Prague Fatale

Prague Fatale is another Bernie Gunther novel by Philip Kerr. This is my second Kerr novel and the third one reviewed in the blog. I think East Coast Don captured the right title for the genre, “Nazi noir.” The story takes place during 1941 and the scene switches back and forth between Berlin and Prague. Kerr has created a wonderful character in Bernie Gunther, a Berlin police detective who is not a member of the Nazi party, who knows that Hitler and the rest of the Gestapo brass are criminals, and is terrified of his boss, Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichsprotector for Bohemia (The Czech Republic). In real history, Heydrich was assassinated by the Czech resistance movement in 1942, and this historical fiction novel starts out just nine months before that event.

Bernie’s wife died 20 years earlier from the influenza, only months after their marriage had begun, and in this story, he falls in love with a beautiful woman, Arianne Tauber, who turns out to have a dark history. This love starts during the dark days in Berlin during the war, at a time when Bernie is nearly suicidally depressed, as are so many of German citizens. Life was bleak, and Kerr wrote, “Berlin felt more like the capital of a banana republic that had run out of bananas, as well as almost everything else you could think of.” Before all the Jews had either fled, gone into hiding, or been forcibly removed, Kerr noted, “To survive as a Jew in Berlin in the autumn of 1941 was to be a person of courage and strength.”

Bernie was called by Heydrich to come to Prague to be his personal bodyguard and then to solve a murder that happened to one of Heydrich’s adjutants. He decided to take Arianne with him for desperate romantic interludes, but that decision proved to be one born of a man in lust rather than one who was thinking clearly. Perfectly capturing the irrationality of his situation, Kerr writes these lines for his protagonist, “Investigating the murder of one young SD officer who had almost certainly participated in the murders of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Latvian Jews, Gypsies and other ‘undesirables’ struck me as absurd, of course. A mass murderer who’d been murdered. What was wrong with that?.... Investigating a murder in the autumn of 1941 was like arresting a man for vagrancy during the Depression.”

 I am impressed with Philip Kerr’s writing, and if you’re a WWII junkie, then his writing is meant for you. This book is far more than just an excellent crime novel. Nazi noir, indeed.

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.

Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

You know the 'fatale' template: Broke and down on his luck PI, pulling on a cigarette and a couple fingers of rot gut. It's raining. A lightning strike announces the entrance of a striking women in 6 inch heels on the floor and a hat with a sheer veil on her head, trailed by a thin cloud from a cigarette. She spins a tale. The PI is stricken, does the job,  finds out she lied and manipulated him and now he's waiting the the cops to pick him up.

Detective Commisar Bernie Gunther handles murders in Berlin for the Kripo at Alexaderplatz. He's been to the eastern front and witnessed the real horrors of war. He was decorated with the Iron Cross, 2nd class (cuz all the 1st class winners are in cemeteries), but he has no love for the Nazis, SS, or Gestapo. He's a cop trying to balance some questionable morals with his personal definition of black and white, right and wrong during what could be the blackest period of European history.  While investigating the murder of a Dutch national, he comes on a woman being attacked near the S-Bahn on Wollendorfplotz. He intervenes, but the perp escapes, only to be hit by a car a couple blocks over. After questioning the girl, Gunther is compelled to dig further, not just into her past, but into what lies beneath her sweet dresses.

Bernie's presence in Prague is requested by the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia General Heydrich, one of Hitler's most ruthless commanders. Gunther packs up his stuff and his new lady and heads for Prague, he to work, she to shop. Heydrich is charged with bringing the Czech citizenry into line, find the 3rd of the Three Kings (3 Czech resistance/terrorists) and uncover a spy within the ranks of the governing SS officerkorps all the while detailing plans on how to handle Hitler's "Jewish problem."  But after dinner with Heydrich's officerkorps, the 4th adjutant is murdered, shot twice, dead in his room with the door and windows locked from the inside. Shades of Agatha Christie. A mystery indeed. Heydrich detaches Gunther to handle the investigation. Someone at the office's residence killed the adjutant and Heydrich has given Gunther full access and authority, so Gunther has to interview a dozen or so officers, each with their own reasons for pulling the trigger and something to hide.  But once the most likely person is found, Gunther begins to piece together a few small clues and realizes he has been played, but by whom?

Don't ask where I learned about Philip Kerr; I don't remember. I had reviewed One Shot, like it, but forgot about Kerr. So I looked at his list of titles and thought this 2011 release sounded pretty entertaining. This has all the trappings of the classic fatale tale. Good but conflicted guy, girl with a past, a very nasty bad guy, lies, deceit, manipulation. There is classic noir fiction, redneck noir (one of my favorites - watch Justified) . . .

and now, dare I say it . . . Nazi Noir?

Bernie Gunther is a driven cop full of personal demons, hatred of his bosses and the Nazis, a smart aleck disrespectful  mouth, a taste for cigarettes, whiskey, and a loser in love. Take a little bit of Elvis Cole, mix with a big chunk of Harry Bosch, and top off with some Sam Spade for good measure. That's how I see Bernie Gunther. Pretty cool. And there are 7 other Bernie Gunther books. This could be fun.

East Coast Don

The Shot by Phillip Kerr

I guess it comes down to, "What would you do?"

Tom Jefferson is a Korean war ex-POW. Upon release, he is sent to a hospital in Japan to recover, meets up with a stunning caretaker, courts her, marries her, and takes her to the states. They settle in Miami where she finds work in the state democratic party helping get JFK elected. He works as a consultant doing what he learned in the army.

He was a sniper.

And one of his best clients is organized crime. They are not happy that Castro has sent them all packing in the name of a socialist state. That puts the mob in the uncomfortable position of siding with the FBI and CIA in wanting Cuba back the way it was. The mob hires Tom to assassinate Castro.

The Chicago mob is working hard to deliver Illinois for Kennedy, who is widely known for his bedding most any woman with a heartbeat, especially Marilyn Monroe. To make sure that Kennedy fulfills his campaign 'promise' to the mob for delivering Illinois, the mob has numerous audiotapes of the future president bedding any number of star struck ladies. While Tom is conducting his research on Castro, his mob contact takes Tom to his place to listen to a tape, maybe even a tape of JFK and Monroe. They have some drinks, get the tape recorder ready to run, and listen to JFK getting it on with an unknown woman.

Tom's wife.

Who ends up dead a few days later.

If you were a trained sniper and found out just who was shagging your now dead wife, what would you do?

Tom goes to ground, walks out on the Castro hit and changes his target to the president-elect. Using some former contacts, he learns of Kennedy's schedule up until the inauguration and starts to scout out locations. The mob ain't happy about him stiffing them on the Castro hit and sets a retired FBI agent and his team on Tom's trail.

Tom's best bet is Kennedy's visit to Harvard just after the new year. With the help of a couple of pro Castro ladies, they manage to spirit 2 freshmen out of their dorm room for a ski weekend and then set out to wait for Kennedy's visit.

(I'm going to guess that most readers aren't going to rush right out to get this 1999 copyright - that's code for SPOILER ALERT).

Tom and his partner, another pro Castro sympathizer, set up for the shot. They open the window, Tom sights the bridge of Kennedy's nose, pulls the trigger and 'click' as the firing pin strikes nothing. That's because the only shooting that day is with a film camera.

They easily walk out of the dorm amongst the crowd, leaving their equipment hidden in the dorm room to be found later by some government types. The film finds it's way to Cuba where Castro's security chief packages it up with a letter to the head of the CIA telling him that they got close once and if the US invades, they will get even closer the next time.

Interesting concept and reasonably plotted. But I found this clever story to plod along far too slowly for my tastes. Halfway through, I knew this was going to be a lesson in discipline. The only thing that kept me going was to see how Tom was going to nail Kennedy for nailing his wife. Kerr has a pretty substantial body of work, but I'm not very likely to venture back. But consider that the Bay of Pigs did occur, it offers a different take on Nov 22, 1963. Oliver Stone would be proud.

East Coast Don