The Dark Monk: A Hangman's Daughter Tale - Paperback

by Oliver Pötzsch (Author)

Picking up where international bestseller "The Hangman's Daughter" left off, the highly anticipated sequel about a dark legacy of the Knights Templar.

Front Jacket

THE ANTICIPATED FOLLOWUP TO THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, THE HANGMAN S DAUGHTER
1660: Winter has settled thick over a sleepy village in the Bavarian Alps, ensuring every farmer and servant is indoors 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 travelers and spreading panic.
Delivering on the promise of the international bestseller The Hangman s Daughter, once again based on prodigious historical research into Potzsch s family tree, The Dark Monk takes us on a whirlwind tour through the occult hiding places of Bavaria s ancient monasteries, bringing to life an unforgettable compassionate hangman and his tenacious daughter, painting a robust tableau of a seventeenth-century Bavaria still negotiating the lasting impacts of war, and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery. "

Back Jacket

Advance Praise for The Dark Monk
"Oliver Potzsch takes readers on a darkly atmospheric visit to seventeenth-century Bavaria in his latest adventure. With enough mystery and intrigue to satisfy those who like gritty historical fiction, The Dark Monk has convincing characters, rip-roaring action, and finely drawn settings." Deborah Harkness
"Weaving together the mystery of a murdered priest, a Templar treasure, and a kind-hearted hangman, Oliver Potzsch's The Dark Monk is a labyrinth of clues and rich characters in seventeenth-century Bavaria. Potzsch keeps the action boiling, the clues intriguing, and the history fascinating and authentic." William Dietrich
Praise for The Hangman s Daughter
"I loved every page, character and plot twist of The Hangman s Daughter, an inventive historical novel about a seventeenth-century hangman s quest to save a witch from himself." Scott Turow

"

Author Biography

OLIVER PÖTZSCH, born in 1970, was for years a radio personality for Bavarian radio and a screenwriter for Bavarian public television. He is a descendent of the Kuisls, the well-known line of Bavarian executioners that inspired the novel.