The Dark Monk

Publisher Marketing:1660: Winter has settled thick over a sleepy village in the Bavarian Alps, ensuring that 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 made sure 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 Potzsch takes us on a whirlwind tour through the occult hiding places of Bavaria s ancient monasteries. Once again based on prodigious historical research into Potzsch s family tree, "The Dark Monk" brings to life an unforgettable, compassionate hangman and his tenacious daughter, painting a robust tableau of a seventeenth-century Bavaria and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery." Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 04/23/2012 pg. 35 (EAN 9780547807683, Paperback) - *Starred Review Booklist 05/01/2012 pg. 27 (EAN 9780547807683, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Potzsch, Oliver Oliver Potzsch, born in 1970, was for years a radio personality for Bavarian radio and a screenwriter for Bavarian public television. He is a descendant of the Kuisls, the well-known line of Bavarian executioners who inspire his novels. He lives with his family in Munich. Contributor Bio:  Chadeayne, Lee Lee Chadeayne is a former classical musician and college professor. He was one of the charter members of the American Literary Translators Association and is editor-in-chief of ALTANews. Contributor Bio:  Gardner, Grover Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over eight hundred titles to his credit. Named one of the Best Voices of the Century and a Golden Voice by "AudioFile "magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by "Publishers Weekly", and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.