The Lady from Zagreb

Starred review from May 25, 2015
The 10th book in Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series (after A Man Without a Breath) is largely set in 1942 Berlin. This time, Bernie, an officer in the SD, begins to serve at the beck and call of Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Truth and Propaganda, whose main interest of the moment is Dalia Dresner, a beautiful young actress he is promoting as “the German Garbo.” Dalia enlists the help of Bernie to find her estranged father, who she thinks is in a monastery in Yugoslavia. She wants Bernie to deliver a message to her father asking him to come to Germany to see her. After she and Bernie begin an affair, he agrees to make the trip, traveling across the dangerous countryside and discovering that instead of being a monk, Dalia’s father is the cruel, fascist commandant of an infamous Yugoslavian concentration camp. Reader Lee gives the commandant a surprisingly cordial, Austrian-inflected accent, similar to that of Dalia. Lee’s Goebbels is outgoing, with more than a hint of smug amusement in his speech. Many of the German officers have a sardonic curl to their conversation, twisting simple statements into smarmy innuendo. Bernie, the narrator of the novel, is Lee’s best vocal creation; his crisp British delivery sounds insouciant, sarcastic, and self-effacing—a perfect match for Kerr’s flippant Nazi- and self-loathing hero. A Putnam hardcover.

Starred review from February 23, 2015
Bestseller Kerr’s superlative 10th novel featuring former homicide cop Bernie Gunther (after 2013’s A Man Without Breath) finds Bernie, now an officer in the SD, at an international police conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in the summer of 1942. Heinrich Heckholz, an attorney, wants Bernie to use his access at Wannsee to gather evidence that a charitable foundation is involved in fraud. Soon after, Heckholz is beaten to death with a bust of Hitler in his office. Almost a year later, with the crime still unsolved, Joseph Goebbels asks Bernie to help movie star Dalia Dresner locate her estranged father. Bernie falls quickly—and hard—for Dalia and agrees to travel on her behalf to Yugoslavia, where he witnesses some horrific scenes. Kerr combines a murder mystery that Raymond Chandler could have devised with a searing look at the inhumanity of the Nazis and their allies, presented from a unique perspective. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.).

In Kerr's newest period crime drama, it's 1943, and Berlin cop Bernie Gunther is trying to stay clear of the Nazis while solving the murder of a lawyer who acted on behalf of wealthy Jews. John Lee, who has narrated many of the Bernie Gunther series, knows the territory. His Gunther seems believably world-weary and has the edge you'd get from having to pass for a true believer behind enemy lines. He also colorfully draws a range of secondary characters, including SS officers, crooked Swiss bankers, and a damsel not-quite-in-distress. Lee's pace early on is a bit too relaxed, but things pick up midway, and his rich voice is always a listening pleasure. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine