Summer 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favour to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke...
One year later, resurfacing from the hell of the Eastern Front, a superior gives him another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the rising star of German cinema. Bernie accepts the job. Not that he has much choice - the superior is Goebbels himself.
But Dresner's father hails from Yugoslavia, a country so riven by sectarian horrors that even Bernie's stomach is turned. Yet even with monsters at home and abroad, one thing alone drives him on from Berlin to Zagreb to Zurich: Bernie Gunther has fallen in love.
Read MoreStreets ahead of most other historical thrillers in its blend of wit, careful plotting and the kind of detail that brings the past to life - Sunday TimesBernie Gunther is one of the more interesting and original private eyes in thriller fiction. [Kerr] excels in his atmospheric portrayal of Berlin - The TimesThe plotting is as taut as a bowstring, the dialogue sparkles with a life of its own, and Kerr's historical research is unrivalled . . . as near perfection as makes no difference - Crime Fiction LoverKerr's novels are modern classicsThe best crime novels around todayThe good detective trying to do his best within a corrupt regime, few writers have tackled the theme with the rigour of Philip Kerr - Independent