The master executioner

"Hangman Oscar Stone is a master executioner, who prides himself on his careful and exacting work, until a sudden moment of realization and devastating truth forces him to come to terms with himself and his profession."@en
"Oscar Stone, a master executioner for more than a quarter century, is utterly alone with his craft until one day a single piece of knowledge brings him to a moment of devastating truth."
""Oscar Stone is a hangman. Ordinary people do not understand Oscar Stone or his motives. Everything he does, he does impeccably. He is more bloodless than bloodthirsty. He is a profound student of his art, completely versed in its traditions over the centuries. He is a student of ropes and their properties, a master of the latest scientific knowledge about the human neck, a careful calculator of weights and drops, and an exacting observer of results."--Jacket."