Metropolis/Philip Kerr

Metropolis is the final novel of Philip Kerr, published posthumously as he died of cancer on 23rd March 2018 aged 62. It’s also the final one in the Bernie Gunther series.

The best are probably the first three published – The March Violets set in the rise of Nazism, the title is the name given to those who say they supported the Nazis before they did.

They were such a success that the remaining 14 had to be set in different epochs and locations.

There are some particularly good novels when Gunther is house detective in the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat.

The formula tends to be the same: Gunther is the professional cop, good German, wisecracking in the Philip Marlowe Raymond Chandler mould. Many real characters appear.

This novel is set in the Weimar Republic when Gunther is promoted to the murder squad and has to solve the serial murder of prostitutes and disabled war veterans.

As ever the sense of location is well evoked and his research into Weimar crime world impeccable. The artist George Grosz makes an appearance as does film producer Fritz Lang’s screenwriting wife Thea von Huber.

If I had a criticism it does not shape up brilliantly as a who-dun-it as Gunther identifies the perpetrator after a gruesome torture scene, not through any detection of his own.

Nonetheless it’s a good read and we shall miss Bernie Gunther and indeed Philip Kerr.