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Whenever I start reading a book, I begin it with the hope that it will be so much fun to read that I won't want to put it down. I don't want certain books to end.
Books like "A Quiet Flame," the latest installment in Philip Kerr's detective series featuring the hard-boiled homicide cop Bernie Gunther. These novels are written in the classic noir style but with an unusual twist: Bernie is a German and he was solving cases in Berlin when the Nazis rose to power.
This creates a certain moral ambiguity. Bernie had to join up with the dreaded SS to survive the war. He did the best he could to avoid becoming a war criminal. Nevertheless, he has a guilty conscience.
Kerr wrote his first Bernie Gunther book in 1989. He didn't consider writing another one until his publisher encouraged him to do so. Eventually he wrote three books which became his Berlin Noir trilogy. He thought that was the end of it.
Writers rarely have the luxury of reviving a character. Even so, after an interlude of 15 years, Kerr renewed this one. "A Quiet Flame" is now the fifth installment in this series with more to come.
The story begins in 1950. Bernie is escaping from Germany under an assumed name. His companions are Nazi war criminals. They are headed to Argentina.
Bernie is impersonating a doctor. Upon his arrival in Buenos Aires he is quickly introduced to high-ranking government officials. Bernie chooses to reveal his true identity to them. When they find out he is actually a homicide detective, he is quickly drawn into a murder investigation.
This leads him into an underworld populated by hundreds of fugitive Nazi war criminals. The circumstances of this murder seem familiar. Bernie had an unsolved Berlin case in 1932 that was quite similar.
Kerr employs substantial flashbacks to the original investigation. It took place right as Adolph Hitler was taking power in Germany. It has always struck me as a stroke of genius that Kerr placed this series within the chilling landscape of Nazi swastikas.
I called the author at his home in London and asked him why he chose to do so. He replied: "It's easy to forget. We get fed this diet of 'Did it really happen?' all the time .... Were there gas chambers, or not?"
"You have to remind yourself. These kinds of things are kind of conveniently forgotten. It's always good to stick the stick into the bottom of the bucket and stir it all up again."
In "A Quiet Flame," Detective Bernie Gunther repeatedly pokes his stick into Nazi-infested snakepits. It's exhilarating and terrifying. Bernie wisecracks his way through numerous sticky spots in this thriller. And he'll be back rather soon.
Kerr revealed that "the one I just finished is partly set in Cuba ... he goes from Argentina on to Cuba." This was during the period when Cuba was a playground for American hoodlums like Meyer Lansky. I can hardly wait for the next installment.
Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 3/22/09; 6:27:53 PM
from the dept.
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