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A review by jlmb
A German Requiem: A Bernie Gunther Novel by Philip Kerr
3.0
The third in the Bernie Gunther series and far less appealing than the first two books. The third book occurs in 1947, nearly 10 years after the second book. That's quite a gap in the narrative. The reader learns near the beginning of the book a condensed version of Gunther's last 10 years - joining the SS under duress, requesting a transfer to the Eastern Front once he realized how sweeping the mass murders of the final solution were, being captured by the Russians & sent to a POW camp, escaping the camp & making it back to Berlin just as the war is ending. Oh yeah, and apparently he got married at some point. I found it very discombobulating as a reader to suddenly be following a markedly different main character than the one I had last read about. I would have preferred if the author had continued his series in a more linear fashion. Certainly there was enough material! Maybe the author just couldn't wait to start writing about the German reconstruction?
The plot of this book is also markedly different than the first two. While the others were more traditional mysteries with a small dose of creepy Nazism thrown into the mix, this book read more like a John Le Carre thriller - and I don't much care for John Le Carre thrillers. A very convoluted plot about American, German & Russian spies in Vienna. The "mystery" for Bernie consisted of finding out why an ex colleague had been framed for the murder of an American soldier. Eh. Ok. I'd care more if it was a friend of Bernie's, rather than a jerky ex-cop who had committed terrible atrocities on the eastern front. I honestly didn't care why he was framed and the conclusion of the book was just sort of blah for me.
I still haven't totally given up on this series since the first two were so good. I'll just take a bit of a break and read some other books and then go back to Gunther once the disappointment of this book lessens in my mind.
The plot of this book is also markedly different than the first two. While the others were more traditional mysteries with a small dose of creepy Nazism thrown into the mix, this book read more like a John Le Carre thriller - and I don't much care for John Le Carre thrillers. A very convoluted plot about American, German & Russian spies in Vienna. The "mystery" for Bernie consisted of finding out why an ex colleague had been framed for the murder of an American soldier. Eh. Ok. I'd care more if it was a friend of Bernie's, rather than a jerky ex-cop who had committed terrible atrocities on the eastern front. I honestly didn't care why he was framed and the conclusion of the book was just sort of blah for me.
I still haven't totally given up on this series since the first two were so good. I'll just take a bit of a break and read some other books and then go back to Gunther once the disappointment of this book lessens in my mind.