The Dark Monk, Oliver Potzsch
The Dark Monk, Oliver Potzsch
List: $42.99 | Sale: $30.10
Club: $21.49

The Dark Monk

Author: Oliver Pötzsch, Lee Chadeayne

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 14 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/12/2012


Synopsis

The Dark Monk is the second book in Hangman’s Daughter, the million-copy bestselling series.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 travelers 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 seventeenth-century Bavaria and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery.

About Oliver Pötzsch

Oliver Pötzsch, born in 1970, has worked for years as a scriptwriter for Bavarian television. He is a descendant of one of Bavaria’s leading dynasties of executioners. Pötzsch lives in Munich with his family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by SoRoLi (Sonja) ♡ on July 20, 2022

Die Abenteuer von Jakob Kuisl, dem Henker von Schongau, seiner Tochter Magdalena und dem Medicus Simon Fronwieser gehen weiter. Hier geht es um einen vergifteten Pfarrer und die Suche nach dem verborgenen Schatz der Templer. Wir sind im Jahr 1660. Mir hat dieses Buch sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Es hatte e......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on April 07, 2020

”Immobilized with terror, Magdalena felt Brother Jakobus throw his whole weight against her and smelled the fire that had turned his robe into gigantic torch. Desperately, she tried to push away his burning body, but his hands held her in a tight grip down on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye......more

Goodreads review by Ms. Smartarse on August 07, 2018

Translated into English as The Dark Monk The priest of the St. Lorenz Church has been killed in a rather bizarre manner (I will NEVER eat a bowl of honeyed noodles again!), and the promising young doctor Simon Fronwieser is itching to get his hands on the mystery behind it. Beats having to listen to......more

Goodreads review by Lewis on August 27, 2018

UPDATE 8/27/18 ... two weeks after putting it down, I went back to The Dark Monk and finished it. The story is, to me, still a mishmash of action scenes with too many characters and no coherence ... but something made me keep reading and, in truth, enjoying the ride more than I did for the first hal......more


Quotes

“Swift and sure, compelling as any conspiracy theory, persuasive as any spasm of paranoia, The Dark Monk grips you at the base of your skull and doesn’t let go.” —Gregory Maguire“Oliver Pötzsch 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 Pötzsch’s The Dark Monk is a labyrinth of clues and rich characters in seventeenth-century Bavaria. Pötzsch keeps the action boiling, the clues intriguing, and the history fascinating and authentic.” —William Dietrich