The Hangman's Daughter: Reviews?

[John_Post]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hangmans-Daughter-ebook/dp/B003P9XMFI

Set in the mid-1600s in the Bavarian town of Schongau, it features a hangman, Jakob Kuisl, who is asked to find out whether an ominous tattoo found on a dying boy means that witchcraft has come to town. This is no idle fiction. The German rulers were, at the time, heavily involved in the detection, prosecution, and execution of suspect witches. Pötzsch, who is descended from the real-life Kuisl family, does an excellent job of telling the story and supplying the historical backdrop. And his characters—Jakob, the hangman; his daughter, Magdalena; and Simon, the physician’s son—are extremely well drawn and believable. Kudos, too, to translator Chadeayne, who retains the story’s German flavor while rendering the text in smooth and highly readable English. Readers of historical fiction should find this very much to their liking. --David Pitt

OK, this book is a few centuries out of our sweet spot, but the subject sounds really interesting. I'm wondering if it's worth my time. Anyone read it?

[Leibniz]

Witchcraft and Magic beliefs from the Middle Ages and the "Early Modern era" (roughly, Renaissance through to American Revolution) are entirely and completely different in almost every way.

However good or bad the book may be, it will give you precisely zero useful information about medieval magic, sad to say. Don't know if this is the best place for a review from that.