IF THE DEAD RISE NOT: PHILIP KERR

This is the sixth Bernie Gunter novel; this time, the first half is set in 1934, in Nazi Berlin. The second half, post WW II Cuba, filled with Nazis, Mafia, with Fidel Castro lurking in the background. When the novel begins, Bernie has fallen out with the Nazis, is now the Adlon Hotel's detective.  An ugly American surfaces at the hotel, Max Reles, representing the business interests of American companies, all willing to work with Hitler despite his tyranny.  And Max also helps Avery Brundage( anti semite and Nazi sympathizer) to keep the Olympics in Berlin as a sop for Hitler, by refusing to believe the stories about persecutions of the Jews.  And of course, there's a girl, Noreen, wealthy wife of a Greek American tycoon, like a Jackie Kennedy.  Bernie does her a favor, then falls in love, and she reciprocates though both know they have little if any future.  The first story's conflict revolves around a missing Chinese artifact, payola to Max Reles for helping keep the Olympics in Berlin.  As Bernie searches for the thief, we get a first hand look at the Nazification of Germany, Berlin especially, with all the Hitler stooges taking front stage.  His search leads him down a doomed path, one where he discovers the truth, that Reyes is not only a thief but a murderer but keeps quiet because if he doesn't, Max will make sure Noreen is dead.

The second half improbably shifts to Cuban, where Noreen is living, as a friend, in Hemingway's home and Max Reyes also happens to be a resident, deep into illegalities and casinos along with other Jewish and Italian mafia figures.  Bernie gets hired by one of the gangsters to oversee his Casino but his real  raison d'etre is to get his revenge on Max, which he does towards the end of the novel, no surprise other than he does not take up with Noreen.  By the way, she has a daughter, who just happens to be Bernie's from their tryst twenty years ago in Berlin.  We read this for the atmosphere, first of Berlin as it falls to the Nazis, and to Cuba, just before its fall to Castro and Communism.