The books superbly create the atmosphere of the times and to someboy interested in history, especially German history in the first half of the twentieth century, the books are especially evocative. I have read few books about day to day life in Nazi Germany and these books added an extra depth to my understanding of life under the Nazis. The mood of the time is portrayed every bit as vividly as the great Patrick Hamilton writing about Britain in the same era.
Gunther is a fairly typical detective, highly moral, down to earth and slightly down at heel. His life is as battered by the events of the time as everybody else's was, which is the special attraction of these books. Issues of the time are confronted and the totalitarianism and anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany is confronted head on, with Gunther often being turned to for help by Jewish clients. But this isn't done in a mawkish or sermonising way, which makes the underlying message all the more powerful.
The plots are intricate but not confusing and the characters in the stories, from Gunther to post-war American intelligence operatives, are believable and real. Personal lives and problems make these stories stand apart from many novels of the same genre, but again Kerr doesn't overplay or sentimentalise these aspects of his characters so the book never veers too far away from the crime/political thrillers that they so wonderfully are.
In fact my wife is considering starting one of my many Scandinavian crime novels by way of an introduction to the world of the foreign detective novel, maybe Bernie Gunther would be a fine introduction as she shares my love of European history. I would happily recommend Philip Kerr's books to her and to anybody else looking for crime stories that are not your run of the mill affairs. I look forward to starting on Kerr's fourth Gunther novel in the not too distant.
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