Berlin Noir: "March Violets"; "The Pale Criminal"; "A German Requiem" (Penguin Crime/Mystery)

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

A knight without armor in a savage land (11/11 people found this helpful)

"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

The Long Goodbye (To Berlin) (11/19 people found this helpful)

Formulaic Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett rip offs set in pre and post-war Germany. The conception is OK, and a policeman working on a murder case in a society which is itself utterly evil is a fairly interesting idea. But it doesn't work. The Chandler model in particular is shamelessly aped which, as James Ellroy has said elsewhere, is not the way to write detective fiction. You can't copy such a highly stylized technique, certainly not as clumsily as Kerr does. Some of the metaphors will make you wince - and not in the way they are supposed to. Even the hero's world weary cynicism and unlikely ability to cop off with every woman he meets (sixteen year old Hitler Youth girls, movie stars, the ace reporter who helps him out) are copied from Marlowe. Other characters are pretty perfunctory and there's a bit more sex and violence but none of the genius that distinguished the other two. That's fair enough; not everyone can be a Hammett or Chandler, but by following their model so closely Kerr begs the reader to make the comparison and that's when things fall apart.

Unforgettable, gripping, one of the all time best... (5/7 people found this helpful)

...a rare entry in the detective field. There will be a handful of books you will encounter in your life that compare with the satisfaction level of this one. Every person I have ever talked to who has read it, has purchased a copy as a gift for others. On all levels; characterisation, plotting, an enduring chronology, this will leave you disappointed only when you realise it has to end. p.s. His next entry 'Philosophical Investigations', a bizarre 'un, is worth a read. After that, it is Alistair Mclean time.

extremely disappointing (10/31 people found this helpful)

In the light of the above reviews I approached this book with some anticipation. What a disappointment! Badly written, cliche-ridden, vacuous characterisation, formulaic stories. Chandler transposed from Chicago to Berlin but without the style and originality.

The most irritating thing about the book is the way in which the author constantly feels the need to explain the contemporary references to Nazi Germany. "The DAF? Ah, you mean the German Labour Front!"
"Dr.Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment, I presume?"

Berlin Noir: "March Violets"; "The Pale Criminal"; "A German Requiem" (Penguin Crime/Mystery)

Philip Kerr

Reader Reviews:

A German Sam Spade (6/6 people found this helpful)

A knight without armor in a savage land (11/11 people found this helpful)

The Long Goodbye (To Berlin) (11/19 people found this helpful)

Unforgettable, gripping, one of the all time best... (5/7 people found this helpful)

extremely disappointing (10/31 people found this helpful)

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