Prussian Blue/ Philip Kerr
I have written before on my admiration of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels. The first three The March Violets were well received but writer and publisher would scarcely have predicted he would go on to write another 14. After all a detective novel set in Nazi Germany is not the stuff of best sellers or is it? The main characters of the Nazi regime Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and Goering remain well known. Kerr has a keen eye for location and attention to historical detail. In Bernie Gunther,a good German, he had created a likable, decent man who is a fine detective.
The latest Prussian Blue has two time frames. The first is 1939, the eve of war, and the killing of an architect on the terrace of Berechtsgarten, Hitler’s Austrian retreat near Salzburg and the second 1959 when Gunther now a hotel detective in Cap Ferrat South of France is on the run from the Stasi after refusing an assassination job. The action on both fronts move at a great pace and is always engaging readable. Most of us know about Berechtsgarden but I was fascinated to learn that it is a hotbed of corruption as householders were removed in a massive building plan. The mastermind was Martin Bormann. The rivalry of the acolytes around Hitler, Heydrich, Bormann and Hess is well depicted.
Some have criticised Kerr’s style and his use of Raymond Chandler criminal slang which it is true does not always work. I “read” the book via audible whereby actor Jeff Harding narrates the novel. He adopts an American accent for Bernie Gunther to reflect the American detective but German for the others. The only problem is that listening last thing I would fall asleep and wake up 2 hours later several chapters on. However I discovered there is timer function. The advantages are you can follow on a rail journey, you do not skim read if tired and the narration is engaging.
