Prussian Blue

Crime novels typically make use of a flawed hero who has had a trouble life as the result of his principled and inflexible beliefs in justice, and so it is with Bernie Gunther, a former detective in the Berlin Kripo whose history dates to times before Hitler came into power. But what would happen if his morality was challenged by the most notorious men in the Nazi regime, Martin Bormann, Hitler’s personal secretary, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the security police for the Third Reich, and Erich Mielke, the leader of East Germany’s Stasi? That is the basis of Philip Kerr’s Russian Blue, the 12^th novel in the Bernie Gunther series.

This books starts in 1956 when Bernie has been free of Nazi related activities since the end of the war, but then Mielke called in an old favor, demanding that Bernie travel to London to assassinate a female spy with whom Bernie had a romantic entanglement. Loathe to agree to Mielke’s plan, Bernie killed the thugs that were accompanying him, and in the process of fleeing from the police who were chasing him, he had time to reflect on his last encounter in 1939 with Mielke and others from the Nazi era. That was when he had been summoned from Berlin to Berchtesgaden and Obesalzberg where Hitler had chosen to create his home away from Berlin. He was expected to solve a murder that had occurred at Hitler’s private residence without Hitler knowing about it, for fear that Hitler would then never return to this hideaway that was under the control of Bormann. Bormann was dramatically enriching himself through control of the Berchtesgaden area, but he really only wanted a charade of a murder investigation for fear that his own vast corruption would be uncovered.

The story jumped back and forth between the events of 1939 and 1956, and it was anchored in the reality of the characters of those times. Gunther is a compelling character, one about whom I’m immediately going to read more. Kerr did a remarkable job with developing Gunther, but also portraying the significant infighting, depravity, and immorality of the Nazi principals. It was the perfect novel to enjoy as I’m traveling in Berlin, heading toward Dresden and Prague.