in the mid-1600s, Jakob Kuisl is a hangman descended from a family of hangmen. (The author is also descended from hangmen.) Kuisl is also the one designated to torture confessions from prisoners. In spite of this, Kuisl has his kind side. When the local midwife is accused of the murder of local children and witchcraft, the hangman and the son of the local physician, himself a physician, embark on a search for the real killer while conspiring to keep the midwife alive. What results is a tale of a creepy one armed men, arson, kidnapping, murders, buried treasure, and an illicit romance between the hangman's daughter and the physician's son. There is a lot going on in this book and it's an excellent story that only occasionally lags. The one drawback is that some of the phrases/cliches used in the translation were far too modern for the 17th century. I don't know if the original German edition had that problem.
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