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Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
Personal and collective responsibility for crimes of the past are the subject of Philip Kerr’s latest Bernie Gunther thriller. Working as in insurance claims adjuster, Bernie is sent to Athens to investigate a claim and soon becomes involved in the hunt for a murderer he suspects is actually a war criminal responsible for the deaths of countless Greek Jews. In 1957 Germany is already showing signs of the economic powerhouse it will become, but not everyone has moved on from the atrocities of the past. As a German who knows all about guilt and compromise, Bernie is well placed to dig out the different motives behind all the players’ actions.
This is the fourth Bernie Gunther book I’ve read, though there are now 13 in the series and 1 more to be published posthumously - Kerr died earlier this year. You don’t need to read them in order, in fact Kerr didn’t write them in chronological order, as the stories themselves stand alone and Kerr provides plenty of background on his hero. And hero he is, though full of flaws. It is Bernie that pulls you back to the books. He is a man trying to survive during a horrendous period in history, and having to make compromises to do so. It helps that the period, setting and plots are so interesting too, and that a very dark sense of humor runs through all the books.
