A Quiet Flame

Starred review from January 5, 2009
At the start of Kerr’s stellar fifth Bernie Gunther novel (after The One from the Other
), the former Berlin homicide detective seeks exile in Argentina in 1950, along with others connected to the Nazi past (one of his fellow ship passengers is Adolf Eichmann). A few weeks after Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires, a local policeman, Colonel Montalbán, asks his help in solving the savage murder of 15-year-old Grete Wohlauf. Montalbán has noticed similarities between this crime and two unsolved murders Gunther investigated in 1932 Germany. Another teenage girl’s disappearance heightens the urgency of the inquiry. In exchange for free medical treatment for his just diagnosed thyroid cancer, Gunther agrees to subtly grill members of the large German community. A secret he stumbles on soon places his life in jeopardy. Kerr, who’s demonstrated his versatility with high-quality entries in other genres, cleverly and plausibly grafts history onto a fast-paced thriller plot.

March 1, 2009
Hitler is history, but Bernie Gunther, the SS guy with a heart of gold, is alive and well, and chasing dirty rats in Argentina.

World War II didn't quite go the way it was supposed to—the Third Reich having lasted noticeably less than 1,000 years—but the Nazis are still in there pitching. The setting has shifted to Argentina, that happy haven for Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and the like-minded. From this hate-mongering group, exempt steel-shelled, mushy-hearted Bernhard Gunther, famous once as the policeman Berlin's malefactors loved to hate. True enough, Bernie eventually left the force to put in some obligatory time among the goose-steppers, but what's a man to do when he's a born survivalist? The SS or the concentration camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc.) were the sole choices available even to an iconic sleuth whose case-cracking record had long been the stuff of headlines."'You were a hero of mine,'" says Colonel Montalbán, Argentina's top cop, as Bernie modestly averts his eyes. Bernie senses that what Montalbán has planned for him will seriously interfere with his own plans. Having arrived in Argentina the hard way—consider an unpleasant detour to a Russian prison camp—Bernie now regards himself as a noncombatant. Just find this missing German girl for me, says Montalbán, adding reassuringly that it's the kind of case Bernie has always excelled at. But somehow Bernie is not reassured, since over Montalbán's siren song, he hears another kind of rhythm—the sound of jackboots marching toward him.

Warts and all—Kerr makes little attempt to hide them—Bernie Gunther (The One from the Other, 2006, etc.) remains endearing, entertaining and eminently forgivable.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 15, 2009
British novelist Kerr's fifth Bernie Gunther thriller finds the German private detective in 1950 Argentina, where he has fled with other "Old Comrades" after his identity was compromised (see "The One from the Other"). Bernie's past as a police officer involuntarily absorbed into the SS continues to dog his heels. Recognized by Colonel Montalbán of Juan Perón's secret police, he is forced into investigating an apparent lust murder and the disappearance of a wealthy young girl. The first case has eerie similarities to an unsolved homicide that Bernie investigated in Berlin in 1932; the second ties in with an attempt to seize Nazi plunder hidden in Swiss banks. But the situation becomes complicated as the detective risks his life to track down and interrogate several ex-Nazis involved in nefarious deeds. Authentic period detail, biting wit, sparkling metaphors, and an engaging character whose moral ambiguity places him in perilous situations make this a read to savor. Fans of the earlier series titles will love the extended sections that re-create the grimly decadent atmosphere of the last days of the Weimar Republic. Highly recommended for public libraries.Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tuscon

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2009
The fifth Bernard Gunther novel finds the former German PI and reluctant SS member on a boat to Argentina in 1950, lumped in with the Nazis whom he baited in the earlier novels. Its one of those dirty deals that give noir its color: a Chandleresque, anti-authoritarian private eye forced to travel in the company of Adolf Eichmann, and like Eichmann, counting on the kindness of strangersin this case, Juan P'ron and the promise of a clean passport. Unfortunately, the deal gets dirtier once Bernie lands in Buenos Aires and is forced to investigate the disappearance of a German bankers daughtera case that bears striking similarities to another disappearance that Bernie investigated (but never solved) in Berlin in 1932. Could a German serial killer have landed in Argentina and resumed his favorite pastime? The story jumps between flashbacks to the earlier casethe milieu of March Violets (1989), the first and best of the earlier Gunther novelsand the present in Buenos Aires. Kerr makes the best of both locales, bringing both Juan and Eva P'ron into the Argentina segments, but its in the flashbacks, returning to the sublimely decadent Weimar era, that the idea of a German Philip Marlowe really fits best, and Kerr works it masterfully. But the climax in Argentina is a doozy, too, drawing on historical data about what the Nazi sympathizers there may have been up to and finishing with a rhetorical flourish that evokes both Casablanca and Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach. A bit bifurcated, maybe, but a treat through either lens.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)