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    The Hangman's Daughter
    The Hangman's Daughter
    The Hangman's Daughter
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Hangman's Daughter

    Written by Oliver Pötzsch and M.S. Corley

    Narrated by Grover Gardner

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Germany, 1660: 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 the 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.

    A brilliantly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller, The Hangman’s Daughter is the first novel from German television screenwriter Oliver Pötzsch, a descendent of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Translator Lee Chadeayne
    Release dateAug 2, 2011
    ISBN9781455827169
    The Hangman's Daughter
    Author

    Oliver Pötzsch

    OLIVER PÖTZSCH, born in 1970, has worked for years as a scriptwriter for Bavarian television, and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Hangman's Daughter series. A descendant of one of Bavaria's leading dynasties of executioners, Pötzsch lives in Munich with his family.

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    Reviews for The Hangman's Daughter

    3.5/5

    1,011 ratings118 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Historical mystery set in 17th century Bavaria. The title is somewhat of a misnomer because the book is more about the Hangman than his daughter. The details appear authentic but I know next to nothing about 17th century Bavaria. It was chilling to think a misunderstanding could lead people to think children and midwives were engaged in witchcraft. The idea of the Hangman being a a sympathetic hero is unusual but Gene Wolfe used a "torturer" as his hero in the "Shadow of the Torturer" series. I think the author is authentic in his depiction of medieval biases. However. The Hangman and the Physician are perhaps a bit too modern in their outlook. I guess one could have the same criticism for the hero in Umberto Ecco's "The Name of the Rose." The depiction of the Hangman as being enormously strong seemed far-fetched. My interest sagged a bit in the last third of the book and thus the three star rating.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of the town of Schongau, Bavaria. It is mid 17th century and there has not been a hanging for witchcraft in 100 years. However, due to mysterious circumstances and the death of 2 young children, the mid-wife, a middle-aged, single woman, has been accused of witchcraft. It was Jakob's job to torture her to confession. Jakob didn't believe she was guilty. The story really isn't about Jakob's daughter, but she does have a part in the story. At the end of the book the author states that he is a descendant of Jakob Kuisl. This was your good, average book. It dragged in a few places and the dialogue and vocabulary were very simple; this could be due to translation. I think with some good editing the book could be cut by 100 pages. I'm glad I read this book, but I won't be reading the other 4 in the series. 448 pages 3 stars
    • 4/5
      Very well-researched.A town in the grip of a witch craze, children gone missing or turn up dead, treasure, torture and forbidden love. This is Jakob Kuisl's world where he looms over the town like a dark shadow as he plays the role of the hangman. Can Jakob and his trusted friend Simon solve the mystery and discover the perpetrator before all is lost?Okay first off, this book was beautifully written. even though it was written in another language originally it translates very beautifully to English. A lot of times when I read books that were originally written in a different language and then translated to English they come out very choppy. Not so with this book. I found the book astonishingly well-researched for the time period and especially the torture devices mentioned in the book. I also found it surprisingly and delightfully gory which I was not expecting at all.I got the Kindle version of this book and it is the first book that I've ever encountered that has the animation in it. I think that it was a nice touch because it helps you to envision the scenes a little bit better however the animation and illustrations themselves seemed a little juvenile especially for the content of the book. Perhaps if they would have made them more shadowy black and white figures instead of in color cartoonish characters it would have been more flattering to the story.There is a lot going on in this book. The storyline in the beginning is like a murder mystery but it does not read like one. Then towards the end you get to treasure hunting. There is just so much going on in this book and it's hard to keep track. I personally think that it is a good read and it does keep your interest however it also falls flat in places because there is so much going on. It's almost like the author couldn't decide where he wanted to go with the book. Because of these things perhaps the book was a little longer than it should have been.I have one last quirrel with this book and that is the title. Magdalena does not have a big enough part in this book in order to warrant the name of the book itself. I think that she should have gotten a bigger role in the story. this sets the reader up for disappointment because as you are reading you keep waiting and waiting for Magdalena to have a bigger role and unfortunately she never does. Perhaps she does in the series but that still doesn't warrant the first book to brandish her title. All in all it was a very good and enjoyable read. I really did enjoy it. And I would definitely recommend it to those looking for a good historical fiction.
    • 4/5
      I have no idea what took me so long to get around to reading The Hangman's Daughter, but get around to it I did and wow, it was everything I hoped for and more. I was unable to put the book down and would recommend it to others who may have waited as long as me to read this book.
    • 5/5
      I have read the entire series and I loved it!
    • 3/5
      The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch

      ★ ★ ★

      Historical thriller based off the author’s actual ancestors. This book took me a bit to get into. Didn’t really feel any attachment to most of the characters except for Jakob Kuisls and Simon. The Hangman’s Daughter? Didn’t really care for her. Didn’t really care for most of them or their outcome. It was slow going at first but eventually picked up. About halfway through, I felt that the action started to occur. Seemed to be a lot of odds and ends that didn’t go together and I felt like the end was almost too well packaged. I could see the ending showing up in some Lifetime movie …and they lived happily ever after. Not the greatest book I’ve read but it kept my attention and enjoyed the “who done it” feel. And like any book that has been translated, I wonder what was missed in translation. I will continue to read the series but am not in a rush to start the next one right away.

    • 5/5
      Great series ! The narrator sounds great and makes the story come to life
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of the town of Schongau, Bavaria. It is mid 17th century and there has not been a hanging for witchcraft in 100 years. However, due to mysterious circumstances and the death of 2 young children, the mid-wife, a middle-aged, single woman, has been accused of witchcraft. It was Jakob's job to torture her to confession. Jakob didn't believe she was guilty. The story really isn't about Jakob's daughter, but she does have a part in the story. At the end of the book the author states that he is a descendant of Jakob Kuisl. This was your good, average book. It dragged in a few places and the dialogue and vocabulary were very simple; this could be due to translation. I think with some good editing the book could be cut by 100 pages. I'm glad I read this book, but I won't be reading the other 4 in the series. 448 pages 3 stars
    • 1/5
      The author must be a nazi in hiding- all these Hangman books glorify torture, abuse, gore, depravity and all things that the nazs would have championed whilenmasquerading as a psuedo family history to give the debauchery he writes about legitimacy. This is such a waste ear canal and auditory nerve cell usage! Yuck!
    • 2/5
      Just ok. Nothing amazing. I’d pass if I were you
    • 5/5
      This series is so great. I loved all the books and was so sad when I finished the last one. I listen to audio books anytime I'm driving. I will start over from the beginning because I can't find anything that is as interesting. I'm Catholic with German ancestry and very interested in herbs and mysteries, it was written for me! Also the narrator is perfect for this series!
    • 4/5
      My midwife still shares books. She provides midwife service plus books, it really made my early 24/7 nursing days bearable. Now, 5 years later, a new book. Whoo hooo!

      I LOVE the cover! It's classy, slightly reminiscent of Gorey. The best part is the gloss on the red shoes and blood drips.






    • 3/5
      The Hangman's Daughter is a fun enough read, but nothing particularly special -- not helped by the translator, who doesn't seem quite sure what tone he's going for. It's actually based on real executioners in the author's family, which adds a bit of interest there as he uses family history to put together a new story. It's compelling enough, though fairly typical of a story in this genre: the mystery was interesting enough to keep me reading, but...

      The other main interest, I suppose, is the unresolved romance between the hangman's daughter (who is not such a main character as the title would have you think) and the doctor. It doesn't seem like it can be resolved, with the set-up, though, so I'm not sure I want to read the next book even for that. Endless will-they-won't-they-ing drives me up the wall.
    • 2/5
      I noticed ads for this book on various book related websites recently and added it to my TBR list. A Mariner Books edition was just released on August 2, 2011, hence the ads, but several weeks ago I stumbled across a 2010 Amazon Crossing edition at a local used bookstore, The Frugal Muse. I'm interested in reading German mysteries and contemporary fiction that have been translated into English and with the hype that this book was receiving I jumped on it.

      The story is primarily about Jakob Kuisl, an executioner in 17th century Germany (Schongau, Bavaria), who must torture and possibly execute Martha Stechlin, the local midwife, for witchcraft unless he can prove her innocence. Many of the local burghers think she murdered a child. She delivered the children of many of these people, but the year is 1659 and most people are quick to yell witch or devil when anything happens out of the ordinary. While Martha's in prison, more children die, the local warehouse is burned, and the construction site of the new home for lepers is sabotaged. The mob wants the witch to burn and the town leaders want a quick resolution for financial reasons. It's an age when a common belief is that "torture will lead us to the truth" (168). Let's hope that believe doesn't make more of a return than it already has in recent years.

      Jakob's daughter, Magdalena, for whom the novel is named, isn't a major character in the story in terms of time spent on the page, but she does play an important role here and there. However, I think it was misleading to title this book The Hangman's Daughter, but apparently having the word "girl" (or something close to it) in the title of a book is hot these days due to the popularity of the Millennium Trilogy. In case you're wondering, it does carry the same title in German (Die Henkerstochter). Magdalena is in love with the local physician's son, Simon Fronwieser, who is an apprentice physician to his father, but he's more temperamentally and intellectually compatible with Jakob than with his own father. As a hangman's daughter and a physician's son, their love is verboten, but Simon becomes Jakob's side-kick.

      And then there's the devil, the creepy bad guy, and his lackeys as well as a group of plucky orphans of which only two are left, two tough little girls.

      It sounded like a good book to me, but I'm sorry to say that it just didn't grip me like the ads suggested it would. I can't tell if this is due to the translation of the book or the story itself. There are three primary issues I had with the book: pacing, atmosphere, and character.

      The pacing of the novel is not fast, but that doesn't matter much to me if the story is good. However, this book dragged in parts. The edition that I read is 431 pages long. I hate it when reviewers say a hundred or so pages could have been cut from a book (really, which 100 pages, smarty pants?), but I had that feeling with this book, particularly toward the end, during the last 130 pages or so.

      Also, I expect historical mysteries to be a bit more atmospheric. The Hangman's Daughter mentions the narrow streets filled with mud and the slop from chamber pots, but I never got the sense of people actually living and breathing in these streets. There were stereotypical scenes of someone falling in muck, getting his nice leather boots dirty, but not what it would be like to live in the town day after day. The cultural expectations that bind people to their roles and out of which there is virtually no hope of escaping is presented more as fact than as feeling. Even Magdalena and Simon's forbidden love isn't presented in an emotional way. Again, there are the stereotypical scenes where the reader is told that people are talking about their scandalous love and the girl's father even finds them in the barn, complete with hay in Magdalena's hair.

      And this leads me to the issue of the characters. In the beginning there were glimmers of well-rounded characters to come, complex characters (young Jakob watched his father botch an execution and vowed never to become an executioner...then 35 years later there he is, after serving as a solider in the Thirty Years' War he became an executioner after all, but not for the reasons you'd think). Magdalena is presented as a young woman with some spark, someone who knows her herbs, but then she fades away only to pop up again to move the plot along. And that's how the characters ended up feeling to me--like plot devices.

      So who would want to read this novel after reading my criticism? Let me point out that I DID finish this novel, which says a lot, since it seems like this year I've stopped reading more novels than in all the years of my life combined. So, I liked it enough to keep reading, there seemed to be so much potential, and I wanted to see where Potzsch would take things. Much of what I said above could, perhaps, be attributed to the translation. I'd love to hear from other readers about this book, especially if you read it in German.

      There is a sequel. Die Henkerstochter und der schwarze Mönch, The Hangman's Daughter and the Black Monk, but it's only available in German at this time.

      Oliver Potzsch is a direct descendent of the Kuisl dynasty of executioners from Bavaria, so he has a unique perspective on things. I think Potzsch has great talent and I look forward to reading his next book. I'd recommend The Hangman's Daughter to avid mystery readers, particularly those who enjoy historical mysteries, but its probably not going to float your boat if you don't regularly read mysteries or historical fiction. Also take not that there is some gross, violent content, but nothing that is prolonged.

      Overall, this story is fresh and the characters have great potential to become more fleshed out in future novels, but the, ahem, execution just wasn't there for me.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars in reality. A little too repetitive but nevertheless enlightening and entertaining.
    • 2/5
      Okay, so I gave my happy review of V for Vendetta. Time for a an angry one. I didn't pick up this book first; I picked up The Beggar King, realized it wasn't the first in a series, and found this one, the first. The Hangman's Daughter. That boded well--I do like reading about women in other times. Oh, and the description starts with her, and it sounds like she'll have equal weight in the story with the hangman, and I guess her would-be fiance is coming along for the ride. Great, sign me up!Nope. The title is a lie! The copy is a lie! Magdalena is, actually, an interesting, funny, headstrong character...but she's barely in the book. The Hangman's Daughter isn't about the hangman's daughter at all: it's about the hangman, and the physician, and, okay, Magdalena can tag a long for the ride. My feeling of having been cheated dogged the whole book. (In the interests of full disclosure, this feeling was exacerbated by the fact that I paid about $10 for this book. Unlike most of my books, it wasn't given, found, borrowed, purchased with a gift card, picked up at Free Book Day, or bought for a dollar or two. I don't commit lightly.)The book wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly outstanding. The world was described well enough, but wasn't as rich as some historical novels I've read. And the translation was, well, less than desirable in some places. Early on there was a line about a knife "boring through" several layers of fabric. Since "boring", in this case, means "making a hole through", I obviously assumed the character had been stabbed. Nope. Sloppy, sloppy. What's especially perplexing is that the translator ought to know what he's about--he was editor in chief of the American Literary Translators Association Newletter! And where was the editor at Mariner to catch those weird rocky spots? Aside from Magdalena and Sophie, the characters weren't anything special or unusual. The hangman is a pretty standard hero-with-a-dark-streak you see often enough these days (at least in US--might be rarer in Germany) and the physician isn't very interesting. The villain is two-dimensional and his bone hand doesn't do much for his character (in addition to making no practical sense).I did finish it, so it was a bit interesting and wasn't a total waste of time, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to other people...and unless someone can convince me that the next book gets better, I won't be making my way through to The Beggar King.
    • 2/5
      In 1659 with children disappearing from this German village a witch hunt is on. It is up to the hangman Jakob Kuisl to torture a confession from their suspect. But why are the children disappearing.
      The subject of the story was not really to my taste or the style of writing
    • 5/5
      This story has some descriptions of hangings, tortures and rotting corpses. The story revolves around the murder of two children and wit others missing and the witch hunt. The overall "feel" of the book is dark with a sense of near hopelessness. The era was a difficult time so the writing did a very good job of capturing this. This story turns out to fall somewhere between family history (the author is a descendent of the Kuisls, as dynasty of executioners) and historical fiction. For me, the story was well-paced and while clues are abundant, the final solution to the motive of the crime(s) was well thought out and believable. I will definitely be reading more of this author's books.
    • 3/5
      I quite enjoyed this, once it got going - a novel take on the whodunnit, set in C17th Germany. Sympathetic and credible characters in a vividly portrayed setting, so much so that one is glad to have been born four hundred years later!
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars. Solid mystery set in 1600s Germany with good historical detail and interesting characters. I especially liked the tensions between "modern" medicine, tradition, and superstition. And the hangman, Jakob Kuisl, has a horrific job, a cross between a deputy sheriff, refuse collector, ER doctor, executioner, and torturer, but at his core he is a good man. Paradoxical? Yep.
    • 3/5
      A bit tidious in the end.
    • 4/5
      Living in the 17th Century would be pleasant for very few people, the aristocracy, who were as susceptible to disease and injury as were the common folk. The characters are not your usual suspects but their behavior is understandable in light of the times: remember that Salem had its witches as well. Flashes of enlightenment were rare but not totally absent. The next in this series should be worth reading to see where the author will take us.
    • 4/5
      Very well-researched.A town in the grip of a witch craze, children gone missing or turn up dead, treasure, torture and forbidden love. This is Jakob Kuisl's world where he looms over the town like a dark shadow as he plays the role of the hangman. Can Jakob and his trusted friend Simon solve the mystery and discover the perpetrator before all is lost?Okay first off, this book was beautifully written. even though it was written in another language originally it translates very beautifully to English. A lot of times when I read books that were originally written in a different language and then translated to English they come out very choppy. Not so with this book. I found the book astonishingly well-researched for the time period and especially the torture devices mentioned in the book. I also found it surprisingly and delightfully gory which I was not expecting at all.I got the Kindle version of this book and it is the first book that I've ever encountered that has the animation in it. I think that it was a nice touch because it helps you to envision the scenes a little bit better however the animation and illustrations themselves seemed a little juvenile especially for the content of the book. Perhaps if they would have made them more shadowy black and white figures instead of in color cartoonish characters it would have been more flattering to the story.There is a lot going on in this book. The storyline in the beginning is like a murder mystery but it does not read like one. Then towards the end you get to treasure hunting. There is just so much going on in this book and it's hard to keep track. I personally think that it is a good read and it does keep your interest however it also falls flat in places because there is so much going on. It's almost like the author couldn't decide where he wanted to go with the book. Because of these things perhaps the book was a little longer than it should have been.I have one last quirrel with this book and that is the title. Magdalena does not have a big enough part in this book in order to warrant the name of the book itself. I think that she should have gotten a bigger role in the story. this sets the reader up for disappointment because as you are reading you keep waiting and waiting for Magdalena to have a bigger role and unfortunately she never does. Perhaps she does in the series but that still doesn't warrant the first book to brandish her title. All in all it was a very good and enjoyable read. I really did enjoy it. And I would definitely recommend it to those looking for a good historical fiction.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book (I read the Kindle version). Interesting historical detail of Schongau (Germany), and well-drawn sympathetic characters. I'm requesting my relatives send me the other books by Poetzsch from Europe (since they are not available here in the US).
    • 4/5
      Most of the story takes place in 1659 in a village in Bavaria. Jakob is the local hangman. Hangmen did more than execute people, they also tortured people in order to get confessions. They also knew a lot about what could heal people, so they often helped heal. When a child is found murdered with a witch's mark, a local midwife is accused and Jakob, though he doesn't want to, as he believes she is innocent, is ordered to torture her in order to get a confession. He and the man his daughter is inappropriately in love with, Simon the physician's son, work together against the clock to try to find out who really killed this child, and who appears determined to kill other children from the village, as well.I really liked this story. I learned a lot – I didn't know (or expect) all that about executioners! The story itself was pretty fast-paced, as well, and it kept me wanting to read. I also found it interesting that the hangman was based on a real person, not only that, but based on an ancestor of the author. Have also found out it's part of a series, which means I will need to read the next one. Sigh...
    • 3/5
      I started with book 6 in the series, then read book 5 and book 7. The series apparently improved drastically. This book is remarkably poorly translated, switching weirdly among American and British formal, colloquial, and slang English with a lot of totally bizarre usage, and the writing and plot is simply not as good as "The Play of Death" (#6) or "The Council of Twelve"( #7), so even in German it must not be all that great.There are five incredibly confusing villains plus a rotten obstructive bureaucrat, and the main scary villain is like a cheesy caricature, so the reader's antipathy is diluted. There are four female characters in mortal danger, two women and two girls, so the reader's sympathy is diluted. There are two detectives, and sometimes the book goes back in time to catch up with what the other detective has been doing, so the reader is confused about the status of both the mystery and the action at various points in the book.Book #5 in the series, "The Werewolf of Bamberg," lags a lot in the middle but is still better than this one.Even the fact that I got a full color, ANIMATED Kindle in Motion book with amazing illustrations did not save "The Hangman's Daughter" from mediocrity. Also there is a great deal more blood and gore in this first book in the series than in later books. "The Council of Twelve," published 2018, is amazing. 5 stars. It also has a different translator than the first 6 books, Lisa Reinhardt. I suppose the author hit his stride.Many readers have complained that the books are not really about Magdalena, the hangman's daughter, despite the fact that she is a main character. What else could the series Die Henkerstochter have been called to be marketable? The publisher must be well aware that "The [insert male occupation/hobby here]'s [insert woman's relation to the man here]" are all the rage and have been for years, despite being maddeningly sexist. "The Kuisl Family" would never sell. Nor would "The Hangman of Bavaria." We must have a vague female in relation to some man with a specific job or hobby, or better yet a "Girl," to be the focus of every other fiction book in print.I will read books #2, #3, and #4 and also books #8 -? I love the Kuisl family and the medieval setting.
    • 4/5
      I gave this one a 4-star (as an adult, though if I were an 8th grader, I'd totally give it a 5, which doesn't really happen too often, and I went ahead and threw it on my 'favorites' shelf as well). I didn't do this because of the writing style (which was pretty good, easy to follow, easy to read, and great for a translation). I didn't necessarily do this because of the characters (which aren't necessarily very highly developed throughout the text, which is surprising, considering it's a big chunk of text). I gave it 4-5 stars and tossed it to my favorites because, overall, this is just a fun, good read. I'm a teacher of 8th graders, and when it comes to recommending books, it can be really tough to find that fine line between appropriate for young adults (ANY of them) and adults. Sometimes I think, "Ok, that was an awesome, challenging read, but am I in a position to recommend this, or will I get a phone call from mom about this next week because there's some questionable content?" This is a book that I CAN recommend to my 8th graders that might like a different style of the written word, might need a new challenge, might enjoy the historical aspect (especially one that isn't incredibly common), and that, yes, even BOYS might enjoy! And not only would some of my 8th graders enjoy this, I enjoyed it, too.
    • 5/5
      I LOVED THIS BOOK! It's actually more about Jakob Kuisl, the hangman, and Simon, the physician, and would-be suitor of Magdalena, Jacob's daughter, who does - yes - play a key role, but the story is Jacob's and it's freaking awesome! We're taken back to 1659, right after the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and all of a sudden, children are dying under suspicious circumstances with what appear to be marks of a witch tattooed on their bodies. The villagers all gang up on the midwife, who goes to prison to be tortured by Jacob until she signs a confession, whereupon they can kill her. The problem is, Jacob believes she's innocent, so it's a race against time for the three protagonists to find who's really doing this and clear the midwife while the townspeople are calling for her head.It's a fantastic historical mystery based on the author's own family, of centuries ago, but he comes from a lineage of German hangmen, and that made it more interesting for me. Fascinating, detailed, suspenseful, and totally believable, I can't recommend this book enough. Five stars and strongly recommended!
    • 4/5
      well written and well researched but so utterly depressing I'm relieved it is over.
    • 4/5
      I thought it was an enjoyable read. Definitely different setting than most books I've read. The descriptions of the "interviewing of subjects" was enough to get the scene across but not so detailed as to be gory. The interactions of the various characters keep the story moving. Only negative was sometimes modern slang or words seem to pop up.