Review of The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch

Series: The Hangman's Daughter
Author:  Oliver Pötzsch
Book in a series: 1
Pages:  448

Goodreads Excerpt:
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. So begins The Hangman's Daughter--the chillingly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller from German television screenwriter, Oliver Pötzsch--a descendent of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.

Review:
I first heard about this series when I was grocery shopping a year or two ago.  I was walking through the book aisle of the grocery store as I often do and I came upon a book called The Beggar King.  The cover really caught my eye and upon reading the excerpt on the back, I decided I needed to pick it up and read it right away.  When I got home, I looked it up on Goodreads where, to my GREAT disappointment, I learned that it was actually the third book in a series.  Ugh!  Why can't all books just have that information on the cover?  All of them.  Always.

A month or two ago, I finally remembered to look for the first two books when I was at my local library.  Fortunately they had them so, of course, I grabbed them right up.  I have to say that The Hangman's Daughter wasn't really what I was expecting when I started it.  I wasn't expecting much because I didn't know much.  That isn't to say that I disliked it, though.  I thought I would get right into the book, but it seemed to take me a while to get to the point of being able to say I really enjoyed reading it.  The thing is, the title is a bit misleading, I think.  It is called The Hangman's Daughter, but I think the plot followed the hangman himself and the town physician more than the daughter.  She played a large role, but I wouldn't call her the main character.  Other than that, I really liked it.

I enjoyed the characters.  The plot was rich with mystery and fast-paced elements.  Once I got used to what the story was about and where it was going, I really enjoyed the book as a whole.  I was able to get a great sense of the time period it was written about (the 1600s) and nothing felt out of place or in the wrong time period as I sometimes experience with historical fiction.  I think if you enjoy historical fiction and mystery you will love this series.

Rating:  5 of 5.

Warning!  Spoilers:



There isn't really a lot that I want to say that may spoil anything.  The only thing is that since starting the second book, I don't find it to be much of a series.  Not in the traditional sense, anyway.  The second one still has pretty much the same characters.  It is set in the same town and takes place about a year after the first book ends.  I think that is where the series similarities end, though.  The first book concludes and doesn't need to continue on as a series.  The second book has nothing to do with the first, other than the same people, and can also be considered to be it's own book.  It kind of reminds me of a soap opera.  All of these crazy things keep happening to this one group of people.  Each book dealing with a different adventure than the last.  It doesn't make the series bad in any way, though.  I really liked the first book and I'm nearly halfway done with the second.  I am loving it so far.  It's just odd the way the author set up each adventure.  Maybe it's just me, never having read a series of books like this before.  Anyway, I definitely recommend giving the series a try and reading the first book!

Have you read The Hangman's Daughter?  What did you think?