Berlin Noir

Philip Kerr

From Shelf: Hollywood actor and English major Chris Pine's book recommendations as featured in Esquire Magazine.

Ex-Policeman Bernie Gunther thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930's Berlin. And even after the war, amidst the decayed, imperial splendour of Vienna, Bernie uncovered a legacy that made the wartime atrocities look lily-white in comparison.

THE ACCLAIMED TRILOGY FROM THE MASTER THRILLER WRITER'[Philip Kerr's] Bernie Gunther novels are extraordinary' Ian RankinThe first three in the Bernie Gunther series, March Violets, The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem are true crime classics that transport readers to the rotten heart of Nazi Berlin, and introduce the cynical, wise-cracking private eye who sought justice within it.MARCH VIOLETSBernhard Gunther is a private eye, specializing in missing persons. And in Hitler's Berlin, he's never short of work...Winter 1936. A man and his wife shot dead in their bed. The woman's father, a millionaire industrialist, wants justice - and the priceless diamonds that disappeared along with his daughter's life.As Bernie follows the trail into the very heart of Nazi Germany, he's forced to confront a horrifying conspiracy. A trail that ends in the hell that is Dachau...THE PALE CRIMINALIt is 1938 and Bernie Gunther is back on the mean streets of Berlin with his new partner, Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer. But on a seemingly straightforward stakeout, Bruno is killed, and Bernie suddenly finds himself tapped for a much bigger job.A serial sex murderer is killing Aryan teenage girls in Berlin - and what's worse, he's making utter fools of the police. Gunther is forced to accept a temporary post in Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him tasked purely with hunting the killer.But can he trust his team any more than he can trust his superiors?A GERMAN REQUIEMIn the bitter winter of 1947 the Russian Zone is closing ever more tightly around Berlin.When an enigmatic Russian colonel asks Bernie Gunther to go to Vienna, where his ex-Kripo colleague Emil Becker faces a murder charge, Bernie doesn't hesitate for long. Gunther is convinced that shooting an American Nazi-hunter is one crime he didn't commit.But Vienna is not the peaceful haven Bernie expects it to be. Communism is the new enemy, and with the Nuremberg trials over, some strange alliances are being forged against the Red Menace - alignments that make many wartime atrocities look lily-white by comparison.