Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 1672, Pötzsch's enthralling seventh Hangman's Daughter whodunit (after 2017's The Play of Death) takes Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, daughter Magdalena, and other family members to Munich, where Jakob and 11 fellow professionals are meeting to discuss such business as standardizing fees and changes threatening their livelihood, including a push by physicians in the German empire to bar hangmen from acting as healers. Meanwhile, Jakob is looking to marry off his unmarried daughter, Barbara, and Magdalena's husband, Simon Fronwiesser, hopes that his medical treatise will find a publisher, but these efforts are sidelined by the discovery of the bodies of three young women. One victim was impaled, one drowned, and one sealed behind a wall-all methods commonly used by executioners. The superstitious locals blame the hangmen, and Jakob, Magdalena, and Simon must act fast to identify the killer. Pötzsch does his usual excellent job of making the period vivid, while offering surprising twists en route to an eminently fair solution. This is a superior historical mystery. Agent: Gerd Rumler, Gerd F. Rumler Agency (Germany). (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
The seventh installment in the "Hangman's Daughter" series (after The Play of Death) finds Jakob Kuisl and his family traveling to Munich for a meeting of the Council of Twelve, the leaders of the hangmen's guild. However, as with all things involving Jakob and his daughter Magdalena, it's not that simple. A series of murders of young women have occurred since the hangmen came to town, and the townspeople are most willing to blame them. Throw in a few other diversions-the need for Barbara, Jakob's younger daughter, to find a husband; some mystery about the silk manufactory that the Elector of Munich has bankrolled; and a treatise that Simon, Magdalena's husband, hopes to show off to a famous doctor-and the story soon becomes like tangled threads caught up in a loom. Written with the author's usual careful attention to detail, the story tends to plod along like an old cart horse, but the resolution of the main mystery is quite surprising. Verdict Fans of the series will enjoy this latest chapter, but new readers will probably be slightly lost in the references to previous volumes.-Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
