Prague Fatale

Starred review from February 27, 2012
Kerr’s stellar eighth Bernie Gunther novel (after 2011’s Field Gray) takes the Berlin cop to Prague in October 1941, to investigate the murder of an adjutant of feared SS Gen. Reinhard Heydrich, who’s just become the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The morning after a drunken party attended by SS officers at Heydrich’s country estate outside Prague, the adjutant, who was shaken by what he witnessed as part of a Nazi death squad in Latvia, is found dead in a locked guestroom. Heydrich wants Gunther, suicidal himself after similar experiences in Russia, to find the adjutant’s killer fast, but how is one to identify the culprit amid a house full of professional murderers? A subplot involving the death of a foreigner run over by a train and Czech nationalists dovetails with a surprising denouement worthy of Agatha Christie. Kerr effectively works dark humor into Gunther’s weary narration, and the ending packs the wicked bite his readers have come to anticipate. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt.

April 15, 2012
Good cop and confirmed Nazi-hater Bernie Gunther (Field Gray, 2011, etc.) lands in the middle of a homicidal riddle. September, 1941, and here's Bernie back in Berlin from the Eastern Front, where he's seen enough horror to preclude easy sleep for the rest of his life. More than ever he despises everything the Nazis stand for, and just as much as ever he's under their thumb. The good news is, he's out of the army and once again a Kripo homicide detective, but the job is far from what it was in the days before Germany became Hitler's, a time when Bernie relished the work and took justifiable pride in his hard-earned expertise. And of course the bad news is, Kripo is now controlled by that arch villain, and boss of the SS, Reinhard "the Hangman" Heydrich, meaning that an investigation is only what Heydrich wants it to be. Suddenly that's precisely the kind of dubious investigation Bernie finds himself conducting. From Hradschin Castle in Prague, where the newly appointed Reichsprotector holds court, has come a summons to appear immediately. It seems someone has attempted to poison Heydrich; that being the case, Bernie, the designated Reichsprotector's detective, is required to nail the brazen culprit. At the moment, 39 high-ranking Nazis are guests at the castle. Knowing how little love is lost among those prominent in Hitlerian circles, Bernie figures he's got 39 prime suspects, though it strikes him as a bit on the foolhardy side that the attempt should be made in the Hangman's own stronghold. And yet, he decides, in a house "full of murderers, anything is possible." Bernie's voice--ironic, mordantly funny, inimitable--reflects a world-weary journey. Still--and this is the entertaining heart of the matter--readers are never permitted to forget that survival is his religion.

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March 15, 2012
Previously, the novels in Kerr's celebrated Bernie Gunther series, starring the Berlin cop and reluctant SS draftee in WWII, have followed a strict chronology, though with numerous flashbacks to Bernie's glory years in the prewar period. This time, however, the forward motion is abandoned, even in the frame story, as Kerr jumps back to late 1941 to tell what, for most of the book, reads like a locked-room mystery. After being summoned to Prague to serve as bodyguard to Nazi Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich, Bernie is asked to solve the murder of one of Heydrich's adjutants, who was killed in his room, seemingly by a fellow Nazi. Structured like a P. D. James novel, the story follows Bernie, taking the Adam Dalgleish role, as he interviews a succession of Nazi toadies, moving toward a conclusion that Heydrich won't want to hear. Given its mostly constricted setting, the novel sacrifices some of the larger landscapeGermany before and during the warthat has driven the earlier volumes, but Kerr makes fine use of Heydrich as a character, leading up to his real-life assassination by Czech partisans. A subplot involving a femme fatale for whom Bernie falls hard effectively takes us out of the closed room but feels underutilized. There's much to savor here, but, finally, the novel is less compelling than its predecessors. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The earlier Gunther novels were cult favorites, but as the fan base has grown dramatically, the series is now accorded full-metal marketing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)