Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther, Book 12

This story moves back and forth between Nazi Germany in 1939 and the French Riviera in 1956. The writer manages to blend two stories together and it makes sense in the end. As always the Nazi era is portrayed in all its darkness and the contrast to the French Riviera is stark. I enjoyed reading Prussian Blue. It is tense, suspenseful, and some of the characters are interesting and complex enough to hold interest.

The writer makes it easy to understand the political situation through quite natural dialogue, which makes for a better read.

I have not read the other books with Bernie Gunther in them, but think they may now be worth a read.

A straightforward detective story set in Hitler's Bavarian HQ immediately pre war - recalled as Bernie Gunther flees his old subordinate (now Stasi) from France to Germany.
I would recommend this book.

Gunther is a retired detective with the Berlin police and is living life as a waiter in Southern Spain in 1957. Out of the blue he is unceremoniously approached by some people from his former life and coerced into carrying out a mission, much against his better judgement. This mission soon turns into a predicament, and things start to get quite tense. Background information is given in the form of a narrative about another mission which he worked on back in 1939.

A very good start, which grips the reader from the beginning. It ended up being a very exciting book which was fast-paced and had all the elements of a good read – suspense, intrigue and an interesting plot. The author seems to know a lot about the subject and it feels as though it is very well researched. Many of the characters are real people who are seamlessy integrated into a very well conceived piece of fiction. I hope that many of the facts surrounding the existence of Hitler’s private retreat are also accurate as they will stay with me for a very long time and had a lot of impact as a result of the excellent storytelling. The characters are very well developed although Gunther is just about the only “goody” to be found so expect some pretty nasty individuals.

There were a few minor issues for me, but I am being pedantic here. For a while I did get bogged down by the huge number of characters that are introduced and who I couldn’t keep tabs on. This was not made any easier by the fact that they all had German names which were difficult for me to remember. However, this resolved itself once I learnt to differentiate the main characters from each other and also learnt which characters were periphery to the plot and could therefore be glossed over. Another problem I had with it was that it almost seemed like two books in one. Gunther, the main character, is sent on a mission in post-war Germany but over half the book comprises flash-backs to a particular project he worked on in 1939. The only reason for this seemed to be that some of the characters overlapped and some of the locations were the same so it did give some background to his current mission, which soon becomes a predicament. However, it was such a good story in its own right (probably better than the main thread actually) that it seemed a bit of a waste to include it as a sort of side-event. It felt like it was a wasted opportunity, with two completely separate stories both of which could have been developed into a stand-alone novel in their own right. The only other minor criticism was that the ending came too early in the book which meant that the last part had virtually no suspense. On the whole I prefer the main denouement to be as near to the end of the book as possible.

This was my first foray into a Philip Kerr novel and I would certainly read another one. I don’t know if there are characters who recur or even whether the setting (Nazi Germany and its aftermath) is a common theme but he is a good writer who knows how to tell a good story.

Norton Library Book Group
This, the 12th book in the Bernie Gunther historical series and is by far the best. The story is thrilling with excellent historical references to Nazi Germany. All the characters are well described and the narrative holds the reader’s attention. The story switches between October 1956 and April 1939.

The book tells the story of Bernie Gunther, a German Detective with a past, that moves backwards and forwards between Germany in 1939 and the French Riviera/German border in 1956. Bernie has no illusions about the Nazi elite he is dealing with in the 1939 storyline, as well as the Stazi who are hunting in the 1956 story and the threat they both present. However, he has his own moral compass and manages to keep on the side of the just but he doesn’t always succeed and his actions are sometimes hard to justify to himself.