Philip Kerr (1) (1956–2018)

Greeks Bearing Gifts is the 13th and penultimate title in Philip Kerr's series of historical novels based on the experiences of Bernie Gunther a one-time detective with the Berlin Police dating from the latter stages of Weimar Germany. This tale begins with Bernie back in Germany, but not Berlin. Given that the story is set in the year 1957, Berlin other than the part of the city occupied by the Western powers is smack dab in the middle of Communist run East Germany. Bernie has managed to reenter Germany under an assumed name, Christof Ganz, and has found himself a position in a Munich hospital, cleaning and dressing cadavers to make their appearance as good as possible in the event they have any family or friends to mourn their passing.

Bernie has always been a victim of rotten luck in his endeavors to create a new life for himself in the aftermath of World War II during which he was drafted into some unpleasant associations and jobs in the SS despite his never having been a Nazi. This time he is recognized by a cop, one Christian Schramma who, threatens him with exposure of his false identity and fingering for criminal offenses he never committed. Gunther is forced to be an accomplish to a sting in which a candidate for office will be set up to accept a major campaign contribution from what will turn out to be representative of East German foreign intelligence. The burn turns into something more serious when Schramma murders the candidate's representative, a General Heinkel and the East German spook.

Bernie locks Schramma in the room with the victims and he and the candidate, one Max Merten, conspire to neutralize Schramma without killing him and Merten, grateful for Gunther's effort uses his influence to get him a job with Munich RE insurance as a claims adjustor.

Bernie's detective experience serves him well in his new position and he immediately saves the firm a significant payout on a life insurance claim. As a result the management assigns him to a marine insurance property claim based on a sunken ship caused by a fire. The claimant is a scuba diver and underwater film maker located in Greece. And this assignment sets the main plot in motion.

Munich RE's man in Athens, Achilles Garlopis, is assigned to work with Bernie and provide escort and translation services during the claim investigation. He is not much more than a time server, whose only singular character trait that one would associate with an insurance man, is an instinct for risk mitigation, that is, avoiding any physical risk to himself.

Of course, the circumstances surrounding the fire and sinking of the ship turn out to not be straightforward and Bernie believes he is going to be able to save Munich RE another packet of dough and get back to Germany as soon as possible. But the story of the ill-fated Doris, the owner of the ship, its captain, and the cast of supporting characters is extremely complex and involves a number of personalities who behaved very badly during the German occupation of Greece during the late war. There is even involvement by members of the Israeli Mossad who are looking for information to enable them to apprehend a major character in the novel who is wanted for war crimes. As usual in the Gunther novels there is a mixture of characters from real life with the fictitious members and Kerr provides and appendix with the details of their personal histories.

Those readers who have an appreciation for classic movies will appreciate the hat tip to Double Indemnity and the character named Walther Neff, whose illness creates the rationale for dispatching Gunther to Greece in the first place.

Greeks Bearing Gifts is a terrific read, complete with a plot twists, escapes from fatal danger and femme fatales that are common to all of the Bernie Gunther novels. I am happy to recommend it and all of the Bernie Gunther novels.… (more)

Metropolis is the 14th and final installment in the late Philip Kerr's series featuring detective Bernie Gunther. I don't know if the decision to set this story in late 1920s Berlin when Gunther is promoted out of the vice squad to a detective on the Murder Commission was influenced by Kerr's awareness of his bladder cancer prognosis. Kerr composed his Gunther novels chronologically from the early days of the Third Reich through his World War II experiences on the Eastern Front and in France, moving through a succession of novels in foreign countries where Bernie tries unsuccessfully to earn a living and stay alive under assumed names. In the penultimate novel, Greeks Bearing Gifts, he has relocated back to Germany working in a hospital, under an assumed name, caring for cadavers in the hospital's basement before taking a job with a Munich based insurance company and being assigned to investigate a claim in Greece as you might guess from the title.

So Metropolis is a look back to the beginning of the Bernie Gunther character and a well executed summing up of Kerr's series. The Berlin of the late 1920s as told by Kerr makes the Berlin of Cabaret look like a conservative middle American city (which, of course, does not include cities named Chicago). The Nazi Party is on the rise and carrying on a running battle with the Communists. The Social Democrats are heading up a weak, unpopular government under the auspices of the Weimar Constitution. The period of runaway inflation has passed and the 1930s depression has yet to impact the nation's economy. There is rampant anti-Semitism including in many in the ranks of the Berlin police.

As the story unfolds Gunther is being interviewed by the Murder Commission's top cops, Bernhard Weiss and Ernst Gennat known within the department as the Big Buddha. Gennat is the office with the detective chops while his boss Weiss is a lawyer and a Jew who is open to a theoretical approach to criminal justice, but they seem to have a good, collaborative working relationship. Bernie's work in Vice has attracted their mutual attention, and they decide to promote him ahead of one Kurt Reichenbach who seemed to be the next in line for the promotion and who was friends with Gunther and also a Jew.

Bernie is assigned to investigate the serial killing of three Berlin prostitutes which have gotten undue publicity and generated political pressure based on the particularly hideous feature of the murders, specifically killing them from behind with a blow from a hammer and following up by scalping the victims and then leaving behind a clue at the scene of each murder that may or may not turn out to a misdirection play on the part of the murderer. Before Gunther can run down all of the clues and hunches he intends to pursue he is pulled off the prostitutes' murder assignment and tasked with the investigation of another serial murder case. Someone has decided to take out crippled former servicemen who eke out a living begging in Berlin public places especially train stations where there is a large volume of pedestrian traffic on a daily basis. The killer, who has adopted the name "Dr. Gnadenschuss" (meaning coup de grace) sends letters to the major daily papers bragging about his deeds, offering his rationale and ridiculing the ineffective efforts of the police to stop him.

Gunther takes on the new assignment but continues to investigate the prostitutes' murders despite orders from his bosses. Gunther comes to believe that there is a distinct possibility that Winnetou (the nickname of the prostitute killer based on a character in a Western series of novels popular in Germany in that era) and Dr. Genandenschuss (the killer of legless veteran beggars) might be one and the same. As part of his investigation Gunther retrieves a klutz device from the scene of one of the prostitute murders and uses it to impersonate one of the beggars thereby putting himself in harm's way of being shot through the forehead with a.25 caliber Browing pistol. The particular klutz cart Bernie will use is rigged for the usage of a fake beggar pretending to be legless. Think of Eddie Murphy's character in the beginning of the film Trading Places. In order to fit the part Weiss hooks up Bernie with a makeup artist at a Berlin theater where it just so happens rehearsals are in progress of The Threepenny Opera and Bernie is treated to the not so dulcet sounds of Lotte Lenya as part of the rehearsal. He is decidedly unimpressed with the musical and during one session when Lotte parks herself in the area backstage where Bernie is being prepped for that day's street performance of his own, she shares her mutual contempt for the cops in general and Bernie in particular.

Along the way Bernie has occasion to escort Thea von Harbou, the wife of Fritz Lang and the screenwriter of the film Metropolis. Von Harbou is doing research for a film about sex murders similar to the Winnetou case. Bernie talks her out of that plot pointing out that there are a lot of people who consider the victims of these crimes to be part of a problem that needs solving. As he puts it "dead prostitutes in this city are ten for a penny". He suggests that if he was in her position he would choose as his subject a serial child murderer. Et voila we have the theme for Fritz Lang's M, starring Peter Lorre.

Bernie's pursuit of witnesses and suspects takes him to some of the ugliest clubs in the city both clientele as well as management. In one charming club there is an electric chair that is the featured entertainment, and it is live - a far cry from Fraulein Sally Bowles and the divine decadence of the Kit Kat Club. Another joint, the Cabaret of the Nameless, features a creepy master of ceremonies who encourages people with absolutely no talent that they are great, the audience will love them, and their performance will lead to bigger and better opportunities for a career. It goes without saying that they are laughed off the stage, humiliated by an audience of thugs and lowlifes and mentally crushed in the aftermath.

One fatal mistake made by Winnetou is to murder a prostitute who happened to be the daughter of one of the most powerful criminal rings in the city. Bernie and his crooked "friend' track down a witness to her murder and the under the gentle ministrations of the hoodlum obtain a clue that ultimately leads to the ID of Winnetou. More than that I cannot share.

I've read all fourteen of the Bernie Gunter novels, mostly in order, beginning with the Berlin Noir trilogy. I thoroughly enjoined every one of the books and consider Metropolis to be an excellent wrap to the series by going back to beginning in the final installment. R.I.P. Philip Kerr.… (more)