Prussian Blue

Starred review from February 20, 2017
Edgar-finalist Kerr’s stunning 12th Bernie Gunther novel (after 2016’s The Other Side of Silence) races along on two parallel tracks. In the first, set in 1956, Bernie, who’s been working as a hotel concierge in Cannes, flees France because he bailed out of performing a hit for Stasi chief Erich Mielke, killing a Stasi agent in the process. The hazardous journey takes him by train, bicycle, and foot toward West Germany. In the main narrative, set in April 1939, SS Gen. Reinhard Heydrich, Bernie’s boss, orders him to Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain retreat. A sniper has fatally shot Karl Flex, a civil engineer in Martin Bormann’s employ, on the deck of Hitler’s villa, the Berghof. Bernie has mere days to solve the crime before Hitler returns to Berchtesgaden to celebrate his 50th birthday. Trying to identify Flex’s killer and bring him to justice proves to be the least of Bernie’s worries. Kerr once again brilliantly uses a whodunit to bring to horrifying life the Nazi regime’s corruption and brutality. Author tour. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.).

Bernie Gunther is a shrewd German detective in prewar Nazi Germany. Narrator John Lee is the personification of Gunther--full of sarcasm, street smarts, and dark wit. When Gunther is forced by the Nazis to investigate the murders of Hitler's right-hand men in Austria, Lee takes listeners on Gunther's tumultuous and treacherous journey, keeping them riveted as he continually bumps heads with a Nazi opposition that is determined to stop him. Lee switches from his own British accent to a German one effortlessly while passionately displaying the brutality of the Nazis. As Gunther interrogates Austrian suspects, Lee effectively captures the citizens' fear of the Nazi war machine. Even though the story jumps from pre- to postwar events, Lee keeps listeners on track through pace and timing. Perfection! B.J.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine