Mystery in Monte Carlo

I listened to this book in black and white since this is the way I see the first half of the 20th century in books of this genre mix of spy fiction and thriller.

The hardened detective/spy/policeman meets the aging gay writer whose mansion’s walls are adorned with fine art. Why, and what comes next; that is the question. There’s a “broad” as the Americans of a certain social status used to calf blonde women of a certain social status. Add the conniving MI5 and MI6, the slimy STASI, the killer KGB and the gruesome Gestapo, and we almost have the cast.

The Cambridge Five hover menacingly in the background, their dastardly deads continuing to stir both the pot and the plot. It’s a case cherchez l’argent rather than cherchez la femme. Find the blackmailer and you’ll find the money. The problem is - which one of the characters is the blackmailer? Could it be all of them?

None of the members of this band of brothers like each other, in fact in some cases it’s a matter of pure hatred going back decades. The only good person is the non-blonde true love of the hero, and her fate is to die while pregnant with our hero’s child in the Wilhelm Gustloff tragedy along with 9,400 others - the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Luck is not on our hero’s side.

Did I mention that the gay guy in the mansion was Somerset Maugham? I think not. He’s one of the few likable characters in the book, though he’s approaching the end of life and is as good at blackmailing as the rest of them. But he has a certain gay charm, a charm that has lead him into a heap of trouble, especially in swimming pools with men of like-minded sensibilities one of whom has a camera.

The camera and a tape recorder play their parts on this stage of intrigue, betrayal and sex. I’m not mentioning names apart from Maugham as the main characters change names almost as frequently as they change careers.

In all, it’s a good read and I thoroughly enjoyed the The Other Side of Silence. Needless to say, will be reading more of Philip Kerr’s canny tales in the future. ( )

Bernie Gunther is a concierge at a hotel in Cap Ferat, near to Somerset Maughn, living under an assumed name, when a figure from his past turns up and blackmails him and Somerset Maughn. Several real figures populate the story seamlessly and naturally. ( )

This reflects my current fascination with anti-hero Gunther, who, once again, seems to be his own worst enemy. Scrupulously honest one minute, committing murder the next. As usual, Bernie falls in love with the wrong woman, who turns out to be a Communist Spy. There is a clever use of W. S. Maugham in the plot, which, for all its spies and double and triple dealings, is decidedly less complicated, fewer excursions back and forth in time, than some of his other Gunther novels. Still, for me, another page turner, with only a few instances where I felt the bog in the middle. ( )

The eleventh book in the series featuring Bernie Gunter sees him working as a hotel concierge in Cap Ferrat, southern France, in the mid 1950s. But as ever, his past from living and working in Germany in the 1930s and 40s catches up with him, with the reappearance of an old colleague and rival from the SD, the German Secret Service. Kerr weaves real people into his convoluted and intriguing novel, with the main one being the writer Somerset Maugham. Blackmail of the writer is the order of the day, but all is not as it seems as Maugham’s connections with the British Secret Services leads to the complications of Russian spy infiltration in the shape of Burgess, MacLean, Philby and others. While not quite up to the high standard of some of the others in the series, this still makes for an entertaining read.

Philip Kerr has been writing books based on a simple formula. Bernie Gunther is a hard man, likes drinking, women, sex, and can take a beating. The characters are all historical figures, mainly from the Nazi party, but in this book, the MI6, MI5, and some famous people from the British establishment.
It feels like once you have read one or two of his books, you have read all his books.
The first book I read was Metropolis (book #14), which was published after his untimely death. It has actually the beginning of Bernie Gunther's life in 1928. I fell in love with the book and the writer. However, none of the other books (previous books) were as good as the last book he wrote. ( )