Review by Booklist Review
This second episode in Kerr's Bernhard Gunther series finds the Berlin private detective enduring a heat wave as the tense German citizenry awaits the outcome of Hitler's 1938 Munich conference with Neville Chamberlain. Former cop Gunther, cynical to the bone and unabashedly anti-Nazi, finds himself lured back into the fold to help catch a serial killer. Accepting the temporary title of kommissar, he tracks the killer while still dealing with some unfinished business: his private-eye partner has been murdered while helping him identify the blackmailer of a rich widow's gay son. Both cases connect eventually, of course, but along the way, Kerr offers readers a grainy portrait of Berlin on the brink of war. The idea of dropping a Chandlerian PI into the world of Himmler, Goring, and the Hitler Youth Was it really possible to crack wise with Nazis? seems a stretch at times, but Kerr wins us over, both with a fine grasp of the historical moment and with a believable vision of how ordinary Germans tried to write off Hitler and his cohorts as just another gang of stupid politicians. Alan Furst fans who don't know Kerr will want to search out the Gunther novels, the first three of which were published in an omnibus edition called Berlin Noir.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
