So yes, I enjoyed the books, but I was left wanting more than noir detective stories set in the shadow of the rise of Hitler. is not above using a little blackmail to obtain Gunther's racially unbiased services to catch the real culprit.

What’s New for the 20th of August: Some favorite mysteries; jazz, country, RT, and a musical grab bag; a hoedown, a big dragon, Hellboy, and of course ice cream! Over 10 years elapsed between the publication of the novels in the Berlin Noir set and the three stand-alone titles that complete the Bernie Gunther series to date. Gradually, Gunther discovers that Vienna is a mistress of hypocrisy, her smug facades masking the lethal duplicity of another war. When an enigmatic Russian colonel asks Bernie Gunther to go to Vienna, where his ex-Kripo colleague Emil Becker faces a murder charge, Bernie doesn't hesitate for long. stars, and I may read more of his books, despite the fact they are potboilers, and despite his anti-French prejudice.

It ought to be the exclusive property of novelists—but only if they are as clever and knowledgeable as Philip Kerr. By mixing fact and fiction in pre and post war Berlin Kerr demonstrated his mastery of the modern history faction genre with this trilogy; and if Gunther is Marlowe's German twin then Kerr is Raymond Chandler's alter ego with his writing style mastering and channelling Chandler's sardonic, drole, laid-back wit with complex story-telling, so if like me you love Chandler's writing then the chances are you'll probably enjoy Kerr's, and with another dozen or so later Gunthers I'll be back for more. In one big paperback you get the complete Berlin trilogy: March Violets; The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem. Kerr έχει κάνει πολύ βαθιά έρευνα στη περίοδο του Γερμανικού φασισμού και στη μετέπειτα καταστροφή της Γερμανίας - ο δε ήρωάς του Μπέρνι Γκούντερ μένει αξέχαστος στους αναγνώστες με το κυνισμό και την 'επικίνδυνη' ευελιξία του.

For quite a while I pored over the text, turning the pages with my fingers and feasting my eyes on what I had never dreamed of possessing (pp. Taken altogether, the novels span a period of nearly a quarter century, and in that time Bernie covers a lot of territory, both in terms of his location and in terms of his means of support. But on a seemingly straightforward stakeout, Bruno is killed, and Bernie suddenly finds himself tapped for a much bigger job.

Gunther is forced to accept a temporary post in Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him tasked purely with hunting the killer. This one struck up with The Great Elector’s Cavalry March and set off at a lick towards the Brandenburger Tor. When we first meet Bernie in March Violets he is 38 years old, a veteran of the Turkish Front (like Hitler, winning a Second-Class Iron Cross, but, as he says, “most of the first-class medals were awarded to men in cemeteries”), and an ex-policeman. But then he went freelance, and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi sub-culture.