Philip Kerr (1956–2018)

The Pale Criminal is the second of Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir series featuring private investigator Bernie Gunther. He's trying to make a living in pre-war Nazi Germany and avoid the Nazis, but that is just not going to be possible. While the first book of the series, March Violets, was set during the 1936 Olympics, The Pale Criminal is set at the time of the first wave of German invasions.

Bernie has just been hired by a wealthy woman, who wants him to find out who is blackmailing her show more about her homosexual son. In a separate story line, Gunther is commanded by Reinhardt Heydrich to investigate the murders of several Aryan girls. The reader know the two plots inevitably will be tied together but it's done in a way that is very believable. The subject matter is not pleasant to read about but it's done in an accurate way, depicting the Nazi's hostility to both Judaism and Catholicism.

Bernie Gunther is the epitome of a noir private investigator, and is the center of the novel in every respect. He's cynical and filled with foreboding about the future of Germany. The setting of 1938 Berlin is very realistic, and the author throw in plenty of details about the architecture and surrounding neighborhoods to make the story extremely vivid. This novel is both complex and chilling, and even if you don't like the subject matter, you can't stop reading. I'm looking forward to Book 3, German Requiem. show less

John Houston is a mega-selling author, who runs an “atelier” of writers – he comes up with the stories, they bang out the actual prose… and the books are of course sold under Houston’s name. It makes him millions of dollars a year and his writers a comfortable living. If this sounds a little familiar, it’s because Houston is clearly based on James Patterson. But Houston has decided to pack it all in. He wants to write something himself, to prove he has the writing chops. So he show more closes down his atelier and pays off his writers… Shortly afterwards, his wife is found murdered in their Monaco apartment, and Houston has done a runner. The police contact Don Irvine, the first writer to join Houston’s atelier (the two were friends and colleagues at an advertising agency), but he can shed no light on the murder. And then, as you’d expect to happen in a novel such as this, Houston contacts Irvine, pleads innocence and asks for Irvine’s help. Which he is happy to give. The novel is broken into sections, alternating between first-person narrations from Irvine’s and Houston’s point of view. And pretty soon things aren’t what Houston, Irvine or even the Monaco police thought they were. As thrillers go, there’s not much in here that hasn’t been done before. However, Kerr does a top job of satirising mega-selling authors of the likes of Patterson, their books, and the publishing industry which supports them. For that alone, it’s worth reading. show less

Enlivened as much by its good writing as by its twist on the detective genre, Philip Kerr's March Violets is an entertaining novel with a few noteworthy (though forgivable) flaws. This thriller is, essentially, a Raymond Chandler novel plucked from Bay City and placed into pre-war Nazi Germany (around the time of the 1936 Berlin Olympics). The Berlin setting is very well done, and the need for our detective protagonist to navigate the barriers of political and social repression under the show more Nazi regime offers a few exciting and original dynamics to the crime mystery plot ("Half the time I find myself presenting the forensic evidence of a homicide to the very people who committed it" (pg. 56)).

That said, Kerr's Bernie Gunther is pretty much a clone of Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and if not for Kerr's significant capabilities as a writer you could almost dismiss this as fan-fiction (think "Philip Marlowe fights Nazi Germany"). Gunther's wisecracks don't seem as natural in this setting: back-chatting the SS (and, in one scene, Reinhard Heydrich himself) is less believable than Marlowe being a wise-ass to a Bay City traffic cop. Quite simply, a real-life Gunther wouldn't be able to talk this freely. And that's before I even mention that just about every other character also talks in this way, from Gestapo agents ("if I find out you've been giving us any fig-leaf, then I'll have you in a KZ so quick, your fucking ears will whistle" (pg. 99)) to emaciated Jewish concentration-camp prisoners. In March Violets, everyday Berliners have a loose tongue with strangers, and while it makes the dialogue pop, you have to imagine that this would be as far from reality in 1936 as it's possible to be.

Speaking of which, the decision to place a story like this in a setting like Nazi Germany leads both Kerr and the reader into a few embarrassing cul-de-sacs. The protagonist we're rooting for is naturally cynical regarding the Nazi regime in power, but the nature of his job means he's often on the same side as their policemen in this book. Detective novels are all about the restoration of order after a crime has been committed, but that order here is National Socialist order. Gunther might give his Nazi salute reluctantly (pg. 61), and with a disparaging internal monologue, but as a reader we're meant to stick with him regardless.

It's a shame that I can't talk in great depth about the many good qualities of this book, which outweigh the bad, because to do so would to risk spoiling aspects of the plot. The crime, mystery and how it unfolds are all top-drawer, even allowing for the odd cliché (unavoidable, perhaps, in a book like this one) and the fact that it takes a while to ascend to its highest gear. The setting is excellent – oppressive, noirish and lived-in – and the writing is quality throughout. Kerr quickly gains the confidence of the reader that he can see us through, and unless you have the highest of high standards he doesn't disappoint.

The novel is a bit like a Faustian pact: in order to entertain, March Violets had to enliven its Marlowe imitation with a Nazi backdrop, but this very setting compromised it and meant it could only go so far as a piece of entertainment. On the surface, one can enjoy the classic gumshoe tropes – wisecracks are made, dames are bedded – even if they can come across as derivative. But there is always that reckoning, that deal with the devil being called in, in that the Nazi elephant in the room needs to be addressed. So when Kerr does address it all – concentration camps, Gestapo torture, etc. – it can be an unwelcome splash of cold water after the wisecracking ersatz-Marlowe jaunts. Kerr indulges the violence a bit too much – a rotting corpse is described in maggot-writhing detail, men are tortured, and one woman is gang-raped to death – and the reader can be left not knowing what ground they're standing on. Taking continued entertainment from a book that goes down these roads (without even signalling first) can feel a bit wrong.

There are benefits to being unfiltered – and Kerr's writing is like a dose of salts, because readers are so often sanitised against this stuff, even in crime fiction – but its jarring nature in March Violets also leads you to remember why those filters are usually there in the first place. It's hard to be entertained by a story when it confronts you with the reality of torture, anal rape and the Holocaust. I mean, really. It's only if you've got a strong stomach and an armoured soul that you can make the book sit right in your mind, and recognise it as, first and foremost, an engrossing story and a good piece of writing.

In short, the gumshoe, high-class pulp stuff doesn't rest easily with the violent Nazi repression stuff, but nor is their co-habitation sloppy. Kerr's too good a writer to let it slip. Instead, it's like two tectonic plates: brittle and restless, but which together can briefly generate the sensation of an earthquake. show less

This was the first in the author's series of thrillers set in Nazi Germany featuring private investigator Bernhardt Gunther attempting to foil genuine crimes and be a decent human being, while avoiding getting caught up in politics. Very unsuccessfully on the latter point here. The backdrop is the Berlin Olympics in summer 1936 and the authorities are attempting to clean the city up temporarily (removing signs of anti-Jewish repression, for example) to avoid upsetting visiting foreigners. show more From the context, before the series start, Bernie already has a long past as an investigator and a policeman before that, and a prior First Word War record in Turkey. His latest client is a rich industrialist whose daughter has been horribly murdered with her husband. Needless to say, the truth is more complicated and Bernie becomes involved with beautiful actresses, criminal gangs, the Gestapo, SS, and even Hermann Goering and Reinhard Heydrich themselves. It is surprising he survives, the number of times he is beaten up and knocked out, and he even spends a spell in Dachau concentration camp; on the other hand he also has some surprising sexual opportunities. He has a resilient and self-deprecating character and a sardonic sense of humour, and I warmed to him as a character. There are some laugh out loud similes such as: "She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom" and "he swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple tossing around like a honeymoon couple under a thin pink sheet." I shall definitely be pursuing this series for the characters. show less