Greeks Bearing Gifts /Philip Kerr

I had occasion to seek the advice of a friend who is a loss adjuster to be informed that he was on a remote Greek island investigating a claim.

Coincidentally Bernie Gunther, in the latest Philip Kerr novel, is doing exactly the same.

I drew this coincidence to my friend’s attention to be informed that he had a signed copy and that Kerr had passed away so there is only one remaining Gunther novel left.

When he first created the Good German detective in the March Violets Kerr could hardly have thought he would become the literary success that he did. In the annals of British crime writing there had never previously been a German detective.

Bernie Gunther is a sympathetic but troubled soul. He cannot ever come to terms with his past as a SD detective, the police arm of the SS, though never a member of the Nazi party. Kerr had to reincarnate him post-War to continue the popular series in various countries and jobs.

In recent novels he was the in-house detective of the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat. In this novel, set in 1956, he works in a mortuary in Munich and then becomes a claim investigator. He has to investigate the claim relating to a ship owned by a diver sinking in Greece.

All sorts of issues unravel: Nazi gold looted from the rich Jews of Salonika; the signing of the the first EEC treaty that year; Greece’s post-War relationship with Germany, the chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer and its policy towards high ranking former Nazis; Gunther’s romance with a beautiful young Greek woman many years his junior; and Israeli intelligence pursuing Nazi war criminals. As ever Kerr does his homework both into insurance claim practice and procedure and the political times of 1956.

It’s an excellent read in the characteristic style of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett.