Showing results by author "Oliver Pötzsch" in All Categories

Rome, 1518. The church is tarnished by greed. Peasants are rebelling. Tumultuous times demand drastic recourse - before the devil gets his due. Johann Faust is a renowned magician, astrologer, and chiromancer traveling through Germany with his successful troupe: the orphaned juggler Greta and his loyal companion Karl. The avaricious Pope Leo X now requires Johann’s services to replenish the papacy’s drained coffers through alchemy. But the devil, with whom a regretful Johann once agreed to an unholy trade for fame, wants something else.

1662: Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of a village in the Alps, receives a letter from his sister calling him to the imperial city of Regensburg, where a gruesome sight awaits him: her throat has been slit. When the city constable discovers Kuisl alongside the corpse, he locks him in a dungeon, where Kuisl will experience firsthand the torture he’s administered himself for years.

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 in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and the women burned at the stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau.

In this thrilling adventure by bestselling author Oliver Pötzsch, thirteen-year-old Lukas has been trained as a swordsman by his father, a nobleman who was once a famed Musketeer. When the threat of war and accusations of witchcraft spread across the land, Lukas's life is forever changed. He flees his home and vows to find his missing sister.

It is 1648, a small village in the Alps: In the thick of a blizzard,a town priest discovers he’s been poisoned. As numbness creeps up his body, he summons the last of his strength and scratches a sign in the frost that will lead the town hangman, his daughter, and the town physician in pursuit of a treasure of the Knights Templar. But the priest’s murderer is already on their trail, and he’s not the only one after the legendary fortune: a dark monk is not far behind,and a band of thieves is roving the countryside, attacking solitary travelers and spreading panic.

1666: The monastery at Andrechs has long been a pilgrimage destination, but when the hangman's daughter, Magdalena; her doctor husband, Simon; and their two small children arrive there, they learn that the monks have far larger concerns than saying Mass and receiving alms. It seems that once again the hangman's family has fallen into a mysterious and dangerous adventure. Two monks at the monastery experiment with cutting-edge technology, including a method of deflecting the lightning that has previously set the monastery ablaze.

It’s the fifteenth century and only heretics are curious about the universe. Germany, 1494. Born under a rare alignment of the stars, Johann Georg Gerlach, "the lucky one" to his mother - is fated for greatness. But Johann’s studies and wonder at the sky have made him suspect. Especially in wake of the child disappearances that have left the God-fearing locals trembling and his one true love trapped in terrified catatonia. Her only words: "I have seen the devil..."

In 1524, in what is now Germany, hundreds of thousands of peasants revolt against the harsh treatment by their aristocratic overlords. Agnes, the daughter of one of these overlords, is not a typical 16th-century girl. She refuses to wear dresses and spends more time with her pet falcon than she does trying to attract potential suitors. In fact there is only one man who interests her: Mathis, a childhood friend whom she can never marry because of his lowly birth.

Der Schongauer Henker Jakob Kuisl reist im Februar 1672 zum Scharfrichtertreffen nach München. Erstmals hat ihn der Rat der Zwölf dazu eingeladen - eine große Ehre. Kuisl hofft, unter den Ratsmitgliedern einen Ehemann für seine Tochter Barbara zu finden. Die Henkerstochter ist verzweifelt: Sie ist ungewollt schwanger und traut sich nicht, ihre Notlage dem Vater zu offenbaren. Dann kommt in München eine Reihe von Morden an jungen Frauen ans Licht, und Kuisl wird um Hilfe bei den Ermittlungen gebeten. Alle Morde tragen die Handschrift eines Scharfrichters. Der Verdacht fällt auf den Rat der Zwölf.

1486: Knittlingen ist ein ruhiger Ort im Kraichgau. Bis zu dem Tag, als die Gaukler in die Stadt kommen - und plötzlich Kinder verschwinden. Johann Georg, von seiner Mutter "Faustus", der Glückliche, genannt, kümmert das nicht. Ihn interessieren nur die bunten Kostüme, die Sackpfeifen und Kunststücke. Besonders der Spielmann und Magier Tonio del Moravia beeindrucken ihn: Von dem blassen Mann mit den stechend schwarzen Augen, der Johann eine große Zukunft als Gelehrter voraussagt, geht eine seltsame Faszination aus. Johann schließt sich ihm an, gemeinsam ziehen sie durch die deutschen Lande.

Kurz nach dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg wird in der bayerischen Stadt Schongau ein sterbender Junge aus dem Lech gezogen. Eine Tätowierung deutet auf Hexenwerk hin, und sofort beschuldigen die Schongauer die Hebamme des Ortes. Der Henker Jakob Kuisl soll ihr unter Folter ein Geständnis entlocken, doch er ist überzeugt: Die alte Frau ist unschuldig. Unterstützt von seiner Tochter Magdalena und dem jungen Stadtmedicus macht er sich auf die Suche nach dem Täter.

Lukas wants only two things: to rebuild his castle home in time to make it through the coming winter and to reconnect with the sister who was stolen from him in a plot against his family. But then an astrologer appears with foreboding news: his old adversary, Inquisitor Waldemar von Schönborn, has stolen three royal artifacts, which are required to coronate a new German emperor. With these valuable objects - the sword, the crown, and the scepter - he could blackmail the empire. The treasures are currently hidden in three different places in the old imperial city of Prague.

Vienna, 1893. A gravedigger at the city’s famous Central Cemetery, Augustin Rothmayer is aan unorthodox yet highly educated oddball who finds solace amongst the dead as well as in the writing the pages of the first almanac of his profession. But his fragile peace is abruptly disturbed when young inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt, an ambitious young transfer from Graz, arrives in need of help from someone expert in death. No one knows the subject better than Augustin Rothmeyer.

1683: Das Reich ist in Gefahr, denn das osmanische Heer steht kurz vor Wien und ein vernichtender Krieg scheint unausweichlich. Auch um den alten Henker Jakob Kuisl steht es schlecht, körperliche Schmerzen und Sorgen plagen ihn. Umso erstaunter ist er, als er einen Brief von seinem früheren Weggefährten Nepomuk erhält, der ihn bittet, nach Passau zu kommen, um bei der Bergung eines Schatzes zu helfen.

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.

Das ungewöhnlichste Ermittlerduo Wiens ist wieder auf Mörderjagd. Wien, 1895: In der Gruft unter dem Stephansdom finden Touristen zwischen Knochen und Schädeln eine männliche Leiche: Das Gesicht vor Entsetzen verzerrt, ansonsten unversehrt. Ist der Mann vor Angst gestorben? Was hat ihn dermaßen in Panik versetzt? Während im Wien des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts der Spiritismus grassiert und an jeder Ecke Séancen abgehalten werden, pochte der Tote − ein Gelehrter − auf die Naturwissenschaften und deckte Schwindler auf.

In 1668, hangman Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena, and her husband Simon are traveling to the town of Bamberg. But what was planned as a family vacation soon becomes a nightmare: there is a murderer in Bamberg leaving the severed limbs of victims in the trash outside the city. When rumors quickly spread that the murders are the work of a werewolf, Jakob Kuisl must prove the superstition wrong and embark on a search for the "devil of Bamberg".

The year is 1672. Hangman Jakob Kuisl and his family travel to Munich, the cosmopolitan heart of Bavaria, for a meeting of the prestigious Council of Twelve, the leaders of the empire’s hangmen’s guild - prestigious for dishonourable hangmen at least. But something dark is happening behind the scenes: in the past weeks, young women have begun turning up dead. At first the authorities assume they are a rash of suicides, but when Kuisl notices that each woman possesses a matching amulet, suspicions arise that someone is murdering them.

Vienna, 1895: nella cripta sotto la cattedrale di Santo Stefano un gruppo di turisti trova un cadavere. È il corpo di un uomo, che giace tra gli scheletri con il volto contorto dal terrore. Incaricato di indagare su quello che ha tutte le apparenze di un delitto è, ancora una volta, Leopold von Herzfeldt, il quale scopre che la vittima era un famoso medico, il dottor Theodor Lichtenstein, noto per la sua avversione nei confronti dello spiritualismo che dilaga nella città.

Die Henkerstochter auf der Spur einer landesweiten Verschwörung. Sommer 1679. Die Pest, die in Wien bereits Tausende Opfer gefordert hat, breitet sich Richtung Bayern aus. Der Schongauer Scharfrichter Jakob Kuisl wird von einem offensichtlich Pestkranken aufgesucht, der kurz darauf zusammenbricht. Bevor er stirbt, flüstert er Jakob Kuisl noch ein paar rätselhafte Worte ins Ohr: Kuisl müsse Kaufbeuren retten, ein schwarzer Reiter spiele mit seiner Pfeife dort zum Tanz auf. Der Mörder habe zwei Gesichter.