A German Requiem

This is the last in the Berlin Noir trilogy moving the action on to 1947. Bernie Gunther is struggling to get by in the destruction of Berlin. AS he carries out dangerous investigations in exchange for coal to keep his flat warm, his wife is trading sexual favours with American troops for luxuries. A Russian colonel presents Gunther with the opportunity to travel to Vienna to find evidence that could save a former police colleague from the noose after being jailed for the murder of an American officer. Finding Vienna riddled with spies for the Soviets and the allied powers, Gunther soon finds himself caught up in an impossibly complex web of intrigue the focus on the hunt for Nazi war criminals. He has to make some difficult moral show more decisions as he faces the reality that the man he has been sent to save is a mass murderer of Jews, but may be worth saving in order to catch and punish men who were even worse.
A German Requiem is markedly different from the other two books in the trilogy. For one thing the action is not set in Berlin and so the story has lost one of its key characters. For the first time Gunther is out of his depth and not in control of events. This is an excellent thriller, with twists and turns that are totally unpredictable. As with the other novels, Kerr has done his research well and weaves the real crimes of the senior Nazis expertly into the story and makes good use about the gaps in history and the doubts about the fates of some of the monsters amid the fog of war. The book is coarse, does not treat its female characters well, but captures the spirit of the time where ordinary German people had to deal with the fresh guilt arising from the horror of the war and crimes of HItler and his cronies, whilst suffering the new horror of Russian troops raping and pillaging though the country, driven on by their own mass-murdering dictator, Stalin. show less

Bernie goes to Vienna for a lucrative contract to try and prove a former colleague didn't kill an American soldier. He becomes embroiled in the machinations of the allied powers who have divided up Vienna much as they did Berlin. A somewhat complex plot with many characters, all apparently bent on double-crossing each other. Not as enjoyable a read as his Brrlin set stories.

The third of the series featuring Bernie Gunther. WWII has now been lost, and miraculously Bernie has survived -- miraculously because, having been co-opted into the SS, he was able to escape having to participate in that organization's crimes only by volunteering for combat. Now, a PI in Berlin once more, he's wondering if his wife is giving blowjobs to occupying Americans for money and gifts when he's hired by a Russian officer to try to produce the evidence that will save a convicted murderer in Vienna from the hangman's rope; the prisoner in question, the Russian's colleague in black market dealings, was also, years ago, one of Bernie's subordinates in the Kripo, so Bernie is perfectly aware of how murderous the man is. Off to show more Vienna Bernie goes, wondering if he'll have a marriage to come home to (this doesn't stop him from boffing any volunteers he encounters, of course), and soon he finds himself in the midst of a sea of grubby international politics as rival occupation forces jostle for ascendancy; part of the mix comprises those German war criminals who're trying to ensure they not just escape retribution but actually establish themselves in good positions in whatever new order will emerge from this chaotic melting pot.

I found this novel far more engaging than its three predecessors, with characters that were better drawn and a satisfactorily twisty plot -- this latter marred, perhaps, by a couple of marginally implausible coincidences. Even so, I may track down later titles in the series. show less

This book takes place just after WW2, mostly in Vienna. Bernie is now a private detective, living in Berlin. He gets hired to try to prove that an old associate of his did not kill some American, fighting against the clock to save him from the death penalty, coming up fast. A lot of things come up along the way, and it's never certain just who's in charge, who's the vilain, and who's going to die. But as usual, Bernie seems to be one of the few who finds all the answers.

So interesting to rejoin Bernie after the war. Having picked up fluent Russian and Catholicism. Some of the violence made me gasp/wince. Belinsky was particularly intriguing. As was the afterword.

Enjoyable like the first two, but I think this series has run it's course for me.

Interesting idea and much less convoluted than the last book.