March Violets (Bernard Gunther, #1)

Mar 12, 2012 Greg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

The concierge was a snapper who was over the hill and down a disused a mine-shaft. Her hair was every bit as natural as parade goose-stepping down the Wilhelmstrasse, and she'd evidently been wearing a boxing-gove when she'd applied the crimson lipstick to her paperclip mouth. Her breasts were like the rear ends of a pair of dray horses at the the end of a long hard day. Maybe she still had a few clients, but I thought it was a better bet that I'd see a Jew at the front of a Nuremberg pork-butch...more The concierge was a snapper who was over the hill and down a disused a mine-shaft. Her hair was every bit as natural as parade goose-stepping down the Wilhelmstrasse, and she'd evidently been wearing a boxing-gove when she'd applied the crimson lipstick to her paperclip mouth. Her breasts were like the rear ends of a pair of dray horses at the the end of a long hard day. Maybe she still had a few clients, but I thought it was a better bet that I'd see a Jew at the front of a Nuremberg pork-butcher's queue. She stood in the doorway to her apartment, naked under the grubby towelling (sic?) robe which she left open, and lit a half-smoked cigarette.

"I'm looking for Neumann," I said, doing my level best to ignore the two coat-pegs and the Russian boyar's beard that were displayed for my benefit. You felt the twang and itch of syphilis in your tail just looking at her.

All of this description is for a woman who appears for a page and a half in the book, and most of those lines are dedicated to this flowery 'hard-boiled' prose.

That paragraph is a good example of why this is a three star book for me, even though the mystery and the story were good I just couldn't really get past all of the schlock. It's also why I find it very painful to watch most American movies from the 40's / 50's, my poor sensibilities are given too much a beating with canned stylized words.

Stylized shlock though has quite a bit of popularity. Just look for some of the words in bold on goodreads and you'll find more examples of the type of writing that makes me want to do an Oedipus to my eyes. It's phony. There is no soul (or whatever you want to call it), it's like automatic writing masked by a vague amount of cleverness (not much though because the cleverness is fairly obvious, but it's reassuring, I don't want to be reassured, being reassured is so boring).

I need to stop reading these mystery novels. There are parts I like about them, but too often they are making a part of me cower up and die.

I feel awful that I've used this book as a go to recommendation for people looking for a 'smart' mystery / thriller set in WWII or historical or something like that. It's not that it's bad, it's that it is so filled with cliches and the good parts are almost downed out by the incessant hard-boiled chatter.

I'm fucking tired of chatter. Ben Marcus come and take all of our language from us, just so I don't have to hear anymore of it.

All melodramatic nonsense aside, I think I'm going to give this genre a rest for awhile. I am interested in reading the new re-issues by Richard Stark coming out next month, and some more Lawrence Block but besides that I think my six month trek into the world of mystery novels has come pretty much to an end. I'm sure I'll go on it again sometime in the future, but for now I'm going to go back to the ghetto of literary fiction.(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystery and historical fiction readers

Shelves: germany, mystery, read-2013, library-book

Enjoyed this trip to 1930s Germany as the Nazi Party is exerting it's power and remaking the country in the image it wants to present to the world while removing unacceptable people from the streets and homes of the nation. In this setting we encounter Bernhard Gunther, formerly of the police, now a private investigator specializing in finding things and people who are missing---a potentially lucrative area now.

One of my favorite scenes occurs as Bernie meets Hermann Goering in what is a wonderf...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: black-as-night

This really is quite something. A homage to and an evolution of the classic noir detective novel in one.

This is a fabulously entertaining story of corruption and intrigue in Nazi Germany investigated by a strong and interesting character in Bernie Gunther. Throughout I was constantly imagining Bogart. As mentioned in a review of another noir recently, the Bogart test is a true gauge of how good a classic style noir is. And this one is very very good.

The case he was actually hired for was quite a...more This really is quite something. A homage to and an evolution of the classic noir detective novel in one.

This is a fabulously entertaining story of corruption and intrigue in Nazi Germany investigated by a strong and interesting character in Bernie Gunther. Throughout I was constantly imagining Bogart. As mentioned in a review of another noir recently, the Bogart test is a true gauge of how good a classic style noir is. And this one is very very good.

The case he was actually hired for was quite an obvious plot but all of the extra little bits of plot and story that you come to expect from the genre are abundant and excellent and even surprising in some instances. Most unusual is the lack of a strong dame however. Perhaps in a modern take on the genre it is unnecessary?

What amazed me the most was that there were many aspects of the book that irritated me, that I couldn't help to start to list as I read, yet still my enjoyment was not diminished. Despite the following points I feel that I enjoyed March Violets as much as it is possible to enjoy a novel of this genre.

So what's wrong? This is a piece of historical fiction and Phillip Kerr didn't manage to avoid the pitfalls of writing that particular sub-genre, at times he is so obviously educating the reader with entire paragraphs of historical explanation that didn't really seem essential and he couldn't help himself in setting the story during the Berlin Olympiad and having Bernie coincidentally turn up to the stadium to see Jessie Owens single handedly disprove the Aryan race-supreme beings theory. It's things like this that make a lot of readers feel smug for already knowing that tiny aspect of famous/popular history and so it's probably a requirement in Historical Fiction 101 or something, but to me it's always a weak moment of storytelling and removes you from the world of the narrative.

There's so many metaphors used in these 256 pages but for every metaphor there's 4 similies. This is a little bit like....nah I won't be that cliched. It's not cool, all of them are great lines but still when there's 4 per page you start to grow tired of it.

I'm very excited to know there's quite a large series of Bernie Gunther books on my bookcase waiting to be read, especially as Leah tells me they get better as Kerr gets in to the swing of writing them. Hooray for Bernie Gunther.(less)

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Nov 30, 2008 Eric_W rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: police-procedural, historical-fiction, mysteries-and-thrillers

). Pelican has released a trilogy of his Berlin detective novels that feature the wise-cracking, ex-Kripo, private detective, Bernie Gunther. The first, March Violets, takes place in 1936 as the Nazis are rising to power, and Kerr sets the scene masterfully. Bernie has been hired to find the contents of a safe that belonged to the daughter of Herr Six, a wealthy German manufacturer. It seems Six’s daughter and son-in-law were murdered, their house torched, and jewels worth millions of marks remo...more

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May 22, 2009 Roxane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thrillers

The first book in a series with our hero Bernie Gunther, a German private investigator - the year is 1936, the place - Berlin. Our hero falls in love, goes to the Olympics, looses his love, takes on the Gestapo, the SS, the SA, etc...and survives a stint in Dachau! I was exhausted by the time I finished the book - but I do plan on reading the rest of the books in the series.

Very interesting historically - but felt the author tried to cram too much history into one story. Also - would recommend k...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Corny rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first in the Bernie Gunther series which are sometimes called the Berlin Noir novels dealing with the adventures of a Philip Marlowe like detective in Nazi Germany before the war. The author tends to maddening overuse of simile and metaphor. At times there is one in every paragraph and it diverts one's attention to the otherwise fine plotting. This novel has so many characters that it becomes an effort to keep them all in mind. It is best to read the book at one sitting to appreciate all the...more

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Mar 09, 2013 Melinda Seyler rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Melinda by: newleaph@gmail.com

One of the early books I read this year was "The Shot" by the same
author. Someone at work said that his earlier "Berlin Trilogy" was
very good. This is the first of those.
This book is definitely better than "The Shot". It does, to me, feel
like a first novel though. In some ways it is very derivative of the
"hard-boiled" detective novels of the 30s and 40s like Raymond
Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, who even has a brief mention in this
book. [At this point I should say I am a true student of that gen...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Shawn Thrasher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Incredibly well plotted, with a deliciously dark setting, and memorable characters. I ate up the twist on noir, with the hardboiled detective being a German under the heel of the Nazis. Kerr's Nazi Germany is like everything you knew about Berlin 1936, only turned on its side to reveal the even darker, uglier things lurking underneath. We all know about Hitler and his merry band of demons, and Kerr certainly has the usual cameos from humanity's contest for worst person ever. But Kerr's Berlin is...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Isidore rated it 1 of 5 stars

Although there is an abundance of diaries, memoirs, and historical studies which can help us imagine what living in the Third Reich was like, Kerr does not try for psychological realism, but merely imports behaviour and character types from American noir.

As if to compensate for the fundamental phoniness of placing familiar American noir types in a Nazi setting, Kerr clutters his narrative with a mass of pedantic "period" detail, even to the extent of identifying one character's drink as "a glas...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Helen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: world-war-ll

I haven't read a straight crime thriller in a long time, let alone any noir; but since I'm submerged in World War II, I thought I'd give the Berlin Noir trilogy a try.

Wow, does Mr. Kerr have the detail down! I feel like if I went to Berlin, I could use this book instead of a map. Nice, sharply cut characterization, lots of snappy Chandler-esque back and forth, all of it much edgier than the average Chandler because it's Germany in the late 1930's, and the witty give-and-take is with the Gestapo....more

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Feb 20, 2012 R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

L’été de cristal est le premier volet d’un triptyque, connu sous le nom de La trilogie berlinoise, qui a pour protagoniste principal un détective privé dénommé Bernhard Gunther. Pour l’instant ça ne fait pas rêver, on se croirait presque dans un épisode de Derick mais attendez la suite. La particularité réside dans le contexte servant de cadre à ces histoires. Elles se déroulent en Allemagne pendant le IIIme Reich. L’été de cristal / la nuit de cristal, le parallèle est plutôt facile voire un pe...more L’été de cristal est le premier volet d’un triptyque, connu sous le nom de La trilogie berlinoise, qui a pour protagoniste principal un détective privé dénommé Bernhard Gunther. Pour l’instant ça ne fait pas rêver, on se croirait presque dans un épisode de Derick mais attendez la suite. La particularité réside dans le contexte servant de cadre à ces histoires. Elles se déroulent en Allemagne pendant le IIIme Reich. L’été de cristal / la nuit de cristal, le parallèle est plutôt facile voire un peu grossier. Ce manque de finesse n’est pas imputable à l’auteur mais à un choix éditorial un peu trop marketing — chacun ses goûts - puisque le titre du livre était à l’origine Les violettes de mars. Ce titre qui ne vous dit peut-être rien — c'était mon cas — est tiré d’un terme désignant les adhérents tardifs au parti Nazi. C’est à dire ceux qui se sont ralliés à la cause des plus forts une fois qu’ils ont été au pouvoir.

Vous conviendrez qu’exercer la profession de détective privé à cette époque relève de la performance d’équilibriste. Pour être capable d’enquêter et de mettre son nez dans des affaires louches en se faufilant entre les différents appareils répressifs du régime sans passer par la case camps, il faut la jouer fine et, dans ce registre, il faut reconnaître que notre homme est plutôt habile. Il se voit confier par un riche industriel, Hermann Six, la tâche de retrouver un collier de diamants d’une très grande valeur. Malheureusement pour lui et comme souvent, il va vite s'avérer que cette simple affaire de vol a des connexions avec une affaire touchant aux plus hautes sphères du pouvoir personnifié par le premier ministre lui-même, le terrible Goering.

La multiplicité des formes du roman policier m’étonne toujours. Ils peuvent se dérouler dans des cadres très variés et originaux et avoir un véritable fond historique comme c’est le cas ici. Il faut dire que la violence ne date pas d’hier et n’a pas de frontière, c’est à minima une constante internationale et intemporelle. Le positionnement de ce livre dans l’univers du IIIme Reich est vraiment un gros plus mais n’allez pas croire que tout repose là dessus. L’histoire est très prenante et évolue de manière linéaire sans véritable temps mort. Elle est assez complexe pour tenir les lecteurs les plus exigeants en haleine. Il faut également souligner la personnalité attachante de Bernhard Gunther qui possède un humour sarcastique très développé et un culot incroyable. De plus, son aversion pour les Nazis fait du bien. C’est une lecture que je conseille vivement en particulier si vous êtes intéressés par cette période noire de l’histoire.

Les éditions Pocket ont rassemblé ce livre et les deux suivants dans le recueil La trilogie berlinoise. http://www.aubonroman.com/2012/02/let...(less)

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Apr 24, 2011 John rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is the first of Kerr's series about ex-cop-turned-PI Bernie Gunther, here trying to solve a case (he's hired by a plutocrat to track down an expensive item of jewellery missing from the safe of the plutocrat's murdered daughter and son-in-law) while coping with the everyday horrors and bureaucratic complications of Nazism in pre-WWII Berlin.

A problem the novel has is that this latter aspect is often far more interesting, and far more effectively portrayed, than the noirish plot itself; I c...more

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Jan 03, 2013 port22 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery

Hardly anything can outdo 1936's Nazi Germany as a mood setter of a crime-noir novel. Three years after Hitler won the elections the stifling of freedoms is firm, concentration camps are already established, jews, gypsies and gays suffer incrementally abridged civil rights, Gestapo and SS take over the police and army, the competent old hands are pushed aside.

Bernie Gunter, a private detective in Berlin, gives us the peering eyes of the intelligentsia and the black humor of the concealed dissent...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Anmiryam rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first book in Philip Kerr's well established series featuring Berni Gunther has a plot that twists like a alpine road and a lead character more hardboiled than the eggs in the sandwich you had for lunch. It's 1936 and Berlin is crawling with competing police forces and criminal muscle all of whom are going to insure Bernie is going to see more than his fair share of knocks when he's drawn into investigating the death of an industrialists daughter and the disappearance of a valuable necklace...more

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Sep 26, 2011 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries

The title of Philip Kerr's March Violets refers to Germans who joined the Nazi party late, pretending they were fervent devotees all along. This novel is the first volume of the author's Berlin Noir trilogy about a private detective in Hitler's Germany, taking place in 1936, right around the time of the famous Berlin Olympiad in which Jesse Owens took most of the track and field awards.

Detective Bernie Gunther is an ex-cop in the strange twilight years before World War II broke out. His specialt...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Dorothy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-mysteries, noir-mysteries

March Violets are those in Germany of the mid 1930s who have lately become a part of the National Socialist movement as a matter of convenience or perhaps even recent conviction. They are spoken of derisively throughout this first in the series of noir mysteries featuring German gumshoe Bernhard Gunther.

My husband is a Bernie Gunther fan and has long recommended these books to me. I was hesitant to read them because I OD'd on Hitler and Nazi references long, long ago. I could happily live the re...more March Violets are those in Germany of the mid 1930s who have lately become a part of the National Socialist movement as a matter of convenience or perhaps even recent conviction. They are spoken of derisively throughout this first in the series of noir mysteries featuring German gumshoe Bernhard Gunther.

My husband is a Bernie Gunther fan and has long recommended these books to me. I was hesitant to read them because I OD'd on Hitler and Nazi references long, long ago. I could happily live the rest of my life without ever enduring another one. So that was one strike against this book which is heavily invested in the Nazi culture. Bernie is not a Nazi and is not at all sympathetic with their philosophy, but he is a German and must live in a Berlin that is dominated by them; a Berlin that is hazardous to the health of anyone who does not give what the Nazis believe is due deference to all their institutions. In one instance, Kerr writes of Bernie meeting a torchlight parade at night.

Driving west on Leipsigerstrasse, I met the torchlight parade of Brownshirt legions as it marched south down Wilhelmstrasse, and I was obliged to get out of my car and salute the passing standard. Not to have done so would have been to risk a beating. I guess there were others like me in that crowd, our right arms extended like so many traffic policemen, doing it just to avoid trouble and feeling a bit ridiculous. Who knows? But come to think of it, political parties were always big on salutes in Germany: the Social Democrats had their clenched fist raised high above the head; the Bolshies in the KPD had their clenched fist raised at shoulder level; the Centrists had their two-fingered, pistol-shaped hand signal, with the thumb cocked; and the Nazis had fingernail inspection. I can remember when we used to think it was all rather ridiculous and melodramatic, and maybe that's why none of us took it seriously. And here we all were now, saluting with the best of them. Crazy.

Chilling. When I read that, I thought of our own politics of recent years and the ostentatious faux patriotism that has become so much a part of our lives. The flag pins on politicians' lapels. The bank of flags behind the politician whenever he makes the most commonplace appearance or announcement. I don't remember the politicians of my youth requiring any such window-dressing, perhaps because most of the politicians of my youth had been through World War II and understood real patriotism. This phoniness even reaches into the world of baseball where the song "God Bless America" has been added to the seventh inning stretch routine, where "Take Me Out to the Ballgame!" should rule the day. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. But truly, one does see parallels between the frightened Germany of the 1930s and the frightened America of the post-9/11 era.

Back to Bernie Gunther. Bernie is a former policeman, now a private investigator who specializes in finding missing persons. This seems a formidable task in a Berlin where people are regularly made to disappear by the state, but Bernie has developed a network of friends and snitches who can be depended on to assist him.

He is approached by a millionaire businessman, Hermann Six, who wants him to investigate the deaths of his only daughter and son-in-law. The two were shot to death in their bed and their house then torched. The door to a safe in their bedroom where some sensitive documents and some valuable diamonds were kept was found opened and the safe cleaned out. Bernie's task is to find the documents and diamonds and, maybe, find out what happened and why.

The story gets very convoluted. There are red herring characters who seem to serve absolutely no purpose. There are hints of government corruption and of organized crime, but it is extremely hard (at least it was for me) to sort this all out and make sense of it. At one point, Bernie is sent to Dachau which is just as horrific as you would imagine. In short, it seems that everything including the kitchen sink has been thrown into this story.

Another quibble I had with the book was the language. Bernie constantly talks in tough-guy detective patois. A gun is a "lighter." (Why?) A safe is a "nut" and a safecracker is a "nutcracker" - which actually makes a bit of sense, I suppose. In describing a hangover, he says that his mouth feels like he has a "whore's drawers" in it. He seems incapable of speaking a simple, straight declarative sentence. Some readers find that the language lends verisimilitude to the story - German-speaker being translated into English - but a little bit of colorful metaphor goes a long way with me. It began to wear on my nerves after about a hundred pages.

This series is highly rated and praised by many critics and readers, including my husband who is not an easy grader. Kerr is sometimes favorably compared to Raymond Chandler. One can't judge a series by the first book. They often get better as the series progresses. March Violets was okay, but it may be that I'll find the later books more interesting. When I get around to reading them.

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Feb 27, 2012 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Trevor by: Arto

Shelves: mystery-crime, historical-fiction

March Violets is the first in a series of noir mysteries set in Germany around WWII (this first novel is set in 1936). Its protagonist, Bernie Gunther, is a private eye with a cynical sense of humour and a penchant for getting beaten up by Nazis (if this was a movie, you could make a great drinking game by taking a shot each time Bernie gets smacked). Bernie takes on a case of stolen jewels that unfolds into a complicated web of conspiracies. As his investigations take him from lowlife criminals...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Cliff rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

The first book of a series whose main character, Bernie Gunther, is a private detective in 1936 Berlin. The novel is hard-boiled in the sense that Bernie is contemptuous of authority and is a man of action, and noir in the sense that there is a great deal of violence described with dark humour.

The geographic and historical settings are detailed and convincing with real people, institutions and events (Goering, Heydrich, the 1936 Olympics, Dachau) written into the plot. Kerr has a real gift for o...more The first book of a series whose main character, Bernie Gunther, is a private detective in 1936 Berlin. The novel is hard-boiled in the sense that Bernie is contemptuous of authority and is a man of action, and noir in the sense that there is a great deal of violence described with dark humour.

The geographic and historical settings are detailed and convincing with real people, institutions and events (Goering, Heydrich, the 1936 Olympics, Dachau) written into the plot. Kerr has a real gift for original descriptive prose and he is not parsimonious in using it. Figures of speech, often very funny, but not always in the best of taste, are layed on with a trowel. Example: 'Sullen youths, each one of them with a roll-up hanging in ashes from his thin lips like a trail of shit from a bowl-bored gold fish, buttressed the ragged corners of gloomy alleyways'. I enjoyed this aspect of his writing for its inventiveness but it's clear from other reviews that it really grates with some readers, and I can understand how it can be perceived as excessive and repetitive.

The problem for me, and it was enough to prevent me from finishing the book, is that the episodes in the plot, and the characters involved, proliferate so rapidly that the thread of the central mystery is quickly obscured. To me it became just a loosely connected sequence of action scenes. The characters, and events, also lack consistency and credibility. Characters who are described as hammering nails into walls with their fists in one passage come across as blubbering infants in the next. Noir heroes are not supposed to be intellectuals, but Bernie is so dumb (repeatedly putting others in danger and fluffing opportunities to take the cash and run) that it is hard to see him surviving for a week in a welfare state, let alone in one of the most ruthlessly repressive states in history.

A great read if you can just let the action and atmosphere carry you along and enjoy the racy and original prose, but definitely a no-no if you expect your mysteries to have some semblance of plot.
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Oct 08, 2011 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, noir, historical

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I thought this was an outstanding novel and certainly one of the best things I've read this year. But then for me Nazis + Noir is a pretty open goal. Bernie Gunther is a wonderfully drawn character, even if his readiness with a one-liner, his anti-establishment credentials and his obsession with sex make him a fairly typical protagonist for the genre. Similarly the plot is straight out of the Raymond Chandler playbook, although the narrative is convoluted enough to still contain some surprises.

T...more I thought this was an outstanding novel and certainly one of the best things I've read this year. But then for me Nazis + Noir is a pretty open goal. Bernie Gunther is a wonderfully drawn character, even if his readiness with a one-liner, his anti-establishment credentials and his obsession with sex make him a fairly typical protagonist for the genre. Similarly the plot is straight out of the Raymond Chandler playbook, although the narrative is convoluted enough to still contain some surprises.

The novel's real strength however is obviously the setting and Kerr does a remarkable job of conjuring the seedy, decadent underbelly of pre-War Berlin. In particular, I enjoyed the way in which the political backdrop takes more and more of the central stage as the novel progresses: initially the Nazis are seen by Bernie as an irritation, almost like a phenomenon that will pass if people can weather it out, but as the investigation continues and Bernie becomes more enmeshed in the machinations of the Party, it is clear that the whole narrative is really a microcosm for the changes happening to German society in the 1930s. This is shockingly underlined in the unexpected closing sections of the book when Bernie finds himself a prisoner at Dachau and finally witnesses the reality of the Nazi party's vision for Germany. When he returns he is a broken man and the country is a changed place, far from that sketched out in the opening paragraph of the book, where the regime is still keen to hide its worst excesses from the world in the run up to the Olympics.

Most effective of all though in conveying this sense of desperation and powerlessness as the Nazis' grip tightens is the sub-plot with Bernie's assistant Inge, who disappears suddenly in the final third of the novel without trace or explanation. I'm guessing that she probably makes a comeback in later novels (or maybe not), but I found this unexpected twist genuinely moving in the context of this one. Bernie is unable to discover what has happened to her and she thus becomes a poignant metaphor for all those others that were spirited away by the Gestapo at this time.

Reading other reviews, a few people seem to have objected to the fact that Bernie encounters so many historical figures in the course of his investigation. I don't particularly understand this criticism - I can see how it could be slightly distracting, but really there doesn't seem much point in setting the novel in 1930s Berlin if this isn't what is going to happen. Additionally, like the best Noir, the point is to shine a light on society and if you've set your story in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, then your protagonist is basically obliged in that context to get his hands dirty with key Nazi figures.

My one criticism was really more of a question mark over Bernie's portrayal as a misogynist. It is very clear throughout the narrative that although he might display a paternalistic affection for many of the women in his life, nevertheless he does tend to objectify them and to think about them first and foremost in terms of whether or not he would have sex with them. And that's fine in some ways because firstly he does live in a decade when these sorts of attitudes were presumably very unremarkable and it would be dishonest of the author to pretend that a presumably working class ex-policeman turned PI somehow bucked this trend. Secondly, it is a Noir, the protagonist has to be flawed, has to have a dark side, and we can't root for him 100% and maybe this is Kerr's way of making us question Bernie a little bit.

Having said that, and with the caveat that I generally hesitate to read too much of an author's politics into their fiction, particularly fiction that is written in the first-person, nevertheless Bernie's misogyny is constantly emphasised without there really being any kind of pay-off. You would expect that maybe given this emphasis, Bernie's misogyny would serve as his comeuppance at some point, even if only in a small way, but it never really does and I was therefore left wondering why he was portrayed in this way at all. It isn't the case that this aspect of his character is mentioned a couple of times and then forgotten either: it seems to be consistent theme. These issues are always complex though and it isn't like Noir to wrap everything up in a neat little bundle for its hand-wringing readership. And possibly this is something that is dealt with in the sequels, so I don't want to read too much into it, just sound a cautionary note as, understandably, some people won't be able to shrug off the sexual politics.

Basically though, I absolutely loved this and can't wait to get into the sequels.

EDIT: I've read through a few of the slightly more negative reviews and some of them are baffling. In particular there are objections to the following simile: "She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom" (71). I can't see a problem with this one to be honest. It's striking (I have a terrible memory for this sort of thing, but I do actually remember reading this particular simile) and it tells us something about Bernie - he is obsessed with sex and that is what he thinks of when he looks at a woman's mouth. Additionally, the simile seems entirely in keeping with the voice of a cynical, misogynist PI. He isn't a poet after all. The purpose of simile isn't to create pretty images for the reader and you do have to make a distinction between the author's voice and the voice of his character.

Some people objected to the overuse of similes in general. All I kind say to that is please read some Raymond Chandler - this was very restrained for the genre.

Someone else didn't like being shocked by the scene in Dachau because it was too horrific (!). I thought this was the most effective part of the novel. It was really the pay-off. Otherwise it would have been an enjoyable, but fairly run-of-the-mill historical Noir. Mainly though I'm baffled by the idea that you would pick up a Noir novel revolving around the Nazi Party in pre-War Berlin and not expect to be shocked and horrified at some point. It isn't likely to be cozy escapism, is it? I would be disappointed if I *wasn't* shocked as it would probably indicate to me that the author hadn't really done the subject justice.

It is funny how quickly real historical events can become undifferentiated from fictional narratives in people's minds, even when the ramifications of those events are still reverberating in everyone's lives.(less)

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May 14, 2012 Frank Friesacher rated it 5 of 5 stars

I didn't have much familiarity for or appreciation of the mystery genre until a few years ago when I became acquainted with the works of John D. MacDonald (I know have what I can only assume to be one of the most complete collection of his works in town, and am working my way through his Travis McGee books). I was floored by how MacDonald included profound insights into the human condition as part of a mystery series, thereby elevating the work beyond its genre and into great literature.
Some of...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Judy by: Anne

Shelves: 2012-reads, audiobook-e-book, germany, mystery, fiction

I liked this book. Why is that shocking? Let me count the reasons.

(1) I'm no fan of series, so I rarely read a book if I know it is part of one.
(2) I get tired of reading about Hitler, WWII, and Nazis.
(3) I'm burned out on detective mysteries because they are normally too formulaic.
(4) Most books of this type don't explore cultures, traditions and the like to my satisfaction.

March Violets pulled off a feat I didn't know was possible...mixed humor into Nazi Germany without being offensive. Detec...more

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Nov 15, 2008 Arthur rated it 4 of 5 stars

Set in 1936 Nazi Germany during the Olympics, this first of Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy delivers some serious Mickey Spillane-type punch. The simile-loaded murder mystery features Bernard Gunther, an ex-cop private investigator, who is hired to track down a diamond necklace nabbed during a murder arson. The plotting is deft, the language is taut, and the punches aren't pulled. A bit too much driving around Berlin, but that's the genre.

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Jul 09, 2012 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-noir

A Brit writing about a Kraut who talks like a Yank who worships Chandler. The heavy-handed mixture almost stangled this one in the tub for me, but the protag PI's willigness to piss off stuffed Brown-shirts and to admit his fears about the inevitable blow-back gradually won me over. The plot got a bit too convoluted for me, but Kerr was at his best when describing the political atmosphere and, especially, conditions in early days of Dachau, when it was still primarily a one-way detention center...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Brendan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, adventure-thriller, fiction, mystery, politics

Bernie Gunther has it harder than most. Like all good noir private eyes, he’s an honest, if disillusioned, man living in a corrupt world. But where Philip Marlowe or Michael Shayne just have to deal with corrupt city officials, Gunther has to navigate mid-1930s Nazi Germany, and boy is it tough. So when a missing persons case turns into a murder involving the highest levels of the party, Gunther needs all his wits to stay ahead of the jackboots. A few thoughts:

I came to like Gunther more as the...more Bernie Gunther has it harder than most. Like all good noir private eyes, he’s an honest, if disillusioned, man living in a corrupt world. But where Philip Marlowe or Michael Shayne just have to deal with corrupt city officials, Gunther has to navigate mid-1930s Nazi Germany, and boy is it tough. So when a missing persons case turns into a murder involving the highest levels of the party, Gunther needs all his wits to stay ahead of the jackboots. A few thoughts:

I came to like Gunther more as the book went on, but in the beginning I didn’t like him very much at all. He’s a smartass with a womanizing eye but where Chandler’s Marlowe felt fresh, Gunther feels distinctly recycled in the same suit. Once things heat up, though, and he has to navigate the treacherous waters between the police force and the SS, the novel gets a lot more interesting.
Assuming Kerr’s research to be accurate, March Violets highlights the way the overwhelming need for public image drove people to pretend they agreed with the Nazis more than they actually did. The public danger of violence encourages meek people to stay/ be meek.
The title refers to the people who joined up after some of the famous public violence events after the Nazis took power. Gunther lives a life in rebellion, having quit the police force in protest of the political hirings and firings. He mouths off a lot and it gets him in trouble. It’s interesting how the rise of fascism gave little bits of brutal anthill authority to petty tyrants throughout the country.
Really depressing was the beginning of the novel, in which we learn that Bernie’s caseload consists mostly of missing persons cases, and as often as not his subjects end up dead in the river, shot by the Gestapo. It highlights the absolute fear playing through the whole country, especially among progressives opposed to Nazi rule. There’s also a grim scene where he laments the low prices jewelers are giving to people preparing to flee the country.
A concentration camp makes a brief appearance in the novel, and while I was dubious about using such a structure for part of the fictional world, it reminds the reader, again, of many of the awful living conditions in the work camps.

In the end, I thought the novel was much better as it concluded than it was at the start. An interesting read.(less)

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Apr 17, 2013 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, germany, noir, mystery, world-war-2

This is a case in which the first in a great series has significant flaws, but represents an essential read to set the context and history of the lead character.

PI Bernie Gunther makes a pretty good business tracking down people who have disappeared. That most of them are found to have been permanently disappeared by Nazi or communist factions is a sign of the times, Berlin in 1936. Out of the blue he gets tasked for a job by a wealthy steel magnate, the recovery of an expensive diamond brooch t...more This is a case in which the first in a great series has significant flaws, but represents an essential read to set the context and history of the lead character.

PI Bernie Gunther makes a pretty good business tracking down people who have disappeared. That most of them are found to have been permanently disappeared by Nazi or communist factions is a sign of the times, Berlin in 1936. Out of the blue he gets tasked for a job by a wealthy steel magnate, the recovery of an expensive diamond brooch taken during the murder of his daughter and her husband. Though he is supposed to leave the murder aspect aside for the police, he can’t help it that finding the jewelry requires him to investigate the possibility that the theft was a side issue to murder driven by typical motives such as jealousy, political competition, or cover-up of some corrupt scheme.

The clues he turns up takes him down all these paths, and leads him on a fascinating tour of German society on the verge of war. Not everyone was obsessed with racial purity or surviving the oppression. People were trying to live their lives despite Hitler, and many others were “March Violets”, those who “jump on the Party wagon and riding it to make a quick profit.” People have a lot to hide, and poor Bernie gets beat up or nearly killed a lot. But he has a thick skin to go with his devious mind, and the alignment of justice and personal revenge drives him to keep going. He’s pretty much a lech, which leads him to trysts whenever the opportunity comes up.

Thus, you can see a classic noir plot in an unusual setting of Nazi Germany. I loved the combination, especially when it brings Bernie’s cynical outlook to deflate the grandiose and evil among the Nazis down to the level of pompous and greedy. Cameos of nefarious people in this tale include Goering, who hired him briefly to determine the fate of his gay art buyer, and Heydrich, who forces him to take on a dangerous undercover task. The latter is the start of a relationship that sets his path in subsequent books in the series, of which I have only read one.

Aside from limitations in the depth of Kerr’s new hero in this book, the biggest writing sin is the excessive use of Chanderesque similes. They are just too painful and distracting. Luckily he toned it down in later books. This small set should give you a clear picture:

Fatso pulled the huge brown-and-black moustache that clung to his curling lip like a bat on a crypt wall.

I drove home feeling like a ventriloquist’s mouth ulcer.

He adjusted his grip on the gun, and swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple tossing around like a honeymoon couple under a thin pink sheet.

Tesmer pointed a face at me in which belligerence was moulded like cornice-work on a Gothic folly.

They both had cool patient eyes, like mussels in brine.

He had mustard coloured hair, coifed by a competition sheep-shearer, and a nose like a champaign cork.

…she’d evidently been wearing a boxing glove when she applied the crimson lipstick to her paperclip of her mouth. Her breasts were like the rear ends of a pair of dray horses at the end of a long hard day.
(less)

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Apr 23, 2012 Julie Barrett rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-2012, mysteries

I am so glad I read about this author on NPR. This was a great hard-boiled mystery. Like Raymond Chandler mixed with Nazis! Which is a winning combination in my mind. The book is set in the summer of 36, when Berlin was hosting the Olympics. The protagonist is a hard-drinking, sarcastic ex-cop. Of course. Because this is a hard-boiled mystery. The mystery itself involves murder, arson, safe-cracking, jewel thieves, blackmail, union-busting, adultery, torture, and political jockeying between uber...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Thylacoleo_carnifex rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pues me acerqué a este libro con cierto resquemor a pesar de ser una recomendación de las buenas :p Pero para mi sorpresa, desde la página 1, la cosa pintó muy bien.
Y el mérito principalmente lo tiene ese detective contestón, sarcástico y con muy malos modos, que es el protagonista principal. Como el mismo autor reconoce por boca de sus personajes es un remedo de los detectives de Dashiell Hammett. Pero no por éso es peor que sus colegas americanos.

La trama es ágil y engancha. Además el contexto...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Wayne Zurl rated it 4 of 5 stars

A friend who normally recommends books I don't like suggested this. His first home run. I liked it. This is first adventure in Kerr's Bernard Gunther series. The complicateed but easy to follow plot is set in 1936 Berlin when every citizen lived in fear of the Nazi machine. Bernie Gunther is an ex-KRIPO (Kriminal Polizei) detective and now private investigator who is hired by a steel magnate and his insurance company to find a priceless neckless and the killers of his daughter and son-in-law who...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Francis rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have to say I was disappointed in this book. First, because I had previously read another book in this series which lead to a case of expectations set too high.

I thought the author did a good job describing the time and the place; Germany in the late 1930's soon after Hitler and the Nazi party had taken control of the German Government. Seediness, cynicism, and a sense of fear spill out from ever page but the story still doesn't seem to work. It's too convoluted and too improbable. It's as if...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Bev Hankins rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-mystery, mcpl-book, thriller, hardboiled

I discovered March Violets by Philip Kerr when I was looking for a mystery either set in Germany or written by a German author for the Crime Fiction on a Europass Challenge. One thing I found while researching was that it would seem that the hands-down winner for German crime fiction is the Third Reich era. So many of the of the novels mentioned out on the internet take place in Nazi Germany or involve spy thrillers during the World War II era. March Violets is no different.

Set during the rise o...more I discovered March Violets by Philip Kerr when I was looking for a mystery either set in Germany or written by a German author for the Crime Fiction on a Europass Challenge. One thing I found while researching was that it would seem that the hands-down winner for German crime fiction is the Third Reich era. So many of the of the novels mentioned out on the internet take place in Nazi Germany or involve spy thrillers during the World War II era. March Violets is no different.

Set during the rise of the Nazi party, this is Kerr's debut novel of a series of crime stories set in Germany. According to the blurb: Scottish-born Kerr re-creates the period accurately and with verve; the novel reeks of the sordid decade that saw Hitler's rise to power. Bernhard Gunther is a hard-boiled Berlin detective who specializes in tracking down missing persons--mostly Jews. He is summoned wealthy industrialist, Herr Six, to find the murderer of his daughter and son-in-law, killed during the robbery of a priceless diamond necklace. Gunther quickly is catapulted into a major political scandal involving Hitler's two main henchmen, Goering and Himmler. The search for clues takes Gunther to morgues overflowing with Nazi victims; raucous nightclubs; the Olympic games where Jesse Owens tramples the theory of Aryan racial superiority; the boudoir of a famous actress; and finally to the Dachau concentration camp. Fights with Gestapo agents, shoot-outs with adulterers, run-ins with a variety of criminals, and dead bodies in unexpected places keep readers guessing to the very end.

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of noir fiction or hard-boiled detectives but the synopsis of this book reeled me right in. And, for the most part, I'm glad it did. The period atmosphere is perfect. Almost too perfect, because let's face it Nazi Germany was a very depressing place to be if you have any moral scruples at all. The narrative style is marvelous. Bernie is a tough-guy private eye that I love despite not loving tough-guy private eyes. The twists and turns of the plot are convincing and they pull you in and keep you there. So, what you may ask is the part that makes you not so glad? Two things. One: I am well aware that the hard-boiled school tends to live on ridiculous metaphors. But, seriously, Bernie has more metaphors than a coon hound has fleas. (See? It's rubbed off!) And some of them are down-right horrible. Here are just two examples: "Her breasts were like rear ends of a couple of dray horses at the end of a long hard day." and "She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom." Two: The penultimate scenes were a bit brutal. Heck, they were a lot brutal. That put me off a bit. Of course, I also realize that situations in Nazi Germany were a great deal more brutal than that. But it did take me by surprise.

I would like to continue reading this series. There are loose ends left at the "wrap-up" of this one that I'm curious to see how Kerr ties them up. I think I'll have to wait a bit for another dose of the mean streets of Germany, though. Three and a half stars.(less)

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March Violets (Bernard Gunther #1)

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