If the Dead Rise Not: Bernie Gunther Thriller 6 (Bernie Gunther Mystery)

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Amazon Media EU S. Klanten die dit item hebben bekeken, bekeken ook. Klantrecensies Er zijn nog geen klantenrecensies. Deel je gedachten met andere klanten. Nuttigste klantenrecensies op Amazon. I've read some of the earlier Bernie Gunther stories and quite enjoyed them, but not so this one. It read like two stories cobbled together with not very convincing links between the two. The first part centres on Berlin and very corrupt goings on in the preparation for the Berlin Olympics.

Gunther is the house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel and meets there an American gangster, Max Reles, who is very cosy with high ranking Nazis. There is also an American Jewish journalist, Noreen Charalambides, bent on exposing to the world the realities of Nazi oppression of Jews. She and Gunther fall in love and the descriptions of the their attraction and subsequent affair are overblown to the point of being laughable. This exaggerated writing carries over into a near endless stream of "tough guy" similes and metaphors that I found irritating, as they constantly draw attention to the writing style.

The second part of the story moves to Cuba in where Gunther is living under an assumed name. Both Reles and Noreen turn up in Cuba and while the plots are resolved it's not very convincing. Kerr inserts various real life people including Meyer Lansky and Hemingway-Noreen is living in his house-but this felt like name dropping. I also found the descriptions of the Cuba's buildings slowed the action down. In short, I found the plotting was contrived and the writing style exaggerated, a very purple version in a Chandleresque vein. It starts in Berlin well before the I read all of the Bernie Gunther books and this is a very good one.

It starts in Berlin well before the Olympics and, as usual, the author demonstrates his excellent knowledge of the place and time and the nuances of both.

The story has many twists and turns, and without giving away the story, one can only say that they are plausible and make for a real mystery. Much of the story has the Hotel Adlon as its background, and this itself is a major plus. Two thirds through the book the scene shifts almost 20 years forward to the Havana of This is unfortunate, because the the first two thirds could well have been lengthened for an even better story of a mystery in Berlin.

The last third is yet another murder mystery but with the main protagonists now 20 years older.

Mystery stories from the US East Coast of th 's might have followed I would have given this book five stars but for the excessive moralizing and the lengthy monologues which sometimes gave the impression of being just fillers. The protagonist's choppy speech was also a minus. I realize that he was meant to portray a hard-boiled detective, but one would have thought that even such a character would have progressed to more complex sentences and to using less slang.

Reading Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels is a must if you are an American in today's political climate. This book is a great read, as are ll the Bernie Gunther novels. Bernie is a Berlin police detective at a time when the Nazis are taking over Germany and expelling Jews. Besides very well done murder mysteries, Bernie is faced with multiple other challenges, for example, how to solve the murder of a Jew when the Nazi authorities have prohibited him from doing so.

Kerr's novels, although fiction, are historical accurate as to time, place, and the Nazis who took over Germany. The main character of the series is now historical pastiche itself.

If The Dead Rise Not

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. Jul 24, F. Do Germans actually have pantomimes in the same way the British do? Firstly, our hero notes that he and his companion are a Do Germans actually have pantomimes in the same way the British do? 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? Or would there be some other similar-meaning phrase which would be used instead?

But I found it jarring nonetheless. I was quite prepared to believe the setting of Berlin, and later on 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.

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.

There is the cultural tone-deafness mentioned above, but others which really should have had a polish. 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. Aug 12, Dave Szostak rated it it was ok. Bernie Gunther stumbles around Germany looking for a mystery that will grab the reader's attention.

Jumping ahead 20 years to Cuba in the second section of the novel fails to add any interest either, just a couple of egregious coincidences that even die-hard Gunther fans will find unpardonable. One feels like they are on the case with Henny Youngman or Joan Rivers except they were funny. A tedious offering from Kerr.

Jun 07, Vasilis Kalandaridis rated it it was amazing. Sep 15, Mark rated it really liked it Recommends it for: I do have this hardcover and the amount of pages is and not , which makes the book a whopping one third longer as stated. We meet Bernie Gunther in Berlin where he no longer works as a homicide detective due to a difference in general opinion when it comes to matters of the Third Reich. Gunther is no card carrying member of Nazi party and finds them terrible people, and that is also why he no longerworks for the State. He is now the house detective of hotel Adlon where his principles I do have this hardcover and the amount of pages is and not , which makes the book a whopping one third longer as stated.

He is now the house detective of hotel Adlon where his principles are better at their place. However he is still not clear from his police past. As a favor in return for a favor he is asked to look into a suspicious drowning and pretty quick finds out that the drowned victim is a drowned boxer of Jewish background. And quickly any further investigation is halted due to the ethnicity of the victim.

Then there is another dead in the hotel who is connected to an American staying in the same hotel, one person of the gangster persuation. His boss asks him to assist an American writer of the most beautifull sort and she wants to write an article upon the German view and actions towards the Jewish population. Especially since an important person from the US has checked out Germany and saw no discrimination towards this particular ethnic group while visiting Berlin. The man is blind or something else is going on. And while Bernie infatuated sticks his nose in matters where he is unwelcome he and Noreen, the lady journalist, run into some powerfull opponents.

Havana twenty years later a Gunther Bernie once again meets lovely Noreen and the story started 20 years earlier gets an ending with a great bang. Mr Kerr does write historical fiction unlike anybody I read before and he makes Bernie look more human than any German in those years has a right to be.

Kerr gives Germany during the war a different face and look as we are used to but he does so within historical facts.

And it is a darned good thriller as well. Well advised to read. 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: I preferred not to look at it, just like I preferred not to look at a lot of things in the 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.

I preferred not to look at it, just like I preferred not to look at a lot of things in the autumn of I just love Nazis. I've a sneaking suspicion that ninety-nine point nine percent of Nazis are giving the other point one percent an undeservedly bad reputation. Sep 04, James Aura rated it it was amazing. Dense descriptions take you straight into a street level view of Berlin as Hitler rises to power, seen through the eyes of a morally ambiguous character.

Very well done and overall an enjoyable read. Feb 26, William rated it liked it Shelves: It almost hurts to give a Philip Kerr novel three out of five stars, but given how much I have liked the other novels in the Bernie Gunther series, it was harder still to give this book a higher rating. And it all boiled down to two major issues I had with this novel.

The book was divided into two parts. The first part takes place in in Berlin and finds Gunther dealing with American gangsters, a beautiful journalist, corrupt Nazis, oppressed Jews and washed up boxers. The story rattles along It almost hurts to give a Philip Kerr novel three out of five stars, but given how much I have liked the other novels in the Bernie Gunther series, it was harder still to give this book a higher rating.

See a Problem?

The story rattles along at a great pace, but then ends in a strangely unique, but almost unbelievable way, before making way to the second part of the book which takes place in in Cuba. My problem was with the fact that the two stories really have nothing to do with each other except that a few of the survivors from part one limp into part two in what amounts to an almost unbelievable coincidence. I enjoyed both stories, especially the first part which was a bit more visceral, but didn't like how Kerr tried to make one relevant to the other.

It was like he had two separate Bernie Gunther stories in mind, then, due to his publisher putting pressure on him, or the need to spew forth something before the Christmas holidays, he mixed and matched the storylines into one, less credible piece. Problem number two is with the overall ending. Usually, Kerr has a neatly packaged little twist that comes as a complete surprise to the reader, but this book ends with little more than a sad attempt at not one, but two, plot twisters; neither of which are all that surprising or unexpected.

I especially love how drab and grey Kerr portrays Nazi Germany, and can find little fault with the writer's ability to transport the reader to that very difficult time. I can only hope he can transport us back to when the next Bernie Gunther novel was as exciting as the last. Nov 06, Mike rated it really liked it Shelves: Philip Kerr is one of our best literary thriller writers.

May 20, Mehmet Utkan rated it really liked it. I feel bad enough already. In spite of what you once thought, angel, I was never cut out to be a hero. Not to mention what happened before all that, in those comparatively innocent times when people thought the Nazis were the last word in true evil. You tell yourself you can put aside your principles and make a pact with the devil just to keep out of trouble and remain alive.

I used to think I could stand apart from it all. That I could somehow inhabit a nasty, rotten world and not become like that myself. Not if you want to see another year. The law of the jungle. Kill or be killed. Some of us die in a day. For some, like me, it takes much longer than that. And if they do, with what body shall we live again? Perhaps, if the dead could rise and be incorruptible, and I could be changed forever in the blinking of an eye, then dying might just be worth the trouble of getting killed, or killing myself.

Back in Havana, I went to the Casa Marina and spent the night with a couple of willing girls.

All they did was help me to pass the time. What little of it we have. Berlin flashes forward to Havana The Berlin story is built around the pre rush to get an Olympic village built and ready for opening day of the big games. Avery Brundage has visited Berlin to be romanced by the Nazi Athletic committee and convinced that the stories about Nazi persecution of Jews is unfounded. Brundage goes back to US and recommends Berlin as the site of the '36 Olys and it's a done deal. There is an influx of US gangsters into Berlin -- the mob now moving into the Berlin flashes forward to Havana There is an influx of US gangsters into Berlin -- the mob now moving into the construction business since the repeal of the Volstead Act left them without a full-time 'job.

Bernie has left the Alex forestalling an invitation to leave because of his staunch preference for the old Weimar republic. Paul von Hindenburg has died which has left the Nazi's firmly in control of the country. Bernie is now the house detective at the Adlon Hotel dealing with the "joy girls," drunks, and the arrogant mobsters who are moving into the German scene. Bernie also falls deeply in love with an American writer and free-lance journalist who is also an old college chum of Hedda Adlon, his boss's wife.

Bernie had been encouraged to leave Argentina and spent some time in Montevideo, Uruguay, but living there was much too expensive and he worked his way to Havana, still on his Argentine passport under the name "Carlos Hausner. Fidel Castro Ruz is languishing in prison -- a 'relaxed' sentence wherein he is allowed free access to the open prison population and all the books and writing material he can ask for.

A sentence of fifteen years seems unlikely to last five. And who does Bernie run into after these twenty long years but his lost love who now has a year-old daughter, fully as lovely as her mother. We meet Meyer Lansky and the old mobsters from Berlin We are introduced to the big players in Cuba between the rising politics of communism and the US puppets presently in office.

The biggest surprise for Bernie is his reacquaintance with the bad guy from construction shenanigans in Berlin.

Paperback Editions

An absolutely stunning denouement that I did not see coming unusual wraps up another wonderfully informative Bernie Gunther novel. There is nothing like Kerr's sheer brilliance of tempo, wordplay, even the occasional literary reference. The "ascent of man" was a gem. Mar 06, Darrell Reimer rated it really liked it. 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 Those of us who prefer our Galahads well-bloodied can't do much better than Philip Kerr's Nazi-era Berlin gumshoe, Bernie Gunther.

Surviving the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, including a short stay in Dachau and the sordid indignities of Russian and American occupation, has been Hell enough for our Bernie. Somewhere in this Grande Guignol he also lost a finger — painful at the time, but quite trifling in the larger scheme of things. That Gunther made it to his 60s is nearly miraculous, never mind that he's retained his ability to walk, and a willingness to do so directly into yet another stinking cesspool of corruption and carnage.

After bearing witness to variegated German collusion with government atrocities, first at home and then abroad in South America, in this latest adventure Bernie is nearly done in by the collusion between the Jewish Mafia and the Cuban regime. And Kerr, ever the resourceful psych-thrill-meister, has teasingly unveiled new motivations for the reader to buy into.

But then I easily surrender my disbelief around Bernie Gunther.

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