Little by little we are getting to know more than one very interesting German author. Because inquiring about family origins with roots in the executioners' guild could provide an argument for any author. And Oliver Pötzsch dug so deep into those roots that he ended up composing around them a series of several historical novels focused on the "particularities" of the executioners' guild with a brilliant family intrahistory.
But Oliver Pötzsch little by little was diversifying his narrative space to address children's books, crime novels and even very unique experiences. One of those literary factotums that arrived by chance and that little by little is gaining international weight, especially with his forays into noir. tremble Charlotte Link, because your compatriot points to high levels within the black genre...
Oliver Pötzsch's Top 3 Recommended Novels
the gravedigger's book
During a walk through Vienna you can see an urban exuberance with reminiscences of glorious imperial times. An elegant city, as if touched by a miraculous architecture suspended in time. In contrast to so much beauty we find a gruesome story that takes us into the shadows of the big city. In the contrast a disturbing sensation is born masterfully managed by the author.
In the Prater, the most important park in the city, the body of a brutally murdered maid appears. Leopold von Herzfeldt, a young police inspector, will be in charge of the case, despite not having the favor of his colleagues, who do not want to know anything about his new investigative methods, such as the inspection of the crime scene, the obtaining evidence or taking photographs. Leopold will be supported by two completely different characters: Augustin Rothmayer, the chief gravedigger of the central cemetery in Vienna; and Julia Wolf, a young operator of the newly opened telephone exchange in the city and with a secret that she does not want to come to light.
Leopold, Augustin and Julia will be immersed in the deep abysses hidden behind the gates of the glamorous city in a race to find a ruthless killer who will litter Vienna with innocent corpses.
The executioner's daughter
Pötzsch's literary breakthrough came with this surprising story, with a touch of morbidity for having been structured by a direct descendant of the gloomy protagonist. Getting carried away by a story as unique as this leads us beyond mere fiction to consider humanistic aspects.
Germany, 1659. In Schongau, a small Bavarian town, a dying boy with a strange mark on his shoulder is rescued from the river. Jakob Kuisl, executioner and repository of wisdom, must investigate if the brutal attack is related to some kind of witchcraft. The streets of Schongau still echo with sinister memories from a few decades ago of witch hunts and women burning on stakes.
But when other children disappear and an orphan is found dead with the same tattoo, the town falls prey to a hysteria that threatens to repeat those terrible events. Among the crowd, the theory gains strength that Martha, the midwife, is both a bloodthirsty witch and a murderer. Before he is forced to torture and execute the woman who brought his children into the world, Jakob must discover the truth. With the help of Magdalena, his daughter, and Simon, the village doctor, Jakob confronts the true demon that hides behind the walls of Schongau.
The gravedigger and the black earth
Second installment of a gravedigger Augustin Rothmayer uniquely capable of capitalizing on new plots between historical fiction, noir and a suspense in the last instance that dazzles us with its strange flashes between the incipient science of the time and the dark spaces that were still open for the human knowledge, just the last redoubts where evil was still capable of immobilizing with fear as a tool.
Vienna 1894. The mummified body of Professor Alfons Strössner, one of the world's greatest Egyptologists, appears in a sarcophagus in the city's History Museum. Leopold von Harzfeldt will be in charge of the investigation and will soon discover that, of the four members of his last expedition to the Black Land, three have died under strange circumstances, so the shadow of a curse hangs over what happened. But neither Leopold nor gravedigger Augustin Rothmayer believe in curses and are convinced that it is murder.
With the help of Julia, who is in charge of taking the photographs in another important case for the police department and with whom Leopold has a secret relationship, the three of them will once again find themselves involved in a case that hides much more than it seemed at first glance. Mysterious sarcophagi, Egyptian curses and murdered archaeologists in a frantic new case for investigator Leo von Herzfeldt and gravedigger Augustin Rothmayer.
