Greeks Bearing Gifts

Greeks Bearing Gifts is the 13th and penultimate title in Philip Kerr's series of historical novels based on the experiences of Bernie Gunther a one-time detective with the Berlin Police dating from the latter stages of Weimar Germany. This tale begins with Bernie back in Germany, but not Berlin. Given that the story is set in the year 1957, Berlin other than the part of the city occupied by the Western powers is smack dab in the middle of Communist run East Germany. Bernie has managed to reenter Germany under an assumed name, Christof Ganz, and has found himself a position in a Munich hospital, cleaning and dressing cadavers to make their appearance as good as possible in the event they have any family or friends to mourn their show more passing.

Bernie has always been a victim of rotten luck in his endeavors to create a new life for himself in the aftermath of World War II during which he was drafted into some unpleasant associations and jobs in the SS despite his never having been a Nazi. This time he is recognized by a cop, one Christian Schramma who, threatens him with exposure of his false identity and fingering for criminal offenses he never committed. Gunther is forced to be an accomplish to a sting in which a candidate for office will be set up to accept a major campaign contribution from what will turn out to be representative of East German foreign intelligence. The burn turns into something more serious when Schramma murders the candidate's representative, a General Heinkel and the East German spook.

Bernie locks Schramma in the room with the victims and he and the candidate, one Max Merten, conspire to neutralize Schramma without killing him and Merten, grateful for Gunther's effort uses his influence to get him a job with Munich RE insurance as a claims adjustor.

Bernie's detective experience serves him well in his new position and he immediately saves the firm a significant payout on a life insurance claim. As a result the management assigns him to a marine insurance property claim based on a sunken ship caused by a fire. The claimant is a scuba diver and underwater film maker located in Greece. And this assignment sets the main plot in motion.

Munich RE's man in Athens, Achilles Garlopis, is assigned to work with Bernie and provide escort and translation services during the claim investigation. He is not much more than a time server, whose only singular character trait that one would associate with an insurance man, is an instinct for risk mitigation, that is, avoiding any physical risk to himself.

Of course, the circumstances surrounding the fire and sinking of the ship turn out to not be straightforward and Bernie believes he is going to be able to save Munich RE another packet of dough and get back to Germany as soon as possible. But the story of the ill-fated Doris, the owner of the ship, its captain, and the cast of supporting characters is extremely complex and involves a number of personalities who behaved very badly during the German occupation of Greece during the late war. There is even involvement by members of the Israeli Mossad who are looking for information to enable them to apprehend a major character in the novel who is wanted for war crimes. As usual in the Gunther novels there is a mixture of characters from real life with the fictitious members and Kerr provides and appendix with the details of their personal histories.

Those readers who have an appreciation for classic movies will appreciate the hat tip to Double Indemnity and the character named Walther Neff, whose illness creates the rationale for dispatching Gunther to Greece in the first place.

Greeks Bearing Gifts is a terrific read, complete with a plot twists, escapes from fatal danger and femme fatales that are common to all of the Bernie Gunther novels. I am happy to recommend it and all of the Bernie Gunther novels. show less

Berlin detective and former reluctant member of the SS, Bernie Gunther, is now in his later years. Having had many a postwar scrape at the hands of Russians, Americans, the British, the French and many others, he is now in yet another assumed identity and looking for a quiet life. Gunther gets the chance to work as an insurance claims adjuster, which seems perfect for his skill set and unlikely to attract too much trouble. Even better, his company despatch him to Greece to check out a claim on a ship sinking which looks very much like a nice holiday in the sun on expenses. Things don't go according to plan and Gunther soon finds himself embroiled in a web of murder, Nazi gold and at the mercy of the Greek police.
This was the last of the show more Bernie Gunther series for me, although I've not read them in the correct order (a job for another time). As ever, I really enjoyed this adventure for Gunther, which was an incredibly skilful whodunnit, which as usual involves the appearance of some unpleasant senior Nazis from his past. Very clever writing and an unpredictable denouement. Gunther in his later years is wiser than his younger self, but is still the ultimate cynic who can never resist a snarky comment at exactly the wrong time. I learned a lot about the impact of the Nazi occupation of Greece in this one; just as horrific as you might expect. show less

I’ve been a fan of the Bernie Gunther series for many years – and indeed of most of Kerr’s fiction (although, to be honest, a few of his thrillers are complete potboilers). Greeks Bearing Gifts is the thirteenth Bernie Gunther book, and the one following it, Metropolis, is unfortunately the last, as Kerr died last year. (And yes, I do have them all in first edition hardback.) Gunther is working as a porter at a hospital in Munich when he’s recognised by a local cop and blackmailed into assisting with a shakedown of a local bigwig with Communist connections. It goes wrong but gets Gunther a job at a reputable insurance company as an investigator. Which is why he ends up in Athens, investigating a claim for a yacht owned by a show more German that sank while searching for sunken treasure. Except, of course, nothing is ever that simple in a Bernie Gunther novel: and not only are the circumstances surrounding the sinking dodgy, but so too is the treasure they’re hunting – it’s gold stolen from Jews, basically – but then the owner of the yacht is murdered, and Bernie is up to his neck in events resulting from wartime incidents which he himself experienced but which make him look like a war criminal when he’s actually not one. They’re cleverly done these books, they treat their subject seriously. Kerr does his research and backs it up, and they show – through the point of view of a slightly corrupted witness – the many atrocities the Nazis committed and which people are now all too happy to dismiss. It’s quite simple: anyone who defends the Nazis is a Nazi. They were evil scum, and as the years pass and we learn quite how evil they actually were, so sympathising with them becomes even less justifiable. Bernie Gunther is a sympathetic character, and he worked with many Nazis – including a number of well-known ones, as is thrown in his face at one point in this novel. But he was never a Nazi and never sympathised with their views. And Kerr has used him extensively to criticise Nazi thought and views. It’s just a shame the people most likely to promote Nazi views are too stupid to read Kerr’s novel. Or indeed read books. show less

Another intelligent adventure, another moral dilemma of conscience, for our anti-hero, Bernie. With no compromise on his principles, he manages to lose the beautiful woman, which seemed inevitable all along. Bernie works hard to achieve little, but Kerr moves the action briskly, with superior readability. One feels, deeply, the heavy, corrupt atmosphere, so typical of post WWII Europe. Kerr's characters fill his books with believable reactions to the chaos that seems, at times, to overwhelm them. I feel this author's style compelling, and I am drawn, time and again, to Kerr, and his Bernie. Unfortunately, his work was limited by his early death, in 2018.

This is the thirteenth and probably last of the Bernie Gunther thrillers (the author, Philip Kerr, died shortly before publication) and is a fitting finale for a flawed but still heroic protagonist.

Living under an assumed name in 1950s Germany to escape his past involvement in Nazi affairs Gunther ends up as an insurance claims adjuster at which he very successfully uses his previous police skills to save his employers money. He is sent to Greece to investigate a claim against a sunken ship and is soon drawn into intrigue surrounding ex-Nazis trying to reclaim gold stolen from Greek Jews and lost in World War II and those trying to capture those Nazis.

Although often working for and alongside senior and committed Nazi personnel during show more the War, Gunther was never devoted to the cause and focused on his job as a detective. This does not assuage his guilt about whether he is tainted by association, whether he could have acted differently to prevent some of the brutality he saw, or his fear of being arrested, or worse, as a war criminal. He does his job well, but finds himself being drawn into a despair about his own and society’s redemption.

The book ends on an ambivalent note. Gunther achieves his professional goal by showing that the insurance claim he is investigating is a fraud, saving his employer huge amounts of money. It is less clear that his attempts to capture wanted war criminals on behalf of Greece will amount to anything approaching justice. His final act in the book is to appear to commit himself to aiding Israel’s Mossad in hunting down further Nazi war criminals.

This book invokes time, place and politics very well while building an interesting criminal and thriller story. show less

My thanks to Nudge readers for providing a Hardback copy of this novel for me to read and impartially review.
Philip Kerr's excellent "Bernie Gunther" series is not new to me, i have read and thoroughly enjoyed quite a number of this quality series, of which this is number 13, and whilst there are numerous references to our heroes previous escapades, this can quite easily be read as a standalone novel. So if you have not read any of the previous books WHY NOT! Sadly as the Author as passed away i feared this might be the end of Bernie, but i understand a new book will be out in the new year. After that i can only hope that some other Author will take on the mantle, which has happened successfully with several of my other favourite show more literary characters, Sherlock Holmes Moriarty and Lisbeth Salander to name but three.
Firstly the publishers blurb about this book.
1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on.
Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a sunken ship, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an act of vengeance.
And so Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe prepares to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.

Now for my opinion, Bernie Gunther is cynical and darkly funny, this is a memorable highly original character, like a German Philip Marlowe same dry humour and quick wit.
Based on historical facts with a mix of fictional and real life characters, also somewhat topical as the EEC is just being setup, this book is beautifully descriptive with a real feel for time and place, gripping from first to last page this is a highly enjoyable entertaining read.
Highly Recommended. show less

The thirteenth adventure featuring Bernie Gunther lives up to the high and entertaining standards of the previous novels. This one, set in 1957, finds Gunther back in Germany after spending years in South America, Cuba and France, living under an assumed name and still anxious to avoid both the police and ex-Nazis after his earlier life. He is in a quiet job, working in a Munich mortuary, when through an old acquaintance, he is offered a post as claims investigator with an insurance firm. What Bernie thinks will be another quiet role, quickly turns dangerous, first with a run-in with an ex-colleague policeman and then being sent to Athens to investigate a claim for a sunken boat. As ever, Kerr ramps up the tension with some wonderful show more plotting and crisp dialogue as Bernie become ensnared in a plot by ex-Nazis and he is forced to work for the Greek police and the Israeli Ha’ Mossad. show less