Mention Out Of Books Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3)
| Title | : | Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3) |
| Author | : | Philip Kerr |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 834 pages |
| Published | : | 1993 by G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Mystery. Historical. Historical Fiction. Crime. Cultural. Germany. Noir |
Philip Kerr
Paperback | Pages: 834 pages Rating: 4.22 | 8243 Users | 594 Reviews
Chronicle During Books Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3)
Now published in one paperback volume, these three mysteries are exciting and insightful looks at life inside Nazi Germany -- richer and more readable than most histories of the period. We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of derision which original Nazis used to describe late converts.) The Olympic Games are about to start; some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realize that they should have left while they could; and Gunther himself has been hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal, it's 1938, and Gunther has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich himself. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines. (For a review of Kerr's latest novel, The Grid, see our Thrillers section.)Identify Books Concering Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3)
| Original Title: | Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem |
| ISBN: | 0140231706 (ISBN13: 9780140231700) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Bernie Gunther #1-3 |
| Setting: | Berlin,1936(Germany) Vienna(Austria) |
Rating Out Of Books Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3)
Ratings: 4.22 From 8243 Users | 594 ReviewsJudgment Out Of Books Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther #1-3)
I have very very few books in my Did Not Finish pile, and none of those are crime noir novels because I LOVE NOIR... but ...(Thud of Phillip Kerrs Berlin Noir series hitting the floor)... this one is a first. It shouldnt have been, I love the setting (Berlin, 1930s, bad Nazis ... awesome). Second, he has the tone down pat, with some great Chandleresque writing:If he was a member of the human race at all, Neumann was its least attractive specimen. His eyebrows, twitching and curling like twoTheres a lot I liked in these three books, but I wanted to love them and didnt quite. A little more violent than my personal preference and I was definitely left a little ambivalent by the portrayals of Heydrich and some other notorious Nazis. But Kerrs recreation of that era is terrific and the stories, at their core, are compelling and entertaining.
In one big paperback you get the complete Berlin trilogy: March Violets; The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem. This is noir at its best. Taking his cues from Chandler but making them its own, Kerr takes us into Berlin, 1936. Summer Olympics. Bernhard Gunther, ex-cop, now a private detective mostly finds missing persons and there are lot of them in Nazi's Berlin. Murder, politics and a very nice twist makes March Violets a very good start to a wonderful ride thru this dark part of history. The
Remarkable books on many levels. They're well-researched and create a remarkably vivid portrait of wartime Berlin and post-war Vienna. The mysteries are first-rate hard-boiled stuff, with plenty of fistfights and other manly action, as well as twisting plots full of double-crosses and surprises. They also conjure up a chilling psychological portrait of Germany before and during the war, elevating them beyond pure page-turning crime fiction, for me, into moral literature. And yet, despite the
Α well written noir, Kerr must have done his research about the time and the place. Although in the first book the end was easy to guess, the other 2 surprised me. A must read if you like detective stories
This is a difficult review to write. The subject German National Socialism and the periods covered: 1936 (Olympics in Germany), 1938 (Sudetenland crisis), and 1947 (emerging cold war in Berlin and Vienna) are disturbing to many and difficult to think of in connection with Noir Fiction. However, Philip Kerr has managed to create an interesting trilogy out of it. The biggest drawback to the books is the over the top use of Noir cliches and characters. He might have done better to forego the
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