The Hangman's Daughter ~ Oliver Pötzsch

When I think of historical fictions set in Germany, my mind automatically thinks 1914 to 1946, usually it's the inter-war period. When I think of witch trials, first I think Salem, Massachusetts in America or 17th and 18th century Scotland. On occasion I think of the Elvira film, but it never occurred to me to look east past the Alps and into mid-seventeenth century Bavaria. I know three things about Bavaria: they speak a slightly different German than those in other areas (and if this is wrong, I need to have a word with a couple of mates), Oktoberfest, and beard growing contests.

I know a bit more than that when it comes to hangmen.



Set around a decade after the end of the Thirty Years War, a 'modern' physician, the local hangman and his daughter work together to work out who is killing the children of Schongau. Through these three characters one gets a real sense of how a society recovering from a war that began without a real cause and ended with less, functions as its members walk a fine line between caution and suspicion. Fearing the unknown, they blame the things they do know about - witches and devils.

It could be difficult for an author to find a way to describe sentiment, fear, morals and ethics with empathy and without ridicule about a world so far removed from our own but Pötzsch does it with finesse. There is a real sense of the conditions, geography and attitudes that lack in some books. Granted my copy is a translation, but I think for the most part the observations and feelings are still the author's.

There are a couple little criticisms, but nothing that would prevent me from reading more of the series. The first is that the fight scenes might have been lost in translation. Perhaps the descriptions are as tangled as the movements, but it's not so bad. The other is the Hangman's "neener-neener" approach to mystery solving. That "I know what step we should take next (or I know who did it), but can't tell you now, because the book would be too short" teasing gets a bit annoying after a while. But again, I can get past it, probably because I'm right there along with him. However, someone less familiar with mysteries might be turned off.

Originally posted on the now defunct Paternoster Row Legacy blog.