A writer recommended by my friend, Ron Mc Clure, kept my interest, mostly because of the setting, Hitler's Germany in 1936, the summer of the Summer Olympics. This is Kerr's first Bernie Gunther novel, and it's a bit overwritten, as he cannot pass up an analogy, page after page, some appropriate, many overdone. Ron has assured me he finds his voice in the later novels, so I will continue on in this series because I like the German atmosphere. In this novel, industrialists Herman Six's daughter and son in law are murdered and despite the Gestapo and various police, he brings in Bernie to find the murderer, to keep things quiet. Bernie ends up getting in over his head, mostly because he is logical and follows the facts. Unfortunately, it leads to both the communists trade unions and the Gestapo. After a brief spell in Gestapo prison, he ends up working for them momentarily, to save his ass as it were, and ends up surviving, but just. In the mean time, his girl friend disappears, various bad and good guys are murdered or killed, and he never does find out what happens to her. It creates a very realistic scene of Germany in the 1930's, lots of bad apples, and we do meet both Goering and Himmler, which seems a bit exotic for a dick, but Bernie Gunther appeals to the bad guys, because he's mouthy and gutsy, which gets him more in trouble and some admiration. And he ends up bedding at least a couple of chicks, to keep the reader interested.
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