Review of Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr from my GoodReads account

Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Having been introduced to Philip Kerr by a free copy of one of the later books in this same series (The One from the Other) I was impressed enough by Bernie Gunther, Kerr's hard-bitten protagonist, to want to read the earlier books. The appeal is that Bernie has echoes of classic down-at-heel gumshoes like Marlowe and Spade for whom I have a long standing affection. There is a lot in Herr Gunther and his life that makes one reach for the adjective Chandleresque, his way with a bitter simile, his general cynicism concealing a nugget of goodness somehow still shining at his core despite the rotten world he inhabits and a magnetic attraction for things that unexpectedly cause him to wake up with a headache. Like his predecessors he can be very smart but often not as clever as he would like to believe and sometimes finds that actually he has been taken in and used.



The big difference between him and Sam Spade of course is that Bernhard is German and German at a time when Germany is increasingly the focus of world attention. The evocation of place and period (Berlin and Vienna in 1936, 1938 and 1946 respectively in these three novels) is impressively realised. I can only imagine that a huge amount of research has gone into creating such an incredibly detailed portrayal of Germany during the rise of Nazism, the post war ruins of Berlin and the twilight confusion of interests in the Vienna perhaps most familiar from the Third Man. In fact there are a few nods in the direction of the iconic work of Carol Reed and Graham Greene and we are perhaps being encouraged to see Vienna through the lens of Krasner and occasionally hear the sound of Karas' famous zither. Certainly A German Requiem has its Harry Lime, black market penicillin and occasional glimpses of the celebrated wheel. In fact one of the characters seems to have secured a part in the film and at the very end we stroll through a set up for one of the scenes. A more subtle nod perhaps is the name of a cover firm, ostensibly a film company called Drittemann...



Bernie is an ex-bull with a good record in Kripo but for good reason he has turned his back on that world and gone freelance as a classic shamus during the rise of the Nazis in the first novels, however, the world of the criminal police is reluctant to let him go and he is blackmailed back into being a cop, a Kommissar no less, in The Pale Criminal. Between this novel and the third there is a gap of several years occupied by the Second World War, which are sketched in only with a reference here and there, but perhaps more of these lost years of his service in the German army and subsequently as a Russian POW will be returned to in a later episode. Meanwhile in German Requiem he is once more a private investigator but caught up within the shadowy world of espionage and counter-espionage where the struggle for Cold War dominance is beginning in the confusing world of ruined buildings, ruined lives and ex-Nazis attempting to evade justice or finding they have their uses to the more unscrupulous elements of the prevailing powers.



Familiar events such as the Berlin Olympics and much later the Berlin Airlift appear in the background of the novels and some horribly familiar people such as Heydrich and Himmler also cross Bernie's path, but it is in the fine detail of the daily life of Berlin and Vienna that the feeling of total realism is generated. It feels very accurate and solid and it isn't usually a very pleasant reality for long where Bernie is concerned. Kerr evokes a hard, gritty world where people do what they must to survive. He doesn't look away from the everyday immoralities and illegalities that become a necessity in the rubble of Berlin, nor does he flinch from torture and death both horrible and often casual.



Somehow Bernie, like his illustrious forbears, maintains some sort of dignity and integrity in his heart while bending a lot of rules with the best of them. I hope to return to Bernie's world again soon, as I am very impressed with Kerr's work. For the time being though I need to leave these mean streets for a breath of fresh air.



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