Bzzagent Book Review: The Dark Monk

The Dark Monk: A Hangman's Daughter Tale, By Oliver Pötzsch ★ ★ ★ ★☆

Blurb from Amazon: 


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.

I received "The Dark Monk" and its prequel, "The Hangman's Daughter" as part of a Bzzagent Campaign, though I'm not a big fan of historical novels, I was excited to read these books as I love mystery and suspense and both of these books were purported to have a large helping of both.

They take place in 17th century Bavaria, a time and an area thick with fear and ignorance, where the town physician could as likely kill you as cure you, and women can be killed for the slightest whisper of witchcraft.

Both stories are well told and well crafted, the characters are three dimensional and human.  If you do read these I suggest you start with "The Hangman's Daughter" as that book introduces us to most of the characters that we meet in "The Dark Monk".

I enjoyed the Dark Monk a good deal more than the first book, the characters were already known to me by then and I had my favorite ones.  The Dark Monk is faster paced than The Hangman's Daughter, and the suspense begins to build from the very first page,  I felt that I was actually there in Bavaria, traveling from town to town in search of the Templar treasure and the monks that will murder to keep it out of the hands of "heretics".  Though "The Dark Monk"  doesn't really give "clues" like other mysteries, there is still much for the reader to deduce, and make theories on. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to find some of mine to be correct I may have even exclaimed "I knew it!" as one element of the mystery was reveled.

The storytelling was colorful, the descriptions were vivid, the suspense and intrigue were tangible, on many occasions I caught myself holding my breath or chewing my lips as I read.

There were a few things that I didn't like about these books but thankfully they can be attributed to formatting and the fact that these books were originally written and published in German.

The kindle/ebook format is poorly done, the font size and style changes through out the book, page breaks and paragraph separation is random, and at times very confusing.  However I have noticed that this is sadly a somewhat common occurrence in ebooks.

 My second issue with the stories would best be summed up as "loosing something in the translation" there is a lot of slang and colloquialisms used in the book that I just don't see being used in the 17th century.  "We're screwed" for instance, I can't help but think there could have been a less modern phrase that would have expressed the same feeling.  Sadly the books were rife with language like that, and I do have to say that it lessened my enjoyment of the story a bit.  I don't want to blame the author or the translator though, language is odd and it would not surprise me to find that there was simply no adequate English translation other than "We're screwed".

Those two pet peeve points aside, "The Dark Monk" was truly a fascinating tale, one which I am glad I had the opportunity to read.  If you have any inclinations toward historical fiction, suspense, and religious stories you should give these books a try.  I enjoyed both of them and after the teaser at the end of The Dark Monk I am looking forward to the final book in the series as well.