If The Dead Rise Not (Bernard Gunther, #6)

Apr 24, 2013 Wayne Zurl rated it 4 of 5 stars

IF THE DEAD RISE NOT by Philip Kerr

I’ve said it before and stand by my previous statement. Philip Kerr’s Bernie Günther is the German Philip Marlowe. Kerr has the knack to pull off a top-shelf hard-boiled detective story with the best of them.

In this installment, Bernie goes beyond Marlowe and because of all the true life characters we see have crossed his path, we could also call him the German Harry Flashman.

This story begins in Berlin in 1934. Günther, a former homicide cop, is now a cynica...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 4 of 5 stars

If The Dead Rise Not is a solid addition to the series, but in my view is not quite as good as some of the others in the series (which given the very high standard of the previous books is always going to be a tough challenge). The dialogue was, as ever, sharp and often caustic and very funny. The characterisation was excellent. The story was interesting. My issue was with pacing and coincidence. For me the 1934 period of the book, which was effectively the back story for 1954 period, was too lo...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Or the continuing trials and tribulations of Bernie Gunther. This one goes back in time to Gunther's time with the Berlin police. Or rather, just after he's left the police and is working as house detective for the Hotel Adlon. A rich American woman, a writer and journalist, hires him as a bodyguard. Gunther has already been asked to consult on the murder of a man found in a canal with lungs full of sea water. But when the corpse is identified as that of a Jew, the police cease investigating. Th...more

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May 15, 2012 Tom Vater rated it 5 of 5 stars

Superior Nazi pulp from Philip Kerr. This British writer has a great attitude to the history of WWII and his protagonist, the German cop Bernie Gunther, who gets screwed through seven books set between the 1930s and the 1950s so far, by the Nazis, the Russians, the CIA, Jewish assassination squads, the Batista Cubans, American gangsters and several attractive femmes fatales, is one of a kind - a sort of hapless Marlowe who floats through Europe's darkest bit of recent history so busy looking aft...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Darrell Reimer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Those of us who prefer our Galahads well-bloodied can't do much better than Philip Kerr's Nazi-era Berlin gumshoe, Bernie Gunther. I've read all the books, but the litany of torment is so extensive I've lost track of what happened when. Has Gunther survived the deaths of two wives, or only one? Certainly a veritable harem of girlfriends awaits him in Purgatory. Not that he's troubled by such a prospect. Surviving the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, including a short stay in Dachau and the sordid...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Lucinda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If the Dead Rise Not (UK 2009, Putman 2010), finds Bernie Gunther working as a hotel detective in Berlin in 1934, after leaving the police force because of the growing intolerance precipitated by the emerging Nazi party. The seemingly routine theft of a Chinese box from a German-American hotel guest visiting from New York becomes more complex as Bernie investigates and discovers it was recently stolen from a museum. When Bernie uncovers a link between the theft and the German campaign to foresta...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Jake rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-detective

Much of my desire to read Philip Kerr's Bernard Gunther series stems from pure voyeurism (as I assume it does for many). Kerr does such an excellent job of painting a picture of Nazi-era Berlin/Germany and the other locales he writes about that the historical content alone is worth the price of admission (reading the Adlon stuff was fascinating).

This was the 6th Gunther book, I've read them all in order. Had this been my first, I might have given it 5 stars. Instead, I gave it 3. Why? Because it...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Jim Leffert rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book actually gets 3 1/2 stars from this reader. I went straight from the third Bernie Gunther novel to the sixth and most recent volume, bypassing, four and five, for now. Here’s another morally complex noir crime story involving the former Weimar-era homicide detective, who played along with the Nazis—but only up to a point--to survive. This book actually tells two connected stories. The first (similar to the first novel, March Violets) takes place in the early days of the Nazi regime, in...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Barry Willdorf rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who have read Kerr's earlier books

Recommended to Barry by: no one

If The Dead Rise Not,
Phillip Kerr

I read this book because I am a Phillip Kerr fan and a Bernie Gunther fan. I say that in the present tense despise my disappointment with this one.

I like noir. I expect there to be a wise-cracking, fast thinking private detective who can give and take a punch. Up to this point Bernie Gunther has filled that bill. His set-up, Nazi Berlin plus immediate post-war Germany, is perfect for the genre. Bernie’s amoral. Apolitical. Hard-boiled on the outside, but embarra...more If The Dead Rise Not,
Phillip Kerr

I read this book because I am a Phillip Kerr fan and a Bernie Gunther fan. I say that in the present tense despise my disappointment with this one.

I like noir. I expect there to be a wise-cracking, fast thinking private detective who can give and take a punch. Up to this point Bernie Gunther has filled that bill. His set-up, Nazi Berlin plus immediate post-war Germany, is perfect for the genre. Bernie’s amoral. Apolitical. Hard-boiled on the outside, but embarrassingly decent on the inside.

You don’t start reading Phillip Kerr, or figuring out Bernie Gunther with this book. You have to work up to it by beginning with Kerr’s Berlin Noir Trilogy and moving along chronologically.

But there comes a point in literary series, just as there comes a point with TV shows, when its time to cancel. How can you tell? I think it’s when you, as a reader, begin to feel that the author is trying too hard. That’s how I felt reading this fifth in the series. There were too many metaphors, too many similes, too many wise-cracks per paragraph. We get a Gunther who seems as eager to wisecrack as a traffic cop is eager to make his quota of tickets. He is compelled to say something and though he’s insulting, rude, snide, pompous and/or outrageous, the rich or the powerful person he says it too always takes it. He delights in making enemies and seeks out trouble in a way that makes him unsympathetic when he reaps his due, but the shear volume and constancy of the badmouthed banter takes credence away from then character.

In many ways, the story related here is loaded with promise but never really seems to deliver. Somehow, with all the set-up in the first half, along with the absence of any really climactic moment, (I know the author intended for there to be one, but it just didn’t cut it in the satisfaction department.) I felt, as a reader, that I’d earned a bigger payoff in the second half of the book. I didn’t get it. I picked up the clues pretty much at the time they were dropped — and I’m not saying that to give myself a pat on the back. I think that most noir fans will have a pretty good idea of what Kerr is up to.

There’s also a lot of name-dropping that doesn’t impress me the way I think the author and his editors might have anticipated.

So it’s fair to say that while the read was entertaining, it lacked the freshness that the Gunther-type character brought to the noir detective genre in Kerr’s prior stories. Series books are like vacation spots. You visit them until you say to yourself, “been here, done that. It’s time to see another part of the world.” After reading this one, I stopped caring what happens to Bernie Gunther. I want to read about a different detective.
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Feb 05, 2011 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I heard about this, the latest Bernie Gunther mystery, on NPR. The author, Philip Kerr, has a great hook: Bernie's a German, investigating crimes in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi Party. I immediately thought of the great novels of Alan Furst and Martin Cruz Smith. When Alan Furst's characters set out to spy on, frustrate, and impede the Germans during the 1930s and 40s, or when Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko gets involved in a politically sensitive criminal investigation in Moscow during...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Rowland Bismark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If the Dead Rise Not is yet another novel featuring Bernie Gunther, a character Kerr has returned to repeatedly, beginning with the still unsurpassed Berlin Noir-trilogy that introduced him. The bulk of this installment is set in a Berlin gearing up for the Olympics, in 1934; at this time Bernie, no longer with the increasingly Nazified police, is the house detective at the fancy Hotel Adlon. The last third of the novel then jumps some two decades ahead, to 1954 Havana, which is where Bernie mov...more

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Apr 03, 2010 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Kerr, Philip. IF THE DEAD RISE NOT (A Bernie Gunther Novel). (2010). **. This is really two novels in one, probably because neither one of them was long enough to be a stand-alone. Kerr has written some truly great period detective novels, usually set in Berlin during the Nazi regime. This one starts out in Berlin in 1934, and Bernie has been kicked off the city police force because of his continuing loyalty to the old regime. He is now a house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel, the most expen...more Kerr, Philip. IF THE DEAD RISE NOT (A Bernie Gunther Novel). (2010). **. This is really two novels in one, probably because neither one of them was long enough to be a stand-alone. Kerr has written some truly great period detective novels, usually set in Berlin during the Nazi regime. This one starts out in Berlin in 1934, and Bernie has been kicked off the city police force because of his continuing loyalty to the old regime. He is now a house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel, the most expensive hotel in Berlin. Bernie is as wise-cracking as ever; in this book to a fault. His ultimate adventure at the Adlon is his encounter with the members of the Olympics Committee. Germany has secured the 1936 Olympiad for the city, but now the Americans are threatening to boycott it. Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, is in Berlin and will meet with Hitler to devise a plan to soft-pedal Nazi anti-Semitism and convince America to participate. Brundage, of course, will benefit by obtaining several very lucrative contracts. Bernie gets involved through a series of events that occur at the Adlon, where most of the key players stay during the discussions. There are thefts and unexplained deaths for him to work out. All of this gets him caught right in the middle of warring Nazi factions. This story takes us from page 3 to page 277 – all of it, supposedly background to the next part. Part two of the novel is set in Havana in 1954, and takes us to page 437. We find Bernie now in that city. He had to leave Germany under duress, and went to Buenos Aires for safety. Tossed out of that city, he is now in Cuba. At the time, Batista has just seized power – with the help of the CIA – and Castro is in prison. The American Mafia is rapidly taking control of Cuba’s gambling and prostitution industries and a lot of characters from Bernie’s past are running around. Bernie is trying to lead a life of peace and tranquility, but events just won’t let him be. He comes in contact with a vicious killer from his Berlin days who is murdered soon thereafter. The chief suspect is one of Bernie’s old lovers. With a little reworking, either part could have been a stand-alone novel, rather than a run-on sequel in one. Cutting back on Bernie’s snappy dialog would have helped, too.(less)

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Jan 28, 2013 Stephen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's easy to believe that the appeal of the Bernie Gunther series resides in its sincere imitation of Chandlerian noir. In the early novels, that was perhaps its only virtue, but Kerr proved in A German Requiem and The One From the Other that he was not only capable of assimilating other influences (notably Graham Greene) into his work, but also exploring the fascinating moral dilemmas of the Nazi and post-war worlds with great success.

At the end of the fourth novel, Kerr had Gunther flee Europe...more It's easy to believe that the appeal of the Bernie Gunther series resides in its sincere imitation of Chandlerian noir. In the early novels, that was perhaps its only virtue, but Kerr proved in A German Requiem and The One From the Other that he was not only capable of assimilating other influences (notably Graham Greene) into his work, but also exploring the fascinating moral dilemmas of the Nazi and post-war worlds with great success.

At the end of the fourth novel, Kerr had Gunther flee Europe for Latin America, a logical progression filled with novelistic possibilities. Yet Kerr has been loath to fully embrace this change of scene. Each book written since has been dominated by lengthy flashbacks to the Nazi period and a repetition of the same themes that dominated earlier books. This unwillingness to move on from the series' own history has sadly led to its deterioration.

The first two-thirds of If the Dead Rise Not are taken up by an extended flashback to 1930s Germany. At its close, the action resumes in Havana in 1954 where loose ends from the earlier story reappear for a final dénouement. The book's pacing is ruined as a result: the Berlin story feels like it serves no purpose and the conclusion in Havana feels rushed and anticlimactic.

Here is a dual nostalgia at work: both for the wisecracking P.I. anti-hero and the moral darkness of the Nazi setting. But Kerr has somehow managed to add a third kind of nostalgia since the exile from Europe: pure historical fetishism. Bernie Gunther had always improbably tangled with important historical figures but this coincidence is taken to new heights in the Havana section of If the Dead Rise Not when he stays in Ernest Hemingway's house, helps Castroist revolutionaries, and works for mobster Meyer Lansky. He frequents only landmarks that appear on picture postcards and rubs shoulders with Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. The book reads like a greatest hits of our collective memory of the 20th century. This fetishism for pop culture icons of the past extends even to the character of Gunther himself. Kerr has him namedrop every significant historical personality from Plato to Ossian in casual conversation, transforming him into an implausible übermensch with the instincts of an infantry grunt and the mind of a Caius don, every bit as ridiculous as the Nazi superman ideal he mocks.

Bernie Gunther has strayed far from his origins, when the detective story was paramount and the setting was only a backdrop that provided dramatic moral potential. The main character of the series is now historical pastiche itself. Gunther is merely the tour guide that directs the reader from each celebrity and famous event to the next.

It's time for this reader to move on.(less)

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Jun 12, 2012 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

I have enjoyed other rambles through Nazi Germany with Bernie Gunther but this is a let-down. This one takes a long time to settle to its central thread, and though the later jump in location was prepared in another book, to start a whole new polemic after nearly 300 pages was a test of one's interest. The discovery of an arms cache, and its subsequent use, felt like clumsy plotting to hasten the progress of a tale that was already sprawling untidily. The ending, when finally reached, felt someh...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Ruth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"c2009. Recommendation from the Times, if I remember correctly. First time that I have read Mr Kerr and I am impressed. I found the plot tight, fast moving and intriguing. I definitely enjoyed the humour and the descriptive skill. The tense atmosphere in the first part of the book is well maintained as is the uneasiness that must have been apparent during the rise of Hitler. The second part of the novel - 20 years later- was a good tactic with some of the loose ends tied up satisfactorily. The p...more "c2009. Recommendation from the Times, if I remember correctly. First time that I have read Mr Kerr and I am impressed. I found the plot tight, fast moving and intriguing. I definitely enjoyed the humour and the descriptive skill. The tense atmosphere in the first part of the book is well maintained as is the uneasiness that must have been apparent during the rise of Hitler. The second part of the novel - 20 years later- was a good tactic with some of the loose ends tied up satisfactorily. The protagonist, Bernie Gunther, is definitely not your normal run of the mill detective and interesting how the so called hero can be, at the same time, a flawed character somehow mirroring the crimes that he supposed to be solving but in the name of ""right"". I did find some of the plotting - especially in the latter half of the book - to be a little weak and not so believable but this did not really detract from the quality of the writing. ""It was my job to keep an eye on the guests, and whenever I saw Mrs. Charalambides in and around the hotel, I kept all eight of them on her, waiting for her to brush against the silken thread that marked the outer limits of my darker, spidery world."" ""They tried to make it seem more glamorous by wearing some thoughtfully placed sequins and triangles, but the result was much the same: it was bacon with cheese on top, however you cooked it."" This is the 6th novel to feature Bernie and the brief mentions of his past in the latter half of this book, are keeping true to the previous books in the series. In an interview with Yuri Prasad printed in The Socialist Worker, Mr Kerr had this to say, ""The novels have always been a way for me to explain what happened, and as a result historical credibility is of paramount importance. Details are very important. They're small spots of colour that mean very little close up but when you take several steps back all those little spots of colour start to create a picture. I want to breathe and smell the city myself when I write about it. All of that helps me to make it feel real and to project my own imagination into Bernie's wide-brimmed hat.""

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Oct 12, 2012 Maria rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Deze roman over Bernie Gunther speelt zich af in het Berlijn van 1934 en het Cuba van 1954. Ik vond het wat tegenvallen: de grapjes niet altijd zo leuk of in ieder geval voor mij onbegrijpelijk, de gebeurtenissen soms wat voorspelbaar (view spoiler)of onwaarschijnlijk. Ook vond ik het taalgebruik soms niet zo geweldig maar dat kan ook aan de vertaling liggen? Wat vinden jullie bijvoorbeeld van deze vergelijking: ‘het café was zo oud dat...more

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Aug 01, 2011 F.R. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Do Germans actually have pantomimes in the same way the British do?

Is the phrase “let sleeping dogs lie” one which exists in German as well as English?

Philip Kerr’s novel inadvertently raises these questions. It’s something which – I suppose – is always possible when an English author writes a first-person narration from the point of view of a character from a completely different cultural tradition (in this case an ex-cop in Nazi Germany). Firstly, our hero notes that he and his companion are a...more Do Germans actually have pantomimes in the same way the British do?

Is the phrase “let sleeping dogs lie” one which exists in German as well as English?

Philip Kerr’s novel inadvertently raises these questions. It’s something which – I suppose – is always possible when an English author writes a first-person narration from the point of view of a character from a completely different cultural tradition (in this case an ex-cop in Nazi Germany). Firstly, our hero notes that he and his companion are as inconspicuous as a pantomime horse, but is that not an English tradition? Would that really be an analogy that exists to a German speaker? Similarly he uses the phrase ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ – but that is an old English expression, does it really translate that literally into German? Or would there be some other similar-meaning phrase which would be used instead? Okay, perhaps I’m being unfair on the second one, as by the time Gunther observes “it gives truth to the expression let sleeping does lie”, he has learnt English – and so one could argue that that truism is something he’s picked up in his new vocabulary. But I found it jarring nonetheless. I was quite prepared to believe the setting of 1934 Berlin, and later on 1954 Havana, but found odd moments like that disturbed me from the fantasy. All of a sudden, it became an Englishman relating this tale – not a German private detective – and the whole picture became fuzzier around the edges.

The last time I met Bernie Gunther, he was a cop in post-war Berlin. This time he is an ex-cop in pre-war Berlin (thrown out because he won’t swear allegiance to the Nazis). In his job as a hotel detective, he meets a glamorous American, a gangster on a business vacation and a couple of copses. These strands will not be truly resolved until twenty years later in Cuba – where Gunther finds himself living under a false identity – and the tale builds to a genuinely surprising ending.

As befits a tale in the Chandler-esque tradition, there are the glib, cutting and throwaway remarks (as well as being a good sleuth, your true detective also has to be incredibly witty). But that’s probably the main area where Kerr falls down, as his attempts at that kind of joke are frequently lazy. There is the cultural tone-deafness mentioned above, but others which really should have had a polish. For example, in early chapters he mentions a fat man who has more chins than a Chinese phonebook – now that might have been witty in 1934, yet clearly can’t pass the muster in a novel published in 2010.

But then maybe that’s a quibble. Kerr certainly needs to try harder in that area, but for the most part this is a well paced and exciting thriller, with genuinely surprising and interesting twists and turns.(less)

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Mar 17, 2013 Speesh rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: between-the-wars

This is the first Philip Kerr book I have read. I am, for some unfathomable reason, interested in the period in Europe and Germany in particular, between the First and Second World wars.

I enjoyed 'If The Dead Rise Not', not least because it felt like it was adding some nuances of colour to a previously black and white dominated memory world. I feel like, that because there wasn't - so much - colour film around in those days, when we now read about those days, during and just before WWII, our ima...more This is the first Philip Kerr book I have read. I am, for some unfathomable reason, interested in the period in Europe and Germany in particular, between the First and Second World wars.

I enjoyed 'If The Dead Rise Not', not least because it felt like it was adding some nuances of colour to a previously black and white dominated memory world. I feel like, that because there wasn't - so much - colour film around in those days, when we now read about those days, during and just before WWII, our imagination is in black and white. What I'm clumsily trying to say, is that now, writers like Philip Kerr are bringing subtle colours into the previously faded, sepia-toned black and white photo memories.

The story centers around a German ex-Police Detective called Bernie Gunther. The book begins in 1934 and if you know your German history, it is only a year or so since the Nazis came to power. If you really know your German history, you will know that the Third Reich removed the Weimar Republic and after the Nazis came to power, Germany became an extremely unpleasant place to be for Jews, Communists and everyone else the Nazis didn't like, which included previous supporters of the Weimar Republic. Like Bernie Gunther. As the book starts, Gunther is working as a private detective of sorts at a big hotel in Berlin. He becomes involved in investigating a couple of murders, which lead him to uncover, or at least suspect, a plot to siphon money from the building of the Olympic Games facilities for 1936. He gets involved with two of the hotel's guests and their paths cross many times, for good and bad and again much later, 20-odd years later, when he has ended up in Cuba, in the years before the revolution there.

As a description of the character of Bernie Gunther, I can't do better than the Daily Telegraph's "In Bernie Gunther, Kerr has created a plum example of that irresistible folk hero, the detective who is the only honorable man in a wicked world"

Interestingly enough, it just so happened that I was reading 'The Coming of the Third Reich' by Richard J. Evans at the same time as reading this. The first part deals with the events leading up to the Nazis coming to power. So I can confirm, as much as I'm sure confirmation was needed, that all facts are present and correct. Philip Kerr uses the situation in Germany, to show how ordinary people reacted to the extraordinary situations they now found themselves in. In some it brings out the good, in others it of course created the perfect place for the free reign of the bad. Whilst some of his characters are, at least in part, Jewish, this isn't a story about the Jewish situation. Probably as this is a subject best covered elsewhere. Obviously the anti-Jewish aspects of the Nazi's regime even in their early days, is touched upon (as it is unavoidable in a story set in Europe in this period), though it isn't the main motivation for his characters' actions. The characters here are by and large reasonably ordinary people, dealing with an extraordinary situation and doing what a lot of people must have done while their masters were playing politics with their lives; just getting on with it.

If there absolutely has to be a 'but' within my enjoyment of this book, and I fear there absolutely has to be, it is the almost constant wisecracking. Both in what Bernie Gunther says and thinks. I sometimes thought it was a little too much. I'm not saying, that there wouldn't have been a lot of black humour at the time, as Germans in general and perhaps especially the Berlin urban sophisticates Philip Kerr writes about, came to terms with what they'd let themselves in for, by either voting for, or not resisting enough (as Kerr writes: "Quite a few of them (Nazis) ... Seemed to have a flair for persuading Germans to go against their own common sense"). On the positive side, I got a sense that his characters joked about life to alleviate their current situation, with perhaps the underlying hope that 'it can't go on like this, it can't last' and I'm sure that was a real feeling. Black humour would be understandable and perhaps necessary to retain your sanity and I'm guessing that because everything else has been so obviously well-researched, he has also researched and found that this amount of wise-cracking, from big-city Germans throughout Berlin, is authentic. However, sometimes it feelt too much. Sometimes it feels more like Philip Kerr has written it in because he, Philip Kerr, liked writing it, more than 'Bernie Gunther' would have either had the character to say it, or have found it necessary, or that its inclusion helps the plot development. It is enjoyable to read and I'm not saying it wouldn't have been the case, or that all Germans did, or do, fit their stereotype as humourless automatons. I found it a little distracting on occasions.

I was also not entirely sure why the story ended to move some 20 years into the future to 1954. Obviously, by mentioning what has happened to the main characters - who somewhat fortuitously have all found themselves on Cuba at exactly the same time - in half dozen lines at a time flashbacks, does save a lot of time (ours' and the author's) and space, but why, wasn't entirely clear to me. Maybe because two of the people involved in the German part of the story are American. Or maybe I missed something.

On the whole positive, with a few negatives. So I'm giving it a rating a little over half way and enough to make me trying others by Philip Kerr.

As a final thought, I wouldn't have thought it a bad idea, to have added a bibliography at the end. I'm sure his research material would make equally interesting reading. For people like me anyway.(less)

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Jun 16, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: july-aug-2010

Favorably compared to the World War II espionage novels of Alan Furst (The Foreign Correspondent, The Spies of Warsaw) and the work of hard-boiled legends Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Philip Kerr reprises the Bernie Gunther saga with true fidelity to his detective's noir roots. The Berlin Noir novels (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, A German Requiem), a trilogy published nearly 20 years ago, are known in crime circles but woefully neglected by mainstream readers. With If the Dead Rise...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Carolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another very good entry in Philip Kerr's series of historical crime novels featuring Bernie Gunther, this wonderfully vivid, achingly romantic novel connects events in Bernie's life that take place in Germany in 1934 with events that occur in Havana in 1954. Bernie always seems to find his way into the presence of historical dictators, corrupt officials and mobsters, and the events of this book are no exception. What's fascinating about If the Dead Rise Not and about all of Gunther's adventures...more

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Apr 05, 2010 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, bernie-gunther

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 20, 2011 Evelyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the sixth of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series (to date there are a total of 7 books in the series). Gunther is a terrific creation, a decent if hard-boiled German detective, an independent thinker who refuses to toe anyone's line, yet consistently manages to survive a variety of intrigues and frame-ups. Gunther fought in and survived WWI, watched the Nazis come to power in pre-WWII Germany, steadfastly refused to join the party as it took control of his homeland, yet by staying 10 ste...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Chip rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, historical-fiction

Good, but I preferred the first half over the second, and the ending was a bit lazy - Kerr is far too good to wrap things up with the standard two page exposition of whodunit as for some reason he did here. Still, well worth the read. Some classic Kerr Guenterisms: "[s]he went back to her hometown of Danzig, which was either a city in Poland or a free city in old Prussia, depending on how you looked at it. I preferred not to look at it, just like I preferred not to look at a lot of things in the...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: espionage, mysteries

After six Bernie Gunther mysteries, I've moved him into the realm of detectives I know and love and would follow anywhere, guys like Donna Leon's Commisario Brunetti or Mankell's Wallender. Gunther is funnier (or rather Kerr's narration is funnier), even while dealing with serious issues like the backwash of Nazism over the 20th Century landscape, the moral ambiguity of survival, the impossibility of love across the decades, and the persistence of evil. This episode is both a prequel and a seque...more

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May 18, 2011 Arthur rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bernie Gunther, honest ex-Berlin WWII era cop, surfaces, Zelig-like, in pre-Castro Havana. First, a flashback to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and a construction scandal involving Max Reles, an American mobster. In 1954 Bernie again meets Reles and has to find a murderer. There's a love interest.

Plot is fairly complex, but a lot of the action seems lifted from the Godfather movies. In my head, as I was reading the story, I kept hearing Humphrey Bogart delivering Bernie's lines. Bernie's wisecracking...more

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Jan 03, 2011 Elizabeth Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not everyone is as enthusiastic a thriller aficionado as I am, but if you are, read this one. I am going to quote from a back cover blurb because it is right on....."In terms of narrative, plot, pace and characterizations, he's in a league with John le Carre and Alan Furst..." and inside, from The Independent(London)....."Kerr's period detail is utterly convincing. The way in which he captures a lost Berlin on the brink of cataclysmic change is in turn poignant and gritty. The city and its citiz...more

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Mar 16, 2013 André Nuno rated it 3 of 5 stars

Esta narrativa decorre em dois períodos conturbados da história recente.
Em 1934 acompanhamos Bernie Gunther enquanto ele se enreda numa trama de corrupção ao mais alto nível que poderá mostrar-se muito perigosa para a sua própria saúde... A prossecução do objectivo de realizar com êxito os Jogos Olímpicos de 1936 dá azo a que toda uma espécie de criminosos inunde Berlim e se movimente ao mais alto nível.
Bernie conhece a bela Noreen Charalambides, uma morte ocorre no Hotel Adlon. Estão lançados...more Esta narrativa decorre em dois períodos conturbados da história recente.
Em 1934 acompanhamos Bernie Gunther enquanto ele se enreda numa trama de corrupção ao mais alto nível que poderá mostrar-se muito perigosa para a sua própria saúde... A prossecução do objectivo de realizar com êxito os Jogos Olímpicos de 1936 dá azo a que toda uma espécie de criminosos inunde Berlim e se movimente ao mais alto nível.
Bernie conhece a bela Noreen Charalambides, uma morte ocorre no Hotel Adlon. Estão lançados os dados para o início de mais uma aventura do nosso ex-polícia alemão.

Em 1954 vamos à Cuba de Fulgêncio Batista - Fidel está preso - encontrar Gunther passados 20 anos onde irá re-encontrar alguns personagens conhecidos e, claro está, meter-se em sarilhos...
Não posso revelar muito sobre esta parte da história porque ocorre no final do livro e, como tal, é decisiva para a conclusão da obra.

Com a Alemanha e, sobretudo, o nazismo como pano de fundo, é interessante conhecer até que ponto retorcido e doentio os nacionais socialistas esmagavam toda a sociedade e procuravam erigir uma nova, que fosse mais de acordo com a sua ideologia. À semelhança do que senti no livro de Roth, é, para mim, aterrador verificar a facilidade com que as massas aderem a movimentos inqualificáveis sem que lhes façam o mínimo, e devido, escrutínio. Torna-se particularmente assustador porque também nos dias que correm existe uma descrença generalizada nos governantes nacionais e no projecto europeu, há uma sensação de falta de rumo e timoneiro. Com estas condições, não poucas vezes na História, surgiram os salvadores da pátria do tipo versado neste livro.

Fazendo uma apreciação global devo dizer que gostei deste Se os mortos não ressuscitam. É uma leitura agradável embora não seja daquelas de tirar fôlego e sono. Kerr consegue pintar um quadro de época muito interessante e detalhado numa narrativa que apela à leitura e, uma vez mais, me convenceu.

Todavia... (a partir deste ponto inicia-se a pancadaria às editoras e quem não estiver pelos ajustes pode, neste ponto, sem prejuízo da opinião, livro e autor, ir regar as plantas e retirar as folhas secas)

Este livro de Philip Kerr pertence a um conjunto de livros com a mesma personagem principal. Já havia lido Projecto Janus, outro que tal, e também gostei. Em português só existem estes dois títulos, o que é uma pena, mas em inglês podem-se contar oito livros desta "série". Como um exemplo posso mencionar "Field Grey" que é precisamente o livro que prossegue a história de Gunther a partir do ponto em que neste que vos falo ficou, embora já haja mais um após esse.
Para quem, como eu, gosta de seguir a ordem da publicação dos livros para poder acompanhar lógica e cronologicamente o trabalho de um autor, e ainda mais nestes casos em que existe um personagem comum em diversos livros, confesso que lamento imenso o critério escolhido pelas editoras quanto à sua publicação. É que parece não existir qualquer critério.
Neste caso que vos revelo os dois livros editados em português são o QUARTO e o SEXTO. Desculpem lá... Começam a coisa a meio e e nem sequer seguem a partir daí? Esperem... A seguir publicam o terceiro, vamos ao oitavo, passamos pelo segundo e pelo sétimo, encontramos o quinto e, se calhar, terminamos no primeiro... Será isso?
Ou então nem sequer se dão ao trabalho de continuar e quando o Kerr morrer, à boa maneira portuguesa, atribuem-lhe uma menção honrosa póstuma e publicam todos os seus livros de enfiada.
Para isto, excelsos, mas valia não se darem ao trabalho.

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Feb 06, 2013 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

Philip Kerr alia o policial à história e transporta-nos para a Alemanha de Hitler, em plena azáfama pela realização dos Jogos Olímpicos que serão realizados em 1936.

Na pele do protagonista, Bernie Gunther, vivenciamos o clima que antecede a Segunda Guerra Mundial, espelhando já nessa altura o ódio pelos judeus e por pessoas de “raça inferior”, ou seja, todas as raças que não sejam a ariana.

Gunther, também ele judeu em 4º ou 5º, despede-se como policia, por não se rever nas regras da polícia daqu...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Drayton Bird rated it 4 of 5 stars

This writer is compared with Le Carre and Alan Furst.

I think this flatters him. He is not nearly as subtle. The hero is just that little bit too heroic. I find it impossible to believe that a part Jewish detective EHO HAD BEEN FIRED would ever had stuck his neck out as courageously as this one in 1934. I would like to, but I can't.

Nonetheless a bloody good read salted with wit, a very likeable hero and some splendid twists and turns. From references within the book it looks like he gets less and...more

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May 04, 2010 Tuck rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

poor bernie and his love life. it hasn't improved. after the much awaited 2009 novel finds bernie in argentina and in the soup ("a quiet flame"), and a most heartbreaking ending, this new one has bernhard gunther in cuba in 1954 and his backstory from berlin in 1934. author deftly segues one to the other, a superb job, full of rich and little known history, philosophy, greed and lust. philip kerr has definitely put paid to his berlin trilogy, that started this whole damn mess to begin with. poor...more

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title link	preview: If The Dead Rise Not
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6421925-if-the-dead-rise-not?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1318241210l/6421925.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6421925-if-the-dead-rise-not?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr[/url]

If The Dead Rise Not (Bernard Gunther #6)

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