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This The New York Times bestseller will make the Bernie Gunther series the new gold standard in thrillers.
Bernie Gunther is one of the great protagonists in thriller literature. During his eleven years working homicide in Berlin's Kripo, Bernie learned a thing or two about evil. Then he set himself up as a private detective-until 1940 when Heydrich dragooned him into the SS's field gray uniform and the bloodbath that was the Eastern Front. Spanning twenty-five tumultuous years, Field Gray strides across the killing fields of Europe, landing Bernie in a divided Germany at the height of the Cold War. Bernie's latest outing will mesmerize both readers of the Berlin Noir trilogy and anyone who loves historical thrillers, catapulting this cult favorite to breakout stardom.
When fans meet Bernie Gunther in this latest saga in the adventurous life of the hard-bitten, sardonic policeman, Kerr's (If the Dead Rise Not, 2010, etc.) stalwart Berliner detective is in pre-Castro Cuba.
But Cuba is no refuge. To prevent being forced to work for Batista, he tries to sail to the Dominican Republic, only to be caught by a U.S. Navy patrol boat. It doesn't help that his passenger is a rebel partisan wanted for murder. Gunther's identity discovered, he is sent first to a military prison in New York City and then to the infamous Landsberg prison where the Weimar Republic held Hitler and where the Allies interrogated, tried and sometimes hanged Nazi war criminals. It does no good for Gunther's future that he had served in a SS military police unit on the bloody Eastern Front and had more than a passing acquaintance with devils like Reinhard Heydrich. Kerr propels the story, framed around historical facts and characters, through several flashbacks. The author's ironic perceptions find an SS colonel quoting Goethe as he presides over the massacre of a town full of Jewish civilians and Gunther wryly observing the Franzis (French), the Amis (Americans) and human nature in general: "Sometime morality is just a corollary of laziness." The flashbacks are easily followed, from pre-war Berlin to the murderous hell of the 1941 Eastern Front to postwar slave-labor camps behind the Iron Curtain. Those dealing with Gunther's search for a German communist in 1940 France are truly revealing, especially the descriptions of historical places like the concentration camps in Vichy France. While some might quibble over occasional long sequences of dialogue that would be better served with tags, Kerr writes Gunther as he should be—world-weary, sardonic and as independent as an introspective man might be as he ricochets between murderous criminals, hell-bent Nazis or revenge-minded communists. The double-double cross denouement suggests Gunther will live to fight another day.
An accomplished thriller.
Philip Kerr is the author of many novels, but perhaps most important are the five featuring Bernie Gunther—A Quiet Flame, The One from the Other, and the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem). He lives in London and Cornwall, England, with his family.
"Field Gray" by Philip Kerr is a fictional novel taking place alternatively between the 1931 and mid 1954, mostly in Berlin. The book is 7th novel starring Bernie Gunther.
The past of Bernie Gunther catches up with in 1954 Cuba while doing work for mobster boss Meyer Lansky. Even though this anti-Nazi PI survived the Nazi régime and a soviet POW camp it seems his history won't leave him alone.
Landing in the US prison of Guantánamo and later in New York City, Bernie is interrogated by the FBI about his role as a member of an SS police battalion in WWII. Transferred to Landsberg Prison in Germany Bernie is being questioned and tortured by several governments. Stringing them along, Bernie experiences flashbacks which bring back his war experiences, none of which are good.
I seem to have no luck with series of books I like. I usually find them after several books have been published and feel compelled to play catch up. "Field Gray" by Philip Kerr is no exception on this front.
The novel follows Bernie Gunther which has to be one of the most anti-heroic antiheroes ever written. Joining Gunther are a bunch of offbeat characters none of which, it seems, have any redeeming qualities. Maybe that's what the "gray" in the title refers to (besides the German army's uniforms made by Hugo Boss) as there are no good or bad guys in this book; they are all shades of gray.
Mr. Kerr writes with a sardonic, twisted and dark sense humor. This is just the kind of humor which my beloved wife finds adorable in her husband...wait, sorry, she can't stand it - sometimes I get confused between the two.
The plot kept me going round and round with its twists, as well as thought provoking subjects. I had no idea what would happen until the last few pages. The writing is crisp, atmospheric and noir. Mr. Kerr pulls no punches; he looks at history in the eye, sees all the ugliness which most people would rather forget and instead writes about it.
Bernie Gunther is an unusual creation; he is cynical, tired, tough on himself and done many things none of us would be proud to do. He is an insane man living in an insane world (does that make him sane?) where the only way to survive is to look out for one self and that means screwing over everyone else (who, by the way, are trying to screw you over). I lose my mind when the cable company charges me a do-nothing-because-we-can fee, but Bernie lives everyday knowing that at any point in time someone can swoop in and destroy everything he built in an instant.
One of the things which the book, through my interpretation at least, touches is how ordinary people could justify participating in atrocities.
Think about it.
There weren't only Nazis in Auschwitz, there were secretaries, cooks, and other administrative nobodies. They bore witness to one of the biggest, if not the biggest, crimes in history yet we have pictures of them enjoying a country side picnic.
Inadvertently or not, we get a glimpse into that kind of mentality with Bernie Gunther. He was forced into the SS and committed his own atrocities; in his head they are justified.
We only get to read his side of it.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.silencedogoodreturns
Posted Wed Mar 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series just keeps getting better and better. This one covers alot of ground, and has several layers of story-telling, deception and plotting. This one veers from the usual detective-type story to one more in the spy sphere. In fact, I think that with this book, Kerr's comparison to John Le Carre in his prime is well earned. Highly recommend. With the way this one ends, I wonder if there will be any "new" Bernie Gunther stories... I note the next two books all take place in the past...
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Tom_Real
Posted Sat Feb 09 00:00:00 EST 2013
I didn't think that this book was well written as some of his earlier Bernie Gunther novels but it makes you think. I found myself not liking Bernie Gunther as a character in this book but I am sure that I will decide to forgive him and remake his acquaintance in the next!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.crazyreaderAP
Posted Wed Jun 20 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Well researched historical and detective stories. Since reading this one have read the Berlin Noir trilogy and looking forward to next one and his latest. There is also a sense of humor in his books that reminds me of Nelson De Mille. Good reading.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Interesting journey that takes you on several compelling stops throughout the world in the era dominated by WWII. Sometimes seemed like a collection of separate stories rather than a connected plot, and I got a bit tired of the main character's unvarying personality -- the tough guy always with a cynical quip.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Phillip Kerr continues in his Bernie Gunther series to bring Nazi Germany to life and help us understand it in a way no history book can. In this novel, Bernie has been taken into custody by the Americans years after the war. He tells his story, in retrospect, in a series of vignettes that bare the travesty and tragedy that his fictional detective witnessed. It would be hard to believe that, in real life, one man had been at all of these places and had seen such torture and death. Sad, indeed. But it's only fiction, right? Bernie's last victory is all the more savored for what he had been through, and one wonders where the story could go from here.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Apr 19 00:00:00 EDT 2011
Great read. Great characters and great story. I loved it...
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Overview
This The New York Times bestseller will make the Bernie Gunther series the new gold standard in thrillers.
Bernie Gunther is one of the great protagonists in thriller literature. During his eleven years working homicide in Berlin's Kripo, Bernie learned a thing or two about evil. Then he set himself up as a private detective-until 1940 when Heydrich dragooned him into the SS's field gray uniform and the bloodbath that was the Eastern Front. Spanning twenty-five tumultuous years,...