The Dark Monk

Publisher Marketing:1660: Winter has settled thick over a sleepy village in the Bavarian Alps, ensuring that every farmer and servant is indoors 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 made sure he is tasked with capturing a band of thieves roving the countryside, attacking solitary travelers and spreading panic. Delivering on the promise of the international bestseller "The Hangman s Daughter," Oliver Potzsch takes us on a whirlwind tour through the occult hiding places of Bavaria s ancient monasteries. Once again based on prodigious historical research into Potzsch s family tree, "The Dark Monk" brings to life an unforgettable, compassionate hangman and his tenacious daughter, painting a robust tableau of a seventeenth-century Bavaria and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery." Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 04/23/2012 pg. 35 (EAN 9780547807683, Paperback) - *Starred Review Booklist 05/01/2012 pg. 27 (EAN 9780547807683, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Potzsch, Oliver OLIVER POTZSCH, born in 1970, was for years a radio personality for Bavarian radio and a screenwriter for Bavarian public television. He is a descendent of the Kuisls, the well-known line of Bavarian executioners who inspired his novels. He lives with his family in Munich. Contributor Bio:  Chadeayne, Lee Lee Chadeayne is a former classical musician and college professor. He was one of the charter members of the American Literary Translators Association and is editor-in-chief of ALTANews. Contributor Bio:  Gardner, Grover Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981. He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by "AudioFile" magazine. Gardner has garnered over 20 "AudioFile" Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist. In 2005, "Publishers Weekly" deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year." Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams. Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's "At the City's Edge", as well as "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and John Irving's "The Cider House Rules". Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University. He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.