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A review by technomage
Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr
3.0
This is the 13th Bernie Gunther novel and the fifth I have read and it could almost be seen as the end of a path Bernie has walked from the first novel toward some form of redemption or at least the inklings of forgiving himself.
Bernie is working in Munich in as a mortuary attendant until he gets paid a "favour" by an old friend and ends up working as an insurance adjuster. Sent to Greece to investigate a claim about a lost ship things start going awry when the claimant is found murdered by Bernie and the police.
His arm twisted by the Greek police he is forced to investigate the murder and uncovers a web of conspiracy betrayal and some many other things that the story soon loses focus and I think it could happily have finished a chapter or two earlier. Another thing, that I may have picked up on because of current events, the novel is set around the time of the setting up of the EEC and the author seems to go out of his way to give his characters especially the unsavoury ones large chunks of dialogue, or is it diatribe, against the proposed economic union and the influence of Germany which I could have done without.
Not the best Bernie Gunther story but it does provide a sort of closure to this tale of a German policeman whose genes took in a bit of grit like an oyster and over time has tried to turn it into a pearl.
Bernie is working in Munich in as a mortuary attendant until he gets paid a "favour" by an old friend and ends up working as an insurance adjuster. Sent to Greece to investigate a claim about a lost ship things start going awry when the claimant is found murdered by Bernie and the police.
His arm twisted by the Greek police he is forced to investigate the murder and uncovers a web of conspiracy betrayal and some many other things that the story soon loses focus and I think it could happily have finished a chapter or two earlier. Another thing, that I may have picked up on because of current events, the novel is set around the time of the setting up of the EEC and the author seems to go out of his way to give his characters especially the unsavoury ones large chunks of dialogue, or is it diatribe, against the proposed economic union and the influence of Germany which I could have done without.
Not the best Bernie Gunther story but it does provide a sort of closure to this tale of a German policeman whose genes took in a bit of grit like an oyster and over time has tried to turn it into a pearl.