Book Review: March Violets: A Bernie Gunther Novel by Philip Kerr

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Keywords: historical fiction, Berlin, private detective, Germany, Chandler-esque, noir, Nazi, hardboiled detective. crime fiction

My copy of March Violets is part of Berlin Noir which collects the first three Bernie Gunther novels in one volume. Also in this volume are The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem.

I'm not normally one for historical fiction but I'd seen references to Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels and knew they had something to do with Germany around WWII. I also liked his writing in A Philosophical Investigation. I picked up a used copy of Berlin Noir and stuck it on my TBR shelf. The author passed away this year so I thought it time to pull it down. I knew very little about this series going in other than the main character was a private detective in Berlin.

I wasn't far into March Violets before the resemblance to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe leaped from the page. I confess that my heart soared a bit because I do love me some hardboiled detective. Like Marlowe, Bernie Gunther was formally in law enforcement but left to go private. Also like Marlowe, Bernie doesn't respect authority, doesn't like to be told what to do, is inclined to go wherever the investigation takes him, is quick with the wisecracks, and makes wry, sardonic observations. Not surprisingly, I later saw the Bernie Gunther novels described in a New York Sun article as "He wrote the nearest pastiche to Raymond Chandler's literary style yet achieved"

The term March Violets in the title refers to latecomers to the ranks of the Nazi party. When the story opens, it is 1936 on the eve of the Berlin Olympics. Bermie Gunther a private detective who was formally an investigator with the Kriminalpolizei or Kripo for short. He is hired by wealthy industrialist Herman Six. His daughter and her husband were murdered ,apparently during a robbery, and the house burned to mask it. Herr Six wants Bernie to find those responsible and recover an expensive diamond necklace that was in a safe in the house.

It seems like a fairly straightforward case, especially since Bernie specializes in missing people, but it gets complicated. It turns out that the murdered son-in-law, Paul Pfarr, was heading an anti-corruption task force on the direct orders of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. Lots of people have an interest in the case and what was in the safe. Bernie finds himself up against the SS (major paramilitary organization), Gestapo (secret state police), Kripo (Criminal police), and Sipo (Security Police). He even finds himself facing Hermann Göring.

March Violets is first of all a cracking good hardboiled detective story.  Thanks to Bernie's wisecracks and sardonic wit the story does have humorous moments but make no mistake, with its setting and bleak, downbeat story it is very noir. The Nazi Party is solidly in power and people like Bernie have to tread a thin line to avoid being disappeared or disappearing into a concentration camp (KZ) because of his disregard for everything Nazi. The story is also peppered lots of interesting slang new to me: lighter = gun; polyp = police; cement = prison; nut = safe.

Kerr works in works in historical detail that paints a bleak picture of an increasingly brutal Nazi regime tooling up for war and how the populace is made complacent and complicit through propaganda manufactured threats, like the Jews. How the Nazi party entrenched itself is scary. Kerr also works in internecine rivalries within the Nazi Party like between Göring and Himmler. I found myself heading over to Wikipedia to get more detail about historical events and people. I'd say that a historical that makes you want to know more about the period is successful.