The Dark Monk - Oliver Potzsch

   2009 (German) and 2012 (English); 448 pages.  Translator: Lee Chadeayne.  New Author? : No.  Book 2 (out of 7) in the “Hangman’s Daughter” series.  Genres : Murder-Mystery; Historical Fiction; Thriller, German Literature.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Eating too many donuts can shorten your lifespan.  That was true even way back in 1660 AD.  Just ask Pastor Andreas Koppmeyer, the parish priest at St. Lawrence Church, in the tiny hamlet of Schongau, Bavaria.  Well, he can't answer you.  He died shortly after eating a couple of donuts.

 

    If you want to get technical about it though, it wasn't the donuts that killed him, it was the honey coating on the donuts.  And if you want to get technical about that, it wasn’t the honey that did him in, it was the hemlock poison that someone spiked the honey with that was responsible for Pastor Koppmeyer’s demise.

 

    Who would want to kill some small-time priest in a backwater town like Schongau?  And why?

 

    There are a bunch of people who want to find out, and several are more than willing to take part in the investigation.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Dark Monk is the follow-up to the eponymous first book in this series, which I read in 2016 and is reviewed here.  That book's three main characters – Simon, Jakob (the Hangman), and Magdalena (the Hangman’s Daughter), are back, joined this time by Benedikta, the slain priest’s sister.

 

    Once again, Oliver Potzsch weaves a pleasant blend of Historical Fiction and Murder-Mystery into a fascinating tale.  The plot threads flit among the four sleuths' POV as they conduct their investigations, sometimes solo, sometimes as teams.  There's a nice “feel” of 17^th century Germany as the Bavarian populace struggle against a raging plague and murderous robbers harassing anyone daring enough to venture out beyond the city walls.

 

    For lovers of intrigue there are riddles to solve (think Da Vinci Code), treasure to find, tombs to search, and relics to desecrate.  For those who like Romance in their novels, there’s a love triangle involving three of our protagonists.  For enthusiasts of blood and gore, there are robbers to find and fight, public torture exhibitions, and wrongdoers to hang.  And for foreign language fans, there’s lots of Latin, German, and French phrases, including several colorful expletives.

 

    All our heroes brave the lawless countryside to visit nearby towns in search of clues.  There’s a map of the area in the front if you’re a stickler for geographic accuracy, plus a Cast of Characters which I found to be very useful.  In the back, there are sections called “A Few Words in Conclusion” which is well worth your time, and “A Travel Guide Through The Priests’ Corner” which will be worthwhile if you ever plan to vacation in Bavaria.

 

    The ending is exciting and has several nice twists to it.  The mysteries are solved, the bad guys are dispatched, and the heroes can rest up for the next adventure, The Beggar King, which resides on my Kindle.  All the plot threads are tied up save one, which is left as a “Natural or Supernatural?” conundrum for the reader to muse upon.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 2,643 ratings and 2,038 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.87*/5, based on 21,375 ratings and 1,590 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Only now did Simon notice that the corpse lay directly over a tombstone with a relief of a woman who looked like the Virgin Mary.  The words of an inscription circled her head like a halo.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

    “Thus passes the glory of the world…” Simon mumbled.  “So true.”  He had often seen this inscription on gravestones.  As far back as early Rome, it was the custom for a slave to whisper these words to a victorious general on his triumphal march through the city.  Nothing of this world lasts forever…  (loc. 264)

 

    “I’m telling you, Benedikta is a slut!”

    “Aha!  A slut?”  Simon lost his patience now, and his voice took on an icy tone.  “This…slut has more decency and education than you’ll ever have in three lifetimes.  She knows how to behave, she speaks proper German without stammering and stuttering, and she can even speak French!”  (loc. 1773)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Dark Monk presently sells for $6.49 at Amazon, with the rest of the books in the series ranging in price from $5.49 to $6.99.  Oliver Potzsch has another half-dozen or so e-novels in English; they will run you anywhere from $4.99 to $13.99.

 

“Fat, effeminate moneybags! Even the Swedes wouldn’t have accepted them as hostages.  (loc. 1126)

    There’s not much to quibble about in The Dark Monk.  The cussing is sparse - just 15 instances in the first 20%, and I don’t remember any of the violence being graphic.

 

    For me, the riddle-solving seemed obscure and forced.  Even when I read The Da Vinci Code many years ago, I couldn’t help but wonder the why anyone would hide something incredibly valuable, but then leave a trail of riddles behind.  And here, if you’re hoping to solve the riddles before our heroes do, all I can do is wish you “good luck”. 

 

    There were a couple of all-too-convenient twists to the murder-mystery aspect.  The poisoned honey only came into play because the parish cook ran out of good honey that day.  Are you telling me the baddies carry around toxic honey “just in case” such a mishap occurs?  Similarly, the Ultimate Baddie (and titular “Dark Monk”), is ever so careful in everything he does, yet leaves a strong odor of violets behind him wherever he goes, due to his heavy use of perfume.

 

    But I quibble.  The violets and lethal honey contribute to the page-turning tale, and I enjoyed watching our heroes solve those obtuse riddles, much to the consternation of the baddies who were also trying to solve them.  The Dark Monk was every bit as entertaining as The Hangman’s Daughter, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

 

    9 Stars.  We’ll close with a Latin phrase which plays a crucial role in The Dark Monk:  “Deus le vult”, which translates into “God wills it”, and which was used down through the ages to justify all sorts of reprehensible acts in the name of religion.

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

   1929; 291 pages.  Book 1 (of 2) in the “All Quiet on the Western Front” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Highbrow Lit; German Literature; War Fiction; World War 1.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    World War One.  The Great War.  The War to end all Wars.  What image comes into your head when you hear those phrases?

 

    Probably you envision American (or British, or French) soldiers, huddled in a long trench replete with pools of stagnant water, all wearing helmets and looking up at the camera with miserable eyes.

 

    Alternatively, you might picture those soldiers climbing out of the trench, rifles in hand, all wearing gas masks (there was no griping about constitutional rights back then), preparing to throw themselves across a mine-laden no-man’s land, knowing that many of them are about to die, and carried out to gain a couple of yards of meaningless muck.  Could life get any worse than this?

 

    Well, yeah.  You could be a German soldier, in a sopping-wet trench, with a gas mask on, in the same miserable conditions, but outmanned and outgunned, and having to face all those charging doughboys.

 

What’s To Like...

    When it was published in 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front was an immediate hit in the United States despite the fact that the war had been over for more than a decade.  It was subsequently made into a movie twice, once in 1930, then again in 1979.  Although fictional, the book is based upon the author’s own front-line war experiences in 1917.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, that of 19-year-old Paul Baumer, who, along with his fellow German soldiers tries to cope with horrendous battle conditions, heavy casualties, incompetent officers, well-meaning but clueless civilians, and the required blind loyalty to a futile cause.

 

    Despite being a translation (by A.W. Wheen) from the original German, the writing is powerful.  You can feel the terror and despair when the German lines are bombed or shelled: there is no escape from it; you just hope that the explosives don’t happen to fall on you.  Your life is in the hands of a few trusted comrades; when one of them dies it is crushing.  Duties such as guarding Russian prisoners-of-war are gut-wrenching because you can empathize more with those fellow sufferers than with your own military and political leaders. Even getting to go back to your hometown on leave doesn’t relieve the stress (PTSD hadn’t been discovered yet) because your family and friends cannot possibly  understands what you’re going through and you desperately don't want to talk about it.  

 

    The missions Paul goes on further emphasize his wretched situation.  Laying down barbed wire is a life-threatening affair, since it by definition means you’re on the front lines.  Going on patrol means risking getting separated from your comrades, being stuck in a shell hole in no man’s land, and praying that the next person that drops into your tiny shelter is a friend, not an enemy.  Keep your gas mask with you at all times, learn how to quickly yet properly put it on, and for heaven's sake, don't take it off too soon.

 

     There are a few blessed moments of brightness.  At one point Paul and his comrades manage to find some female companionship.  It involves considerable risk and some bartering (civilians trapped on the front lines are starving too), but provides a brief but much-needed relief from the fighting.  At another point, Paul, wounded and confined to a stretcher, is embarrassed as he tries to find a way to tell a cute nurse that he needs to take a leak.  I had to google an obscure reference to a salty quote from Goethe’s “Gotz von Berlichingen”, but it was surprisingly easy to find and made me chuckle.

 

     The ending is easy to anticipate, but it nevertheless left a lump in my throat.  Unfortunately for Paul, there aren’t any plot twists, and the final resolution almost brings a sense of relief.  The title reference doesn’t occur until the final page, and isn’t a direct translation: in German, it is “Im westen nichts neues” which literally means “Nothing new in the west”.  All Quiet on the Western Front is a standalone novel, although I learned there is a sequel.

 

Excerpts...

    Morning is come.  The explosions of mines mingles with the gun-fire.  That is the most dementing convulsion of all.  The whole region where they go up becomes one grave.

    The reliefs go out, the observers stagger in, covered with dirt, and trembling.  One lies down in silence in the corner and eats, the other, a reservist-reinforcement, sobs; twice he had been flung over the parapet by the blast of the explosions without getting any more than shell-shock.

    The recruits are eyeing him.  We must watch them, these things are catching, already some lips begin to quiver.  (pg. 105)

 

    “Almost all of us are simple folk.  And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks.  Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us?  No, it is merely the rulers.  I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us.  They weren’t asked about it any more than we were.”

    “Then what exactly is the war for?” asks Tjaden.

    Kat shrugs his shoulders.  “There must be some people to whom the war is useful.”

    “Well, I’m not one of them,” grins Tjaden.  (pg. 207)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Importune (v.) : to harass (someone) persistently for or to do something.

Others: Perambulator (n., British); Dixie (n.); Baldaquin (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 6,049 ratings and 1,996 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 386,474 ratings and 12,221 reviews.

 

“We are losing the war because we can salute too well.”  (pg. 39)

    There’s not much to quibble about in All Quiet on the Western Front.  The tone is dark and grim, yet has very few cusswords: I counted only four “damns” through the first quarter of the book, proving once again that great writers can get their message across with only a paucity of vulgarity.

 

    The translation is from German to "English", not  "American", so I occasionally encountered weird things like bathing-drawers, lorries, nerve-centres, and a carcase.  Yet distances were given in miles, not metres, so maybe the translation was into Canadian.

    Also, please be advised that horses played a major role in World War One, and inevitably suffered major casualties as well. 

 

    All Quiet on the Western Front conveys a sobering message about the horrors of war and the need to resort to it only as a last resort.  The fact that we witness this through the eyes of an enemy soldier just makes it all that more powerful.  It is easy to see why this book became an instant classic.

 

    9 Stars.  Reading All Quiet on the Western Front enables me to reach my yearly goals for reading both “Highbrow Literature” (at least one per annum) and “Banned Books” (also at least one per annum).  The latter one is a bit of a stretch, since the countries that banned it were Nazi Germany (for the rather obvious reason of portraying the Fatherland in a bad light); and Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Italy (all of which objected to its “anti-war” theme).  AFAIK, it was not banned here in the US.