Philip Kerr’S Novels of the Third Reich and After by Nancy Bilyeau
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Berlin Noir Philip Kerr’s Novels of the Third Reich and After by Nancy Bilyeau group of watercolor landscapes went ingham, worked as an advertising copywriter it was also filled with vivid descriptive writing on sale at a German auction house for Saatchi and Saatchi, but, he has said, of Berlin and vicious businessmen uneasily A in February 2019, supposedly the began his writing career with a tale of circling Nazi power brokers, and the vul- work of a young and impoverished Adolf pornography penned at the age of 12. Every nerable caught in between. The mystery Hitler while he was struggling as an artist one of those parts of Kerr’s life is gainfully itself held a reader’s attention on every page, in Vienna. The paintings, along with a employed in the Bernie Gunther books. building to a searing climax. Fuhrer armchair decorated with a swastika, When an author begins a series, those The reviews for March Violets were ef- failed to find a single buyer, but not neces- first interviews on what drew the writer to fusive. Kerr followed it with The Pale Crim- sarily because people were repulsed. There this particular protagonist and setting can inal, set in 1938, in which Bernie is forced is, distressingly, a thriving market in Hitler— stick to him like industrial-strength adhesive. back onto the police force by no less than and Nazi—memorabilia. This particular In the case of the Bernhard Gunther books, SS General Reinhard Heydrich in order to lot, though, were widely dismissed as fakes. Kerr’s explanation was Chandleresque, lit- find a murderer. Throughout his series, Artwork authenticity aside, the existence erally. “His idea for Bernie came the moment Kerr displayed a talent for weaving in the of the auction caused considerable embar- he found himself wondering what Raymond real-life people of the era with his fictional rassment. “This is in bad taste,” lamented Chandler would have come up with if instead creations, from Joseph Goebbels to Eva the mayor of Nuremberg to reporters. of leaving London for Los Angeles, he’d Peron. But even among his ghastly gallery At first glance, it might seem as if a series gone east, to Berlin,” was how The Telegraph of Nazi sociopaths, Heydrich is the star. He of mystery novels featuring a German de- put it in a Kerr profile. first appears in March Violets. Kerr, excep- tective during the Nazis’ rise to power, World March Violets, published in 1989, tionally adept at characters’ physical de- War II, and Europe’s postwar recovery launched the character of Bernhard Gunther, scription, summons up Heydrich for the might very well land in the category of taste- a World War I veteran and Berlin cop turned reader like a genie rubbing a bottle: “His less as well. That would be a tragic mistake, private investigator, drinking too much at face was of an unusual construction. Its for the 14 Bernie Gunther novels written his secretary’s wedding because he half- central feature was its protruding, hawklike by Philip Kerr offer not only first-rate mystery wishes he’d married her himself but at age nose, which had the effect of making the plotting, atmospheric prose, and witty di- 38, he feared he was too old for her. Bernie chin seem weak; above the thin nose were alogue but also philosophical insights into copes with these feelings by insulting people glassy blue eyes set rather too close together, the nature of ambition, loyalty, and identity. at the wedding, particularly the groom. and slightly slanting, which lent him an ap- o Kerr was born in Edinburgh on Feb. 22, With a partner who irritates Gunther and parently world-weary, cynical air.” Because t o h p 1956. He gained a master’s degree in law duplicitous women to deal with, March Vi- of his superior abilities as a homicide cop, k c o t S and philosophy from the University of Birm- olets was Chandleresque indeed. Set in 1936, Gunther, without having any say in the mat- i 12 MYSTERY SCENE ter, is appointed Ober-Kriminal Kommissar drich. Himmler. Nebe. And you worked German Secret Police, the Stasi (who also (chief inspector) in KRIPO, a criminal in- for them all.” existed in real life). Despite the fact that vestigative unit. It is in his 12th Bernie Gunther book, Bernie has saved his life three times, Mielke The third novel in the series was A Ger- Prussian Blue, published in 2018, that the has a terrible mission for him: travel to man Requiem, and in it Kerr did his first talents of Phillip Kerr coalesce perfectly, England to assassinate a female spy gone time jump, something he would do a lot just like the shade of blue referenced in the rogue by giving her slow poison. more of in the series. It is 1947, Bernie is title, invented by a German chemist in the Gunther, bearing a legitimate grudge married to his second wife, Kirsten, but she 18th century. The book runs on two time against the spy, Anne French, agrees. But is cheating on hm with American officers. The fact is, Gunther can’t find it in his heart to blame her. They are starving in the Berlin Philip Kerr in a 2006 photo rubble. As Kerr writes in the beginning of supllied by the author. the novel: “These days, if you are a German you spend your time in Purgatory before you die, in earthly suffering for all your country’s unpunished and unrepentant sins, until the day when, with the aid of the prayers of the Powers—or three of them, anyway—Germany is finally purified.” These three novels became known as his Berlin Noir trilogy, and for quite a while Kerr himself seemed to believe he was fin- ished with Gunther. For 15 years, he wrote other books, including children’s books under the name P. B. Kerr, nonfiction, and an ambitious near-future techno thriller titled A Philosophical Investigation. But in 2006 Bernie Gunther returned. With The One From the Other, Kerr told a story of the private investigator searching for a vanished war criminal in 1949. The Bernie books came regularly after that, as did the leaps in readership and the awards. Dubbed “the good cop in the belly of the beast,” Field Gray (2012) and The Lady From Za- greb (2016) were both nominated for Edgar German detective Bernie Gunther struggles to do Awards. Kerr did not shrink from hurling his his job within the structure of some of the worst protagonist into some of the worst possible regimes of the 20th century. He is often accused places to be in World War II, from Poland to a Red Army prisoner camp. Sometimes of having much to answer for in simply staying he was a homicide detective, sometimes he was an officer in a branch of the SS. There alive among the company he kept. was always a stubbornness in Bernie, as he refused to join the Nazi party and struggled to do his job within the structure of the rule tracks. It begins in 1956. Although his age it’s soon revealed that Gunther has no in- of law. But what can the law possibly mean is not explicitly given in the novel, going by tention of playing assassin for the East Ger- in a country governed by those slaughtering Kerr’s own established timeline, Bernie is mans. Knowing they will kill him if he re- millions of helpless civilians along with en- 58 years old. He’s through with running fuses, Bernie escapes a train by killing his emy armies? As Jane Kramer of The New around Argentina and Cuba and is trying Stasi handler and sets out on a desperate Yorker put it, Gunther is “one of crime fic- to stay out of trouble, not always successfully. flight through France while the nation’s tion’s most satisfying and unlikely survivors: Gunther has found a good job at the desk police search for him. His destination: The the good cop in the belly of the beast.” of the Grand Hotel Cap Ferrat on the Riviera. Germany he hasn’t seen for years, and longs Doubtless aware of this, Kerr has other But he’s lonely, and that is why a letter from for. As Bernie explains himself to the reader: characters accuse Bernie of having much his estranged third wife, Elisabeth, sends “Running away is always a better plan than to answer for in simply staying alive among him eagerly to the nearby Hotel Ruhl for a you think; just ask any criminal. It’s only the company he kept. As one adversary promised reunion. Of course Elisabeth is police who will say that running away doesn’t puts it: “You, who were a member of KRIPO not in France. Instead, Bernie is strong- solve anything; it certainly doesn’t solve and the SD for almost 20 years. Some of armed to a table heaped with the best food crimes or make arrests, that’s for sure. Be- those so-called policemen you reported to and wine and, sitting at the table gorging sides, running away was a much more ap- were the worst criminals in history. Hey- himself, General Erich Mielke of the East pealing idea than poisoning some English- MYSTERY SCENE 13 on the pattern, which gave me a little pause.” Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate Prussian Blue, also nominated for an Edgar award, is a book in which Gunther’s actual powers of detection and deduction are showcased to advantage—such as when he finds the murder weapon—while quoting German philosophers throughout.