![\"Prussian\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Prussian.jpg\")
<\/a>In this now-venerable series, Bernie Gunther has made his melancholy way from Berlin cop to valued investigator for the Nazis to a concierge alias Walter Wolf on the Mediterranean coast. In the last installment, that cover was blown.<\/p>\nNow, Erich Mielke, deputy director of the East German Stasi, orders him to murder a spy in England. Mielke is a real life figure, like many that author Kerr works into his fictional web. To \u201cconvince\u201d Bernie, and to keep an eye on him, Mielke brings along Kerr\u2019s creation Friedrich Korsch, a Nazi cop turned Stasi muscle \u2014 and Bernie\u2019s former partner in a Nazi murder investigation. Korsch\u2019s presence sends Bernie into even deeper despair:\u00a0 \u201cIt was strange the way he had entered my world again after all these years, and yet not strange at all, perhaps. If you live long enough you realize that everything that happens to us is all the same illusion,\u00a0the same shit, the same celestial joke. Things don\u2019t really end, they just stop for a while and then they start up again, like a bad record. There are no new chapters in your book, there\u2019s just the one long fairy story \u2014 the same stupid story we tell ourselves, and which, mistakenly, we call life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernie takes off, not wanting to play a part in Mielke\u2019s fairy tale. As he races toward the German border, he reaches into the past to\u00a0recall the case in which he partnered with Korsch. Korsch becomes the thread that ties Bernie\u2019s escape in the present to his excursion into the past, and makes this a two-for-one tale.<\/p>\n
Back in 1939, Reichsfuhrer Heydrich had ordered Bernie to investigate a sniper killing at Berchtesgarden, Hitler\u2019s monumental retreat in the mountains. The Nazis spent millions on it, \u201cMoney that could have been spent on something more important than the comfort of the madman who now ruled Amer \u2014(oops, Freudian slip) Germany.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The Fuhrer\u2019s safety has been compromised, and Bernie has only days to solve the mystery before Hitler arrives. Of course, he must do so while negotiating the politics of the powerful surrounding Hitler. As usual, Kerr uses Bernie\u2019s investigation to throw light on the horrific history of the Nazi regime. As Bernie travels through the rooms and rumors of Hitler\u2019s aerie, he uncovers uncomfortable truths that endanger him at every turn: a brothel run by Hitler\u2019s doctor, paybacks to high officials, use of the drug Pervitin, abuse of that same drug, and the bitter struggle between two of Hitler\u2019s most trusted advisors, the Borman brothers.<\/p>\n
With Germans all around him, Bernie might not escape alive from France. Although disguised successfully as a Frenchman (\u201cAll I needed now was to neglect my personal hygiene, and to obtain a service medal for a war I hadn\u2019t fought in.\u201d), he can barely evade the French police complicity with the Stasi. Tension builds as he nears the border.<\/p>\n
Back on Hitler\u2019s mountain, the tension builds as Bernie nears the truth. Of course, that\u2019s not what his superiors want; Hitler\u00a0<\/u>said \u201c\u2026it\u2019s not truth that matters, but victory.\u201d\u00a0 As one official says after Bernie finds the \u201ctruth,\u201d \u201cThe status quo is restored\u2026 The important thing in concluding a case successfully is actually concluding it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Korsch was close beside Bernie on the mountain, but he\u2019s closer behind him in France. Needless to say, this is a series and Bernie survives \u2014 until he gets\u00a0a new identity in Germany. Bernie Gunther and Walter Wolf are dead \u2014 long live Christof Ganz!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bob Moyer may have been traveling in Japan in real time, but in his reading world, he’s been in post-war\u00a0Germany, courtesy of the latest in one of his favorite series. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer PRUSSIAN BLUE. By Philip Kerr. Putnam. 523 pages.\u00a0$27. In this now-venerable series, Bernie Gunther has made his melancholy way from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[314,313,208],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thriller-suspense","tag-bernie-gunther","tag-philip-kerr","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}