PHILIP KERR – A German Requiem. Viking, UK/US, hardcover, 1991. Paperback edition: Penguin, 1993 (shown), with many later printings.

    I’ve already read the fourth and fifth books in Kerr’s series about German investigator Bernie Gunther. When I started to read the fourth I had thought that I had read the first three in the series but came to realise that I hadn’t read the third. I’ve now rectified this and I’m glad in did.

    It’s set in 1947 and Bernie, struggling with a rather bleak existence in Berlin, is hired by a Russian Colonel to go to Vienna to help one of his, Gunther’s, old police colleagues who is to be tried on charges of murdering an American officer.

    Bernie takes the case and finds a world of subterfuge where everyone has things to hide and where the Russians and Americans are vying for control and each are anxious to harness the abilities of ex-German military leaders, even if they are wanted for war crimes.

    The situation is bleak and the overwhelming emotion of many is despair, and the cynical, but moral, Gunther tries to work his way to a just conclusion to the case. This is an excellent series and I’m glad I took the time to fill in this gap in my reading of it.

The Bernard Gunther novels:

      1. March Violets (1989)

      2. The Pale Criminal (1990)
      3. A German Requiem (1991)
      4. The One from the Other (2006)

      5. A Quiet Flame (2008)
      6. If the Dead Rise Not (2009)