The one from the other Book

The fourth Bernie Gunther adventure takes place a mere 15 years after the first three novels Kerr wrote. Those three novels of called Berlin Noir trilogy while decent enough are show a less likable Bernie Gunther than this new phase 2 Bernie Gunther whose exploits shortly after the war show a post WWII Germany that does not quite fit the general accepted truths. Kerr does quite a good job in showing that with the second great war fone with the good guys did not necessarily did win the war. We have learned already about the braindrain post World war 2 and how both the Allied forces and the Russian raced for the important scientists. How many of us knew that the Germans did fairly quickly wanted to leave the mess that was their lost war behind them and resume business as usual with a notion that preferable everything would be forgotten.

Bernie lives in Dachau at the beginning of this story and runs a hotel. When his wife dies he picks up an activity he is better suited for,namely being a private detective in Munich. Unavoidable he gets some business that gets him into trouble with the Brotherhood of former Nazi thugs. He ends up in hospital. From there he is found into a town called Garmish Partenkirche (well known for the annual new Year ski jumping tournament) were he gets some companionship which then leads him into Vienna and were he gets hunted as a war criminal. At the end of the book he is some illusions poorer and has a digit less.

The surprising issue in this book is how post WWII Germany was hurrying to forget their recent shameful past and that the Allies did not mind. I never knew about these Jewish Dead-squads and was actually not that surprised they did exist. The medical experiments on prisoners has not stopped after this last great war but it was the Nazi's who did take this to the next level. And even then the allies (the good guys) were still most interested in its results.

A great thriller that does also shows a darker version of history through the eyes of a former German Policeman who never was a Nazi but too good at his job to not get involved into terrible situations. This Noirish tale of post WWII Germany & Vienna is well written and easy to read. Well worth your time. And an eye-opener if you like the adventure stories like the ones Alistair Maclean did write in his day. War was never clean.

I did re-edited this review as I found some annoying mistakes in grammar and such. This book will be re-read undoubtedly but that is at a later date