Not My Father's Son

Author: Alan Cumming
Audio: 6 hours and 28 minutes
Pages: 304


Cover blurb:
Dark, painful memories can be like a cage. Or, in the case of Alan Cumming, they can be packed away in a box, stuck in the attic to be forgotten. Until one day the box explodes and all the memories flood back in horrible detail. Alan Cumming grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him. That man was Alex Cumming, Alan's father.


My take:
I have always admired Alan Cumming, he is not afraid to try roles and put himself "out there". Always entertaining and funny.
I experienced this book through audio, Alan narrates it himself. His voice is lovely to listen to and he puts emotion into the reading. I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it.

The Poisoned Pilgrim: A Hangman’s Daughter Tale by Oliver Potzsch

This is the fourth and last book in the Hangman’s Daughter series, set in Bavaria in the Seventeenth Century. They all feature the Hangman of Schongau, Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena, and her husband,  medicus Simon Fronweiser.

In this book, Simon and Magdalena go on a religious pilgrimage to a monastery at Andechs. Upon their arrival, they are confronted with a drowned novitiate whose death is declared an accident – until Simon notices signs of violence on the body.  Brother Johannes, one of the monks, is arrested for his death, but as it turns out, Johannes is an old friend of Jakob Kuisl. Johannes begs  Magdalena to send for her father, because he, Johannes, is innocent and needs his old friend to help him prove it.

What follows is an convoluted story of intrigue, torture, thievery, murder most foul, scientific experimentation, and automata.  The monks and villagers view the latter as witchcraft, so Jakob and family must contend with superstition and fear as they try to find out who is behind all the plots and twists and turns they uncover.

Magdalena’s children are kidnapped and used as leverage in an unholy scheme, but in the end Jakob Kuisl, aided by Magdalena and Simon, solves the mystery and rescues brother Johannes and the children, although not before he is tortured, and the cathedral is burned to the ground.

I enjoyed this series, but it has some grisly, unsavory scenes, being true to an era when every town in Bavaria had its own hangman, whose job it was to determine those responsible for crimes by torturing them until they confessed.

 512 pages