He eventually put out his fourth Gunther book in 2006 and Bernie was back. His latest effort, “Prussian Blue,” the 12th one, just came out.
As the Nazis took power, Bernie observed his new bosses were more dangerous criminals than the ones he was chasing in homicide investigations. He refused to join the Nazi Party and left the force to become the house detective at a luxury hotel in Berlin.
One of the great pleasures of this series are Kerr’s extensive flashbacks to Bernie’s past. We can look back at Bernie’s career as a police and hotel detective, as a soldier in WWI, as a member of the dreaded SS during WWII, as a prisoner in a Soviet POW camp, and following that as a fugitive living under an alias in places like France and Argentina.
These books pivot through time in other ways — Kerr might set one book during the 1950s and follow it with another one set in the 1940s. We never know where Bernie is going to turn up, but we are always delighted to have been asked to come along on his next adventure across the pages of this durable series.
In “Prussian Blue,” it is 1956 and Bernie is working under an assumed name at a hotel on the French Riviera. By the second page Bernie has been spotted by one of his former colleagues. The man calls him over to his table and informs him that a woman who had betrayed Bernie in the previous book, “The Other Side of Silence,” is now living in England. He threatens Bernie then orders him to find that woman and kill her.
The man who gives Bernie this ultimatum is Gen. Erich Mielke. He has become a powerful East German operative. Bernie’s lack of enthusiasm for executing this task is noted. We can sense Bernie’s flashback sequence coming on as he recalls, “Most of all I remembered being almost 20 years younger and possessed of a sense of decency and honor I now found almost quaint. For a while back there I think I sincerely believed I was the only honest person I knew.”
His flashbacks take him back to 1939. Bernie was investigating a shooting at a mountain refuge. The gunfire posed a threat to their leader Hitler, who was due to arrive there in a few days. Bernie worked tirelessly to identify the killer. Time was running out. Bernie was using amphetamines to stay awake.
This is the biggest (more than 500 pages) and the best Bernie Gunther yet. Our two timelines converge with seamless stealthiness. If you have not yet discovered this series by Philip Kerr you really should check it out. There’s really nothing that can compare to it.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.
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