Berlin Noir (‘March Violets’, ‘The Pale Criminal’ and ‘A German Requiem’) (Penguin Crime/Mystery)
A combined edition of: ‘March Violets’, ‘The Pale Criminal’, and, ‘A German Requiem’.
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A knight without armor in a savage land,
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“A good story cannot be devised it has to be distilled.” Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler was a master at taking a plot and distilling it into a taut, splendid story. Chandler, along with Dashiell Hammett, pretty much invented the “hard-boiled detective”. So, when a writer, in this instance Philip Kerr, comes along who is repeatedly compared to Raymond Chandler comes along, I can’t resist seeing for myself. I’m happy I picked up Berlin Noir and, even if Kerr is not quite Chandler, his stories are so well written that he need not be embarrassed by the comparison.
Berlin Noir consists of three Kerr novels, “March Violets”, “The Pale Criminal”, and “German Requiem”. They each feature Kerr’s exquisitely drawn detective Bernie Gunther. If you’ve read Hammett, Cain, or Chandler, Gunther is instantly recognizable. He’s a tough ex-cop now working as a private eye. He’s bitter and cynical and sees the corruption all around him. He also has an eye for the ladies as well as a taste for booze. But for all his flaws he lives up to a certain code; he knows the world isn’t black and white but he has his own moral compass and lives by it – for the most part.
What distinguishes Gunther from Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe is location. Gunther is a German, and instead of Los Angeles, he makes his base in Berlin. The three stories are set in 1936 (March Violets”), 1938 (“Pale Criminal”), and 1947 (the aptly named “German Requiem”) against the backdrop of the rise and fall of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. He left the Berlin police once the force became nothing more than a tool of the new regime. The time and setting are perfect for a genre in which shades of grey dominate the palette. Gunther is tasked with solving crimes while navigating the Byzantine-maze of inter-party rivalries, many of which are deadly.
I was fascinated by Gunther and the world Kerry paints for him. I usually take a break in between books that are part of a series but I couldn’t do that with the three stories in Berlin Noir. They are all well-crafted and suspenseful. Although Kerr is clearing paying homage to his genre the stories are original and not generic. In other words Kerr is not the literary equivalent of an Elvis-impersonator. He has written these stories within the confines of a genre but has not sacrificed his own voice. The plots are complex but not so complex that they cannot be followed. With each story the personality of Gunther becomes a bit clearer so that by the time the reader is finished with them, Gunther is really a fully-formed and very believable character.
Kerr has just published a new Bernie Gunther novel entitled “The One from the Other”. I am about one third of the way through it. It is an excellent sequel made all the more enjoyable by having read “Berlin Noir”. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig
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|A German Sam Spade,
Bernie Gunther is an ex Kripo (German CID) officer working as a private detective in pre and post war Berlin. He is tough, cynical and wisecraking, but also honest and decent. In fact he is Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe transplaned from California to Germany. Bernie’s job brings him into contact with historical figures like Himmler, Goering and Artur Nebe, the real life wartime head of the German Kripo.
Philip Kerr is one of those writers who can transplant you into a different world, in this case pre and post war Germany. In doing so he has created a number of slang terms which I do not know if they are real German slang but it does not matter as they sound right.
Berlin Noir contains three out of four Bernie Gunther novels, March Violets, The Pale Criminal and German Requiem. The first of these also concerns the German Rings who Mafia like controlled crime in pre Nazi Berlin. The Rings were destroyed by more violent criminals, the Nazis.
The Pale Criminal has Bernie recruited back into the Berlin Police in order to catch a serial killer who may be linked to the ruling Nazi Party. German Requiem moves to post war Berlin and Vienna with refences to the Third Man.
All three stand up in their own right and Mr Kerr can be congratulated on coming up with a new idea and for being able to create a milleu as well as being able to plot and write very well indeed.
Bernie Gunther is welcome and different addition to the ranks of fictional dectectives
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|At Least As Good As Chandler,
Picked up this book while browsing in a book store, being a big fan of Chandler and Ellroy etc. it was immediately appealling and proved exceptional, couldn’t put it down. An excellent complilation, you really get to know the main character and the research into Berlin life and the rise and effects of the Nazis (appears) very well researched and is convincing. Berlin Requiem starts with a gap of over six with the war over and you are desperate to find out how the anti-Nazi of the early stories (pre-war years) survived. Each of the three story lines are excellently complex yet sufficiently explained to be plausable and certainly based on realistic circumstances. With Himmler dabbling in the black arts and the infighting within the Nazi party, and the Soviets getting the cold war off to a good start in post war Vienna, the plots put major figure heads at the centre where most authors would have feared to tred. I hope the authors other works are as good as I will be buying more. An excellent holiday or travel read, but be aware you may not be much company!
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