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    The Play of Death
    The Play of Death
    The Play of Death
    Audiobook17 hours

    The Play of Death

    Written by Oliver Pötzsch

    Narrated by Grover Gardner

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The mysterious sixth entry in the Hangman's Daughter series.

    It is 1670 and Simon Fronwieser is in the town of Oberammergau to bring his seven-year-old son to boarding school. As he bids his boy a tearful farewell, news comes of a shocking murder: the man who was to play the part of Christ in the town's Passion play has been found dead, nailed to the set's cross. As there is no doctor in town, Simon is brought in to examine the body. The opportunities to spend more time with his son and to investigate the murder quickly convince him to stay.

    Soon he is joined by his father-in-law, Jakob Kuisl, the Schongau hangman, and the two begin piecing together the puzzle of the actor's death. Was he murdered by a jealous rival? Are the recently arrived and unpopular immigrant workers somehow involved? Or is it a punishment from God for the villagers' arrogance in trying to schedule the play four years earlier than prescribed by ancient custom? Once again it looks like it is up to the Kuisls to unravel the mystery and bring a town's dark secrets to light.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Translator Lee Chadeayne
    Release dateMay 9, 2017
    ISBN9781536682687
    The Play of Death
    Author

    Oliver Pötzsch

    OLIVER PÖTZSCH, born in 1970, has worked for years as a scriptwriter for Bavarian television, and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Hangman's Daughter series. A descendant of one of Bavaria's leading dynasties of executioners, Pötzsch lives in Munich with his family.

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    Reviews for The Play of Death

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Loved this series! Some people say they struggle through the first one but keep going... it is worth it.
    • 4/5
      It is 1670. Jakob Kuisl is the hangman in Schongau, Bavaria. His daughter, Magdalena, married an almost-doctor (he didn’t quite finish his study/training), Simon, a while back. Even still, hangmen and their families are the lowest of the low in society. Simon is taking his oldest son, Peter to the next town over, Oberammergau, so he will have a better chance at a good education (which is harder for him to get in Schongau, with the prejudices toward him as the hangman’s grandson). Peter will stay with a former teacher of Simon’s, who will teach Peter at the schoolhouse there. The morning Simon takes Peter to Oberammergau, however, one of the town’s residents is found crucified on a cross. Oberammergau has been planning and rehearsing for a Passion play, and the young man playing Jesus is the one found on the cross. One of the town’s council members (a rich man – whose son is the one who died) asks Simon to stay a while to help figure out what happened and to help out as a doctor, as Oberammergau is currently without one. In the meantime, back home in Schongau, Magdalena’s younger sister, Barbara, is finding herself in trouble. I like historical fiction and I like mysteries, but historical mysteries don’t always pull me in. However, I really like this series. I feel like it’s gotten better as it goes along. This is actually a translation and the author discovered he actually has a hangman in his family’s history, so the series is based on that. There actually ends up being a lot more going on in this than my summary suggests. I’m happy to see that the series continues.