Reading The Scotsman—I do so regularly, although neither the local news nor the sports section provide anything like a shock of recognition to me, but strangely enough, I still experience it as a link… Link to what? Don't know, but it gives me a homey feeling.
Anyway, in the Lifestyle section I came across a review of books by Scottish writer Philip Kerr. He is well-known for his Bernie Gunther novels. Bernie is a policeman in Berlin but after the rise of Hitler he is forced out when he does not want to join the Nazi party. In the Berlin Noir trilogy—March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem—we follow Bernie from 1936 to post-Nazi 1947.
In March Violets it is 1936 and the Olympic Games are starting. Bernie is a private investigator in poor condition. He is hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal it is 1938 and Bernie has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich, the designer of the Endlösung himself. A German Requiem is set in 1947 and Bernie stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines.
Enjoy!
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