Prime Suspect

Bernie Gunther & Berlin Noir (Sleuth)

 

The latest Bernie Gunther novel by Philip Kerr (pictured above) hit American bookstores last week (March 18, 2010). If The Dead Rise Not is the sixth Bernie Gunther novel but it is the prequel to the Berlin Noir Trilogy.

Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels give us readers an eyes-wide-open tour of Nazi Germany and all the evils (both big and small) that the Nazis inflicted on the German citizens and the world during WWII. Bernie was a police detective of the old Wiemar Republic. When he sees the Nazis begin to takeover, he leaves the official police to first become a hotel "house" detective at the famous Adlon Hotel in Berlin and later forced backed into the Nazi police force by Heydrich.

After the Berlin Noir Trilogy, Kerr continued to tell Bernie's story and the story of Germany following WWII in one novel. The next tells of Bernie's defection to Argentina where he soon finds himself investigating a murder that is eerily like a murder he investigated back in Berlin. The third and most recent post Berlin Noir novel, as I mentioned above, is set before the first novel of the triloby to fill in Bernie's backstory and relate how major characters first appeared in Bernie's life.

Bernie is a great sleuth. He isn't perfect. He tries to help people in need and often breaks the law to do so. His morals and values change according to new realities. The supportuning characters that pop up in the novels are interesting and feel real. And Bernie also runs into all the top Nazis even the Leader himself during his investigations and gives us bone-chilling descriptions of men that haunted and still haunt the dreams of those that lived through Nazi Germany and WWII. The writing is crisp and the dialogue snappy as in the best noirs.

Listed below are the Bernie Gunther Novels in publishing order. The year listed following the year published is the date in which the action of the novel takes place.

Bernie Gunther Novels

1. March Violets* (1989) - 1936
2. The Pale Criminal* (1990) - 1938
3. A German Requiem* (1991) - 1947
4. The One From The Other (2006) - 1949
5. A Quiet Flame (2008) - 1950
6. If The Dead Rise Not (2010) - 1934

*The first three novels are also refered to as Berlin Noir and are available in one volume.

Publishers:

• Viking, London.
• Quercus, London. (From 2008)
• Putnam, New York.

Benn, James R. (Author)

James R. Benn writes an exciting mystery series set within the Allied High Command during WWII. His sleuth, Billy Boyle, is a young Irish-American police detective turned soldier from Boston who finds himself solving mysteries in the middle of the most horrendous war the world had ever seen.

The mysteries deal with actual events during WWII, some well known, others not so much. In BILLY BOYLE, we meet a wise-cracking Southie more interested in saving his own skin than fighting another European War. But when his distant relation and his boss, a General called Dwight D Eisenhower, is appointed Commander of US Forces in Europe, Boyle is whisked away from his safe paper pushing job and tossed straight into a political nightmare. But Uncle Ike sees something in the his young relation. Then we get to witness Billy grow from a "self-centered wise guy" into a true American hero.

The stories are filled with lots of interesting war details. Everything from historic battles as well as more intimate facts such as how soldiers were fed, the bizarre details of how women with equal ranks were paid less and were not saluted to by lower ranking male soldiers, and the role of the Mafia during WWII.

Some of the characters are based on real people like General Eisenhower. But the characters of Benn's imagination are what shine in this series.

I am currently reading EVIL FOR EVIL which came out in September 2009. The fifth novel titled RAG AND BONE will be released this September.

 

       
  

Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

1. Billy Boyle (2006)
2. The First Wave (2007)
3. Blood Alone (2008)
4. Evil for Evil (2009)
5. Rag and Bone (Sept 2010)

Publisher:

• Soho Press, New York.