I was provided this book by netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you love the feel of Arthur Conan Doyle's books but don't want the same cast and crew, this will give you the same feel with a different backdrop and different cast. You will recognize the same beginnings of the investigative methods that Holmes was minting in his fictional universe and while they don't know of each other I'm sure if they existed in the same universe Leopold von Herzfeldt and Augustin Rothmayer would find a kindred spirit in some way in Sherlock Holmes.

Leopold von Herzfeldt has just started his career as an inspector with the Vienna police, and he’s already gotten off to a bad start with his new colleagues when he tries to introduce new criminal investigative methods at a crime scene. The Vienna police are not impressed with Leo’s crime scene photographs or his arrogance, and he’s soon reduced to busy work. Meanwhile, a serial killer is stalking Vienna and murdering young housemaids in ways that reflect ancient vampire hunters. There is also someone digging up dead bodies to decapitate them. Leo is convinced that the murders and decapitations trace back to one suspect, and that the perpetrator is one of his new coworkers. Unable to trust anyone with Vienna police aside from an apprentice inspector and a secretary, Leo teams up with Augustin Rothmeyer, a surprisingly educated man who works as a gravedigger at Vienna’s Central Cemetery. Rothmeyer knows more about death than anyone else, and he provides Leo with valuable insight.

THE GRAVEDIGGER'S ALMANAC was an interesting read. Leopold von Herzfeldt is not a very likeable character—he’s arrogant and narrow-minded. And, despite being a student of modern criminalistics, he fails to follow the training that he constantly brags about and almost gets himself killed. Julia Wolf and Augustin Rothmeyer make up for Leo’s shortcomings and provide the reader with two main characters worth cheering for. Julia is a mysterious woman whose layers keep getting peeled back as the story progresses. She can be as narrow-minded and dogged as Leo, but she has none of his arrogance. On the other hand, Augustin is equally arrogant. It is his vast knowledge of death and his quirky personality that make his such an intriguing character. While the writing is a bit dry—I’m sure there is something that got lost in translation—Oliver Pötzsch kept me guessing until the end. The identities of the perpetrators came as a surprise. Pötzsch used Leo’s single-mindedness to misdirect the reader away from the identity of the true perpetrators.

If you have any interest in exploring some of the earliest practices of modern criminology, this is the mystery for you! Oliver Potzsch's newest release is a twisted historical mystery that will remind you of the late great Sherlock Holmes.

Leo is a new resident of Vienna, having fled his hometown in shame. He's got some money and an interest in an emerging realm of study that is criminalistics. Photography, deductive reasoning, logical fallacies...he's putting all of the strategies to use on a new case of brutal murders in the cultured city.

I love a good mashup of historical fiction and mystery. This will teach you something while keeping you hooked into a quite sinister string of killings. It is quite a complex case that will have Leo and his associates chasing down lead after lead to solve the heinous crimes. The Gravedigger's Almanac has the perfect balance between interesting historical facts and compelling narrative. I was enthralled!

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Honestly, I don’t recall even requesting this title but I gave it a shot. It’s translated from German and even being in English , there are just too many words I had to look up to follow the story and I couldn’t get into the plot. Unfortunately DNF’d at 20%-ish.

This book is the first one in a new series by Potzsch. It takes place in Vienna in the late 1800's. The gravedigger works in a very large cemetary on the edge of town. Early in the book we hear about a man who was buried before he was dead. Several women are found in Prater Park who have been killed and then had sharpened stakes thrust up their vaginas. There is fear of Vampires in the town. There is also a group of men who wear masks and have orgies with naked women and young girls only wearing a mask. The other main character, Leo, is a young police man who has recently arrived in Vienna from Graz. The other police are not very welcoming to him, but he gets along well with the Gravedigger, who explains about the man buried alive, and then takes care of a young child who had been raped after here mother had been killed. Although Leo is trying hard to solve cases, the bosses don't seem to want him to work on the big cases. Leo soon becomes friends with Julia Wolf who is a secretary, and she becomes very helpful to him. Some of the members of the police may not be the people they seem to be. Will Leo manage to find out what is happening and who is honest and who not before he is also killed?

This book becomes very exciting! I thank Netgalley and HarperVia for the ARC so that I could read the book before publication.