If the Dead Rise Not

When last we saw Bernie Gunther, he was leaving Argentina for Cuba, having alienated upper level poobahs in the Peron regime. This novel opens in the period in Nazified Germany leading up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Corruption is rampant; the Olympic facilities are under construction in Berlin; anti-Jewish sentiment is being roiled by the Hitler goons; the police agencies have been pre-empted by the Gestapo; and Bernie's working as the hotel detective at the Adlon. One of the guests at the Adlon is an American gangster in Berlin trying to cut himself and his associates a piece of the immense pie of corruption surrounding the construction boom. Bernie, as usual, finds himself getting embroiled in this mess, no matter how hard he tries not to, managing to fall in love along the way. Ultimately, he finds himself at the wrong end of a gun. Flash forward twenty years, and we find that Bernie's traded in living under the Peron dictatorship in Argentina for living under the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. As an aside, it's interesting that no matter what he does or where he goes, Bernie always seems to end up living in dictatorial societies. You'd think the poor guy would head for Canada or Australia or something, if he can't go to the U.S. As he's trying his best to muddle through in Cuba, living in quiet anonymity, the events of twenty years ago abruptly catch up to him as the people from the first part of the book turn up in Cuba. The past is the past, and twenty years is a long time, but Bernie finds himself compelled to get involved with them yet again. But this time, the outcome is very different. Populated with a fascinating mix of fictional and real-life characters, the Gunther novels are unique in every way; truly literary in aim and achievement. The first two-thirds of the book - the Berlin chapters - actually serves as prologue to the final third of the book that takes place in Cuba; a detailed backstory. This is Kerr's usual technique with this series. But the Gunther novels also seem to deal with themes like karma and redemption, and very effectively. Many characterize these books as "thrillers", but I have to disagree. They're so much more: compelling character studies set in vividly-drawn period settings. If anything, they're closer to classic "noir". A solid five stars for this latest in the Bernie Gunther saga.

A beautifully written book with a great character who'll break your heart. Sad parallels through out this book series to our own time. I guess we never learn from our mistake if we just sit on the sideline and not get involved in events around us. Fascism is on the rise in our own society with the usual start of name calling, acts of violence and intimidation. Let's not wait and see but do something by staying well informed.

Time for a real review instead of comments on Kindle pricing? This, the sixth book in Philip Kerr's remarkable Bernie Gunther series, shows that the author hasn't lost his knack for combining classic noir mysteries (complete with a hard-nosed investigator who cracks wise at the drop of a fedora) with a more thoughtful narrative that delves into the harsh realities of the ordinary individual face-to-face with some of the harshest political regimes of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It isn't Kerr's best, but it's a fascinating story that manages to bookend the improbable odyssey of Gunther, who readers first met in the mid-1930s as an already-world weary and worldly wise private investigator in Nazi Berlin and last saw leaving behind the new Peronist dictatorship in Argentina with a new name that he hopes will keep him safe from myriad enemies that he has inadvertently left in his wake. The book starts in Berlin in 1934, when Bernie has left the police department (the philosophy of jumping before he gets pushed out as a Social Democrat and thus politically undesirable) in the wake of the Nazi takeover and finds himself working as the house detective at Berlin's famous Adlon Hotel. That doesn't keep him out of political hot water, however; he finds that two dead bodies, one in one of the Adlon's best rooms and the other fished out of the Landwehr Canal with its lungs full of seawater, appear to be linked by politics -- specifically, by politics surrounding the upcoming Berlin Olympics and the efforts by some groups to boycott the games in view of the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish policies. The first 2/3 or so of the book revolves around this set of mysteries; then the reader is abruptly transported to Cuba circa 1953, where Bernie is now making a living, even more cynical about life and people than he had been two decades previously. Suddenly, figures from the past appear, disrupting that effort at a peaceful existence and his hopes of returning to Germany, and he finds himself embroiled not only in past mysteries but a present plot, involving Mafia figures like the Lansky brothers and the opposition by one Fidel Castro and his supporters to the Bautista regime... The first part of the book is more satisfying and I felt that Kerr could have simply wrapped up his story at that point; the temptation to simultaneously address some of the loose threads (or invent them and then wrap them up) while at the same time answer the urgent question of what happened to Bernie after he had to leave Argentina behind in A Quiet Flame: A Novel (Bernie Gunther Novels) must have been too great to resist, but it doesn't necessarily make the story any stronger, and it does make it more difficult for newer readers to jump into the series at this point. Still, the impeccable writing, Bernie's character, complete with flashes of wit and unexpected glimpses of a more complex and even thoughtful and erudite individual beneath the Dick Tracy-esque exterior, make this a great read, and

Bernie Gunther, cynical gumshoe and knight errant, reprises his Philip Marlowe role as interface between the malevolent but pragmatic wing of Nazi Party functionaries, various tough guys and the clever but hazardous-to-be-personally-involved with (female) client. As before, many of the dramatis personnae are actual historical figures, the attention to historical detail is exemplary, the dialogue redolent of Raymond Chandler, the plot cunning and the denouement (this time set in pre-Castro Cuba during the Batista regimes' early end-game) is cleverly executed. In short, this is vintage Kerr and, as such, is well worth reading. In the current story, initially set in pre-War Berlin (circa 1934) Gunther encounters a mix of real and fictional characters, including American "businessman" (well, actually he's a gangster) Max Reles, Nazi Police General von Helldorf, Gestapo agent Weinberger (nope, not a crypto-Jew, despite the suggestive name, a fact that assumes importance in the story), corrupt American Olympic Committee functionary Avery Brundage, several SS and KRIPO members and Noreen Eisner, femme semi-fatale and Bernie's romantic interest. This time, Gunther, while working as Adlon Hotel carpet-creeper, encounters the vivacious Noreen, a Jewish journalist working on a newspaper article which will demonstrate ongoing Nazi anti-Jewish behavior (akin to exposing corruption in the police; an exercise in exposing the obvious). Why? She plans to use the article as a vehicle in which the murder of a Jewish boxer will convince one-and-all that there are dire machinations between the AOC representative (Brundage), Max Reles and the German Olympic Committee Reichssportführer, Hans von Tschammer und Osten (who also serves as leader of the Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen and, not to be overlooked, is an SA Gruppenführer) all of which should convince the American government to cancel US participation in the Games. This all occurs, of course, with the connivance of a bewildering array of complicit agents on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the outstanding features of the Gunther series is its ability to acquaint current readers with some of the lesser-known but thoroughly nasty characters who have generally escaped historical scrutiny, Avery Brundage being a prime example of the type. This cynical, corrupt, sanctimonious and immensely wealthy scion of American nobility, inflicted his insipid presence on the Olympic scene right up through the 1972 Munich/Black September debacle. Under the guise of impartial sportsmanship, Brundage lined his pockets with public funds and undermined the integrity of the institution he was serving. Helldorf, who literally lost his head in 1944 when he fell afoul of his own plotting, is an almost Hollywood style Nazi, coming as he did from a "noble" family. Naturally, he was fond of indulging in all the debaucheries favored by most delicately decadent members of the elite (and so richly caricaturized by so

Since we have two 1 star reviews from persons who haven't read this book, I figure I can give it a 5 star review without having read it. The other reviewers were reviewing its price, not the book itself. Is anybody moderating this stuff? Hey - it's a Phillip Kerr book - it will be good - pay the price and enjoy it. If you can afford a kindle you can afford to pay a reasonable price for the book to support the author, editor(s), all the production staff, etc. If you don't want to pay a fair price - wait until you can get it out of a library - but don't give the book a bad review because you think its e-version is not priced to your liking.