The Hangman's Daughter

The Hangman's Daughter is a novel by Oliver Pötzsch's that Amazon bet on in a big way: the online retailer took in this German work of historical fiction under its AmazonCrossing imprint in order to bring it to a wider English-speaking and -reading audience.

I would have to say that they made a very good choice.

The novel centers around events in a 17th century German town, where the mysterious deaths of several children give rise to hysteria over suspected witchcraft.  As such, a midwife known to have cared for the children is accused of being a witch and it is left to Jakob Kuisl, the town's hangman, to extract a confession and eventually execute her.  But things are not so simple: Kuisl believes the midwife to be innocent, as does the local physician that examined the children's wounds.  Working together in secret, they set about to bring the true murderer to justice before Kuisl is compelled by the town council to do his duty and take the innocent woman's life.

One might assume that the reason the novel is a piece of historical fiction is because of its plot and premise.  While the specific events in the book did not occur per se, they are events that could very well have taken place, given the setting.  But there is more that is historical about the book than that.  Indeed, while the events in the book are fictional, the character Jakob Kuisl is not: it turns out that Kuisl is an actual ancestor of Pötzsch, and really was the hangman of his village.  So it should not at all be surprising that Kuisl comes across as the iconic character of the book, as close to a scene-stealer as any written character might be.

This interweaving of fact and fiction mostly works well for the book.  It is interesting to learn, for instance, that hangmen were shunned by society in the 17th century, yet were also considered medicine men that could provide treatment much cheaper than town barbers or doctors.  Such details, researched by Pötzsch, contribute a lot to the story's atmosphere.  At the same time, the plot unfolds like a modern-day police procedural and murder mystery, with what could be described as believable 17th century forensic science.  Thankfully, Pötzsch does not try to oversell it -- I would say the story itself is largely believable -- but he manages to inject just enough modern flair into the narrative to make it exciting.

My only disappointment with the book is its title.  As I neared the story's end, I grew more expectant that there would be some grand revelation that would explain why the novel was entitled The Hangman's Daughter.  But there was no grand reveal, no memorable "A-ha!" moment that would prompt me to look at the book in a new light, despite the fact that Kuisl's daughter Magdalena is also a prominent character in the novel.  I would go so far as to say the book could have been titled...well, anything, and that Pötzsch eventually settled on The Hangman's Daughter just because it sounded cool.

But no matter.  Overall, I enjoyed reading The Hangman's Daughter, learning things about 17th century European culture I hadn't known before, and seeing the story's mystery unfold to its foreseeable conclusion.  And I'm quite certain I would have enjoyed reading it no matter what the novel might have been called.