The Gravedigger’s Almanac

A Novel (A Leopold von Herzfeldt Case, Book 1)

De: Oliver Pötzsch

Narrado por: Rupert Bush

The New York Times bestselling author of The Hangman's Daughter returns with the first volume in a brand-new mystery series which introduces a gravedigger and young inspector who must stop a serial killer in fin de siecle Vienna—the period during which modern criminology was born.

Vienna, 1893. A gravedigger at the city’s famous Central Cemetery, Augustin Rothmayer is an unorthodox yet highly educated oddball who finds solace amongst the dead as well as in the writing the pages of the first almanac of his profession. But his fragile peace is abruptly disturbed when young inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt, an ambitious young transfer from Graz, arrives in need of help from someone expert in death. No one knows the subject better than Augustin Rothmeyer.

A superstitious killer is on the loose. His victims include several maids, each brutally staked. Recognizing the killer is using an ancient ritual for keeping the undead buried, the gravedigger joins the inspector on a journey that will take them deep into the underworld of their glamorous cosmopolitan city. In their search for a depraved monster, they receive unexpected help from telephone operator Julia Wolf, who impresses them with her unusual insight even as she fights her own personal demons.

Oliver Pötzsch’s inventive historical crime series delivers the thrills and historical detail modern international mystery fans crave: a grippingly plotted mystery, a rich and painstakingly researched setting, a fascinating look into the beginnings of modern criminology, and an unlikely and unforgettable trio of characters.

©2025 Oliver Pötzsch (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

oh my dominance this is wonderful

I would suggest you just read it, it's an amazing book, and is absolutely compelling to read.

Story, yes; narrator, no

I am not finished with this book yet, but I am loving the story. I think, though, that my issues with the narrator are going to cause me to have to read the rest of the book with my eyes. He uses pauses in such strange places, and he stresses words and syllables in ways that made me misunderstand the meaning of some sentences at first. I am a high school English teacher, and it reminds me of the way it sounds when students are reading aloud from a text that they have not seen before, and they are not scanning ahead to see where the sentence is going before they read it out loud. Also, the mispronunciation of "catastrophe" kind of shocked me. Was that an intentional choice? Because a professional voice actor / audiobook narrator should not be mispronouncing that word accidentally.