Hard-boiled detective Bernie Gunther takes on a depraved serial killer terrorizing 1930's Berlin in the second gripping mystery in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling series. In the sweltering summer heat wave of 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering whether Hitler will plunge Europe into another war. Meanwhile, private investigator Bernie Gunther has taken on two cases involving blackmail. The first victim is a rich widow. The second is Bernie himself. Having been caught framing an innocent Jew for a series of vicious murders, the Kripo—the Berlin criminal police—are intent on locating the real killer and aren't above blackmailing their former colleague to get the job done. Temporarily promoted to the rank of Kommissar, Bernie sets out to solve the dual mysteries and begins an investigation that will expose him to the darkest depths of humanity...
It was Freud, borrowing Nietszche's phrase from Thus Spake Zarathustra, who described as 'pale criminals' those who committed criminal acts out of deep-lying (unconscious) guilt. The focus of this challenging and penetrating study is on this type of criminality. The book bring sa 'unifying vision and theoretical integration' to the array of perspectives and theories in this field. He draws together for the first time the thoughts on the subject of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott and Jacques Lacan, examines the contributions of both orthodox and evolutionary psychiatry, and explores the role of family experience in shaping the 'pale criminal'. The result is an ambitious theory of criminality; a depth-psychological psychoanalytic model of the human being.In the early chapters, the aurthor provides a judicious and even-handed exposition of his chosen thinkers' views, before proceeding to an impressive and well-argued dialectical synthesis in which each theoretical perspective is used to correct, qualify or supplement the others. In a diffuse and divided field, this volume should provide an indispensable source of clarification and a stimulus to open creative debate.
'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD A series of horrific ritual murders leads Bernie Gunther to an occult conspiracy at the very heart of the Nazi Party - hard-boiled noir thriller for fans of Raymond Chandler and John le Carré Five German schoolgirls are missing. Four have been found dead. But unlike the undesirables who make up the majority of dead and missing people in Hitler's Berlin, these girls were blonde and blue-eyed - the Aryan flower of German maidenhood - and their gruesome deaths recall ritual killings. Busy with a blackmail case, Bernie is reluctant when he is asked to rejoin the Berlin police in order to track down the murderer. But when the person doing the asking is none other than head of the SD, Reinhard Heydrich, it's not exactly a request he can turn down. As Bernie gets closer to the truth, he realises that at the heart of this case is much more than one lone madman - in fact, there is a conspiracy at work more chilling than he could ever have imagined.
Bernie Gunther is back on the mean streets of Berlin with his new partner, Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer. But on a seemingly straightforward stakeout, Bruno is killed, and Bernie suddenly finds himself tapped for a much bigger job. A serial sex murderer is killing Aryan teenage girls in Berlin—and what's worse, he's making utter fools of the police. Gunther is forced to accept a temporary post in Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him tasked purely with hunting the killer. But can he trust his team any more than he can trust his superiors?
THE FIRST NOVEL IN PHILIP KERR’S ACCLAIMED HISTORICAL MYSTERY SERIES When private investigator Bernie Gunther agrees to track down some stolen jewels, his search takes him down the dangerous streets of pre-World War 2 Berlin and into the path of the most influential players in Nazi Germany… Wisecracking cop turned private investigator Bernie Gunther specializes in missing persons, and as the Third Reich’s power has grown, Bernie has become a very busy man. But as he takes on cases involving millionaire industrialists, stolen diamonds, and Hitler’s most powerful cronies, Bernie finds himself mired in the brutality and corruption of a country on the brink of war. Hard-hitting, fast-paced, and richly detailed, March Violets is noir writing at its blackest and best.
Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel * Nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel A BookPage Best Book of the Year * A People Magazine Best Book of Summer* A Parade Best Book of Summer * A Crime Reads Most Anticipated Book of Summer "Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them." — San Francisco Chronicle A body burns in the high desert hills. A boy walks into a fire station, pale with the shock of discovery. A middle school teacher worries when her colleague is late for work. By day’s end, when the body is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel, a small Nevada town will be rocked to its core. Adam Merkel left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. The two outcasts developed a tender, trusting friendship that brought each of them hope in the wake of tragedy. But it is Sal who finds Adam’s body, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles’ compound. Nora Wheaton, the middle school’s social studies teacher, dreamed of a life far from Lovelock only to be dragged back on the eve of her college graduation to care for her disabled father, a man she loves but can’t forgive. She sensed in the new math teacher a kindred spirit--another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After Adam’s death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him and finds a dark history she understands all too well. But the truth about his murder may lie closer to home. For Sal Prentiss’s grief seems heavily shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he’s telling about how his favorite teacher died. As she tries to earn the wary boy’s trust, she finds he holds not only the key to Adam’s murder, but an unexpected chance at the life she thought she’d lost. Weaving together the last months of Adam’s life, Nora’s search for answers, and a young boy’s anguished moral reckoning, this unforgettable thriller brings a small American town to vivid life, filled with complex, flawed characters wrestling with the weight of the past, the promise of the future, and the bitter freedom that forgiveness can bring.
'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD Bernie Gunther returns to his desk on homicide from the horrors of the Eastern Front to find Berlin changed for the worse. He begins to investigate the death of a railway worker, but is obliged to drop everything when Reinhard Heydrich of the SD orders him to Prague to spend a weekend at his country house. Bernie accepts reluctantly, especially when he learns that his fellow guests are all senior figures in the SS and SD. The weekend quickly turns sour when a body is found in a room locked from the inside. If Bernie fails to solve this impossible mystery not only is his reputation at stake, but also that of Reinhard Heydrich, a man who cannot bear to lose face.
The New York Times bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther novels reimagines the end of World War 2 in this gripping standalone spy thriller. Autumn 1943. Since Stalingrad, Hitler has known that Germany cannot win the war. The upcoming Allied conference in Teheran will set the ground rules for their second front-and for the peace to come. Realizing that the unconditional surrender FDR has demanded will leave Germany in ruins, Hitler has put out peace feelers. (Unbeknownst to him, so has Himmler, who is ready to stage a coup in order to reach an accord.) FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate. Only Churchill refuses to listen. At the center of this high-stakes game of deals and doubledealing is Willard Mayer, an OSS operative who has been chosen by FDR to serve as his envoy. A cool, self-absorbed, emotionally distant womanizer with a questionable past, Mayer has embraced the stylish philosophy of the day, in which no values are fixed. He is the perfect foil for the steamy world of deception, betrayals, and assassinations that make up the moral universe of realpolitik. With his sure hand for pacing, his firm grasp of historical detail, and his explosively creative imagination about what might have been, Philip Kerr has fashioned a totally convincing thinking man’s thriller in the great tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.
Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels have won him an international reputation as a master of historical suspense. In A German Requiem, the private eye has survived the collapse of the Third Reich to find himself in Vienna. Amid decaying imperial splendor, he traces concentric circles of evil and uncovers a legacy that makes the wartime atrocities seem lily-white in comparison.
Hard-boiled detective Bernie Gunther takes on a depraved serial killer terrorizing 1930's Berlin in the second gripping mystery in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling series. In the sweltering summer heat wave of 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering whether Hitler will plunge Europe into another war. Meanwhile, private investigator Bernie Gunther has taken on two cases involving blackmail. The first victim is a rich widow. The second is Bernie himself. Having been caught framing an innocent Jew for a series of vicious murders, the Kripo—the Berlin criminal police—are intent on locating the real killer and aren't above blackmailing their former colleague to get the job done. Temporarily promoted to the rank of Kommissar, Bernie sets out to solve the dual mysteries and begins an investigation that will expose him to the darkest depths of humanity...
