Another pre-goodreads book i liked. At the time I was much into the Third Reich setting. ( )

Another excellent Bernie Gunther novel, blending fiction with many real characters from Nazi Germany in a seamless manner. In this story Bernie is recruited by Goebbels to persuade an actress to appear in a Nazi propaganda film, which requires him to visit the former Yugoslavia and later Zurich. ( )

Further adventures of Kerr's Bernie Gunther, a detective in Weimar and Nazi Germany. This series went on for a while, and had its ups and downs. While I don't think the last few ever reached the heights of the first few in terms of creating an atmosphere from a time and place that we might find hard to imagine. But certainly Kerr found his form again by this point in the series. Definitely worthwhile. ( )

One good and moving thing is the knowledge of Bernie's wife in this book, and the long-ago book that starts off with him and this wife in her father's hotel in Dachau - I must find that one and re-read.

Hmm, sorry to say not at all one his best. If you're going to read it anyway, then, spoils ... .


I found the love affair ridiculous, unbelievable, and never well-written; the murder at the lake, the father, that whole story basically uninteresting, lacking finesse, hugely forced. The scenes with "Joey," uninteresting, unimaginative, unfulfilling. Ah, well. ( )

Philip Kerr has set a high standard with his previous novels featuring Bernie Gunther, the ex-Berlin detective and this one is no different and is possibly one of the best. ‘The lady from Zagreb’ finds him in 1942 in the Sicherheitsdienst in Germany and he comes to work for Joseph Goebbels in the Ministry of Truth and Propaganda. As before, Kerr’s taut writing evokes the fraught atmosphere of Berlin at the time as jealousy and plotting among the Nazi leaders leads to permanent suspicion. In a story that contains many unexpected twists and turns, Bernie, for all his anti-Nazi feelings and contempt for their beliefs and actions, must look out for his own life while trying to retain at least some self-respect. Altogether the plot and the atmosphere make for a terrifically readable tale, with the added bonus that Bernie doesn’t always get it right. Finally, look out for the tribute to Michael Curtiz’s classic film ‘Casablanca’.