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Bernie Gunther returns in the twelfth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris. Lee Child calls Bernie Gunther ‘one of the greatest anti-heroes ever written’.
It’s 1956 and Bernie Gunther is on the run. Ordered by Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, to murder Bernie’s former lover by thallium poisoning, he finds his conscience is stronger than his desire not to be murdered in turn. Now he must stay one step ahead of Mielke’s retribution.
The man Mielke has sent to hunt him is an ex-Kripo colleague, and as Bernie pushes towards Germany he recalls their last case together. In 1939, Bernie was summoned by Reinhard Heydrich to the Berghof: Hitler’s mountain home in Obersalzberg. A low-level German bureaucrat had been murdered, and the Reichstag deputy Martin Bormann, in charge of overseeing renovations to the Berghof, wants the case solved quickly. If the Fuhrer were ever to find out that his own house had been the scene of a recent murder – the consequences wouldn’t bear thinking about.
And so begins perhaps the strangest of Bernie Gunther’s adventures, for although several countries and seventeen years separate the murder at the Berghof from his current predicament, Bernie will find there is some unfinished business awaiting him in Germany.
It’s 1956 and Bernie Gunther is on the run. Ordered by Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, to murder Bernie’s former lover by thallium poisoning, he finds his conscience is stronger than his desire not to be murdered in turn. Now he must stay one step ahead of Mielke’s retribution.
The man Mielke has sent to hunt him is an ex-Kripo colleague, and as Bernie pushes towards Germany he recalls their last case together. In 1939, Bernie was summoned by Reinhard Heydrich to the Berghof: Hitler’s mountain home in Obersalzberg. A low-level German bureaucrat had been murdered, and the Reichstag deputy Martin Bormann, in charge of overseeing renovations to the Berghof, wants the case solved quickly. If the Fuhrer were ever to find out that his own house had been the scene of a recent murder – the consequences wouldn’t bear thinking about.
And so begins perhaps the strangest of Bernie Gunther’s adventures, for although several countries and seventeen years separate the murder at the Berghof from his current predicament, Bernie will find there is some unfinished business awaiting him in Germany.
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Reviews
As usual, Kerr is superb at imaginatively mixing his fictional detective with well-researched true-life characters and events
A brilliantly twisting tale of espionage and betrayal
Kerr's novels are modern classics
Streets ahead of most other historical thrillers in its blend of wit, careful plotting and the kind of detail that brings the past to life
Bernie Gunther is one of the more interesting and original private eyes in thriller fiction
[Kerr's] Raymond Chandleresque mysteries about a cynical Berlin cop reluctantly working for the Nazis are his masterpiece
Once again Kerr leads us through the fact of history and the vagaries of human nature
Bernie Gunther - sly, subversive, sardonic, and occasionally hilarious - is one of the greatest anti-heroes ever written, and as always he lights up this tough and unflinching novel. We're in good hands here
In Prussian Blue, Philip Kerr once more shows himself one of the greatest master story-tellers in English. The narrative is swift and adept, and so well-grounded in the history and custom of the period that the reader is totally immersed
The twelfth Bernie Gunther mystery is as brisk and agile as its German police detective protagonist
Gunther offers a wry view of several real figures, notably Heydrich and Bormann, and a pithy up-close analysis of the whole Nazi machine. Thrilling
Bernie Gunther is as insubordinate, combative, interesting and entertaining as ever . . . yet another Kerr triumph
Prussian Blue would be an exceptional achievement considered on its own, but it is incredible to think that this is the 12th novel in an on-going series which is yet to produce a dud. The research and accuracy of the historical setting match that of Alan Furst, but the hardboiled dialogue and Chandlerian turns of phrase raise Kerr's work even higher. Part adventure thriller, part historical procedural, Prussian Blue and Bernie Gunther never make a mis-step
Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels are a high benchmark in noir fiction that blend clandestine historical fact with an epic imagination . . . Prussian Blue is an icy warning from history
