A German Requiem (Bernie Gunther, #3) in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 30, 2021 Steve rated it really liked it

In this third entry of Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, we find a very different, post-war Gunther trying to survive in a grim Berlin. Gunter is now married, but both him and his wife seemed more concerned with survival (food, heat) than anything else. Compromises are made to just get through the day, as Bernie discovers his wife trading sex with an American officer, for food. Rather than confront her with this information, Bernie takes on a case, in Vienna, from, interestingly, a Russian intellige In this third entry of Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, we find a very different, post-war Gunther trying to survive in a grim Berlin. Gunter is now married, but both him and his wife seemed more concerned with survival (food, heat) than anything else. Compromises are made to just get through the day, as Bernie discovers his wife trading sex with an American officer, for food. Rather than confront her with this information, Bernie takes on a case, in Vienna, from, interestingly, a Russian intelligence officer. It involves an old comrade from Bernie's police, and later, SS days. Bernie's no Nazi, but he did abandon a few principles in order survive the war, one of which was a brief stint with the SS. (Bernie saw the beginnings of what was going to be the Holocaust, and transferred out.) Nevertheless, he would get a full dose the Hell that was the Russian Front, and a Russian P.O.W prison. But the new order of things is similarly lethal. You don't know who to trust, as Bernie has dealings with Russian, American, old (and brutal) Nazi agents, and other rogue characters. The Vienna Kerr paints is, if you've seen The Third Man , a familiar one of grays and blacks and side glances. (You even get a glimpse of the famous movie being filmed.) I was actually rating this effort lower (3 stars), in part because I didn't like the pacing for two thirds of the novel. It seemed off compared to its two cracker-jack predecessors. But it also seemed off due to Bernie himself. Was this even the same character? By novel's end I became somewhat convinced of his changes, his deepening. Apparently Gunter has had some spiritual stirrings due to what he has seen and lived through. Nothing dramatic, but to my mind ever-present, like a faint thread that remains intact throughout the novel. And that it made it all the more believable. Gunther's "faith" is no moving conversion story, but more like a helpful life preserver in a cynical hellscape. A different kind of Bernie Gunther novel, but definitely a Bernie Gunter novel. ...more

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Jan 01, 2019 Tony rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels, crime, setting-europe

The final book in Kerr's original "Berline Noir" trilogy is set in 1947, some nine years and one World War after our last encounter with private eye Bernie Gunther. The change is dramatic, as Gunther ekes out a living after surviving the war, including a stint on the Eastern Front. The formerly middle-class Gunther lives as most Berliners do, in hard times and in constant fear of the rapacious "Ivans." In this sad time Gunther must face the passability that his wife is prostituting herself in or ...more

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