What they uncover will lead them back to the Crusades, unlocking a troubled history of internal church politics and sending them on a chase for a treasure of the Knights Templar.But they’re not the only ones after the legendary fortune. A team of dangerous and mysterious monks is always close behind, tracking their every move, speaking Latin in the shadows, giving off a strange, intoxicating scent. And to throw the hangman off their trail, they have ensured he is tasked with capturing a band of thieves roving the countryside attacking solitary travellers and spreading panic.Delivering on the promise of the international bestseller The Hangman’s Daughter, Oliver Pötzsch takes us on a whirlwind tour through the occult hiding places of Bavaria’s ancient monasteries. Once again based on prodigious historical research into Pötzsch’s family tree, The Dark Monk brings to life an unforgettable, compassionate hangman and his tenacious daughter, painting a robust tableau of a seventeenth-century Bavaria and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery

Wenen, 1894. Een gruwelijke vondst in het kunsthistorisch museum. Is de stad getroffen door een eeuwenoude vloek? Steengoede, verslavende historische spanning voor fans van Dan Brown Wenen, 1894. Het personeel van het Kunsthistorisch Museum in Wenen doet een gruwelijke ontdekking in een ondergrondse opslagruimte. In de sarcofaag zit niet langer een mummie uit het Oude Egypte, maar het zorgvuldig gemummificeerde lijk van Alfons Strössner, een beroemde egyptoloog die kortgeleden nog springlevend was. Om de moordenaar te achterhalen werkt detective Leopold von Herzfeldt samen met doodgraver Augustin Rothmayer. Die weet te vertellen dat professor Strössner betrokken was bij de uitgraving van een Egyptische tombe. Is de professor het slachtoffer geworden van een eeuwenoude vloek?

Vídeň roku 1895: Inspektor Leopold von Herzfeldt řeší záhadnou smrt muže v kryptě pod katedrálou svatého Štěpána. Mrtvému nebyl zdánlivě zkřiven vlas na hlavě, jen obličej měl poznamenaný předsmrtnou hrůzou. Zemřel na obyčejný infarkt, nebo se stal obětí zákeřného zločinu? Inspektor se obrací o radu na svého známého hrobníka Rothmayera. Ovšem i ten potřebuje pomoc. Schovanka Anna ho upozornila na děti záhadně mizející z městského sirotčince.

1893: Augustin Rothmayer pracuje jako hrobník na známém vídeňském ústředním hřbitově. Nevrlý podivín je současně velmi sečtělý a vzdělaný samouk. Ve volných chvílích sepisuje Almanach pro hrobníky. Inspektor Leopold von Herzfeldt ho však připraví o klid. Mladý policista totiž potřebuje odborníka na vše, co souvisí se smrtí. Vyšetřuje brutální vraždy vídeňských služek. Každá z nich byla nemilosrdně probodnuta kůlem. Hrobník ví, že tímto způsobem byli od dávných dob nebožtíci drženi ve svých hrobech, aby neškodili živým. Řádí snad ve Vídni vrah věřící v upíry?

Vídeň roku 1894. Inspektor Leopold von Herzfeldt vyšetřuje kuriózní případ. V uměleckohistorickém muzeu byla nalezena mrtvola slavného profesora – nabalzamovaná přesně podle staroegyptských klasických postupů. Stal se profesor obětí starověké kletby? Leopold hledá radu u Augustina Rothmayera. Kdo jiný by měl být větším znalcem umrlčích záležitostí než poněkud mrzoutský hrobník?

It is 1670 and Simon Fronwieser is in the town of Oberammergau to bring his seven-year-old son to boarding school. As he bids his boy a tearful farewell, news comes of a shocking the man who was to play the part of Christ in the town’s Passion play has been found dead, nailed to the set’s cross. As there is no doctor in town, Simon is brought in to examine the body. The opportunities to spend more time with his son and to investigate the murder quickly convince him to stay. Soon he is joined by his father-in-law, Jakob Kuisl, the Schongau hangman, and the two begin piecing together the puzzle of the actor’s death. Was he murdered by a jealous rival? Are the recently arrived and unpopular immigrant workers somehow involved? Or is it a punishment from God for the villagers’ arrogance in trying to schedule the play four years earlier than prescribed by ancient custom? Once again it looks like it is up to the Kuisls to unravel the mystery and bring a town’s dark secrets to light.

A young man’s destined quest becomes a dance with the devil in a mesmerizing retelling of the Faust legend by the bestselling author of the Hangman’s Daughter Tales series. It’s the fifteenth century and only heretics are curious about the universe. Germany, 1494. Born under a rare alignment of the stars, Johann Georg Gerlach, “the lucky one” to his mother—is fated for greatness. But Johann’s studies and wonder at the sky have made him suspect. Especially in wake of the child disappearances that have left the God-fearing locals trembling and his one true love trapped in terrified catatonia. Her only words: “I have seen the devil…” Banished from Knittlingen as cursed, Johann crosses paths with Tonio del Moravia. The traveling fortune-teller and master of the arcane arts recognizes something extraordinary in the wanderer. Taking Johann under his wing, Tonio promises a new world of knowledge and sensations. But with it comes a sinister web of deception and a chilling prophecy. The stars are set to align again. Now Johann must draw on the skills of his apprenticeship to solve the dark mystery that grips his village in fear and the deepening mystery of his own destiny.

A showman’s fate is in the hands of the devil in an enthralling novel inspired by the Faust legend from the bestselling author of the Hangman’s Daughter series. Rome, 1518. The church is tarnished by greed. Peasants are rebelling. Tumultuous times demand drastic recourse—before the devil gets his due. Johann Faust is a renowned magician, astrologer, and chiromancer traveling through Germany with his successful troupe: the orphaned juggler Greta and his loyal companion Karl. The avaricious Pope Leo X now requires Johann’s services to replenish the papacy’s drained coffers through alchemy. But the devil, with whom a regretful Johann once agreed to an unholy trade for fame, wants something else. Racked with paralyzing seizures, Johann fears that his debt is nearer to being settled. In France, Johann hopes for answers from an eminent new friend who could hold the key to his torment, body, and soul. For the celebrated artist, inventor, and anatomist Leonard da Vinci is suffering from the same accursed malady. Time is not on his side either. Now they all must outrun the devil, and the more human threats of the papal henchmen, before Johann is dragged straight to hell—along with everyone he holds dear.

1662: Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of a village in the Alps, receives a letter from his sister calling him to the imperial city of Regensburg, where a gruesome sight awaits him: her throat has been slit. When the city constable discovers Kuisl alongside the corpse she locks him in a dungeon, where Kuisl will experience first-hand the torture he’s administered himself for years. As nightmares assail him, Kuisl can only hope to prevail on the Regensburg executioner to show mercy to a fellow hangman. Kuisl’s steely daughter, Magdalena, and her young doctor paramour, Simon, rush to Regensburg and try to save Jakob, enlisting an underground network of beggars, a beer-brewing monk, and an Italian playboy for help. Navigating the labyrinthine city, they learn there is much more behind the false accusation than a personal vendetta: there is a plan that will endanger the entire German Empire.Chock-full of fascinating historical detail, The Beggar King brings to vibrant life another tremendous tale of an unlikely hangman and his tough-as-nails daughter, confirming Pötzsch’s mettle as a storyteller at the height of his powers.

Misterio, venganza y muerte en la Viena de 1893 En el Prater, el parque más importante de la ciudad, aparece el cuerpo de una joven criada asesinada de forma brutal. Leopold von Herzfeldt, un joven inspector de policía, será el encargado del caso, a pesar de no contar con el favor de sus colegas, que no quieren saber nada de sus novedosos métodos de investigación, como la inspección de la escena del crimen, la obtención de pruebas o la toma de fotografías. Leopold contará con el apoyo inesperado de dos personajes del todo dispares: Augustin Rothmayer, el sepulturero mayor del cementerio central de Viena; y Julia Wolf, una joven operadora de la recién inaugurada central telefónica de la ciudad y con un secreto que no quiere que salga a la luz. Leopold, Augustin y Julia se verán inmersos en los profundos abismos ocultos tras las puertas de la glamurosa ciudad cosmopolita en una carrera para dar con un asesino cruel y despiadado que sembrará Viena de cadáveres inocentes. Trepidante, extremo y totalmente absorbente, El libro del sepulturero es el primer caso del joven policía Leopold von Herzfeldt, un misterio sobre los primeros días de la investigación forense imposible de soltar.