Before this novel ends, Bernie gets the crap beat out of him by people in the employ of Heinrich Muller, a Gestapo leader who disappeared after the Fall of Berlin. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines. Herr Six happens to have a drop-dead beautiful wife and Bernie picks up an equally attractive assistant, Inge Lorenz, who disappears without a trace toward the end of the novel.

My perusal of Web sites did give me a heads up that I can expect to see another Bernie Gunther installment in a year or so: Field Grey is coming out in the UK in July 2010. The three cases he deals with are interesting and I liked him as a character (he is not so "destroyed" as main characters of crime novels usually are). But he doesn't, and for me, the endless intriguing within the Nazi leadership that underlies much of the more byzantine twists of the trilogy's plots quickly becomes tiresome. This man belonged to a secret society of Nazi hunters, and before he knows it Bernie is face to face with men who have been presumed dead for years. They are also a lot of fun with plenty of wisecracks and knowing cultural references(Third Man and Casablanca among the allusions), but for those in love with neat, puzzle like mysteries and happy endings need to travel elsewhere as these are grim.

One of Bernie’s traveling companions on this trip was the notorious Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. Kerr πετυχαίνει όχι μόνο να κρατήσει αμείωτο το ενδιαφέρον του αναγνώστη (αγγίζοντας επίπεδα Dan Brown στο θέμα της cliffhanger συγγραφής), αλλά κατορθώνει να παρουσιάσει εκτενώς τόσο τις κοινωνικές συνθήκες διαβίωσ��ς των Γερμανών της εποχής όσο και την αισχρότητα των πολεμικών επιχειρήσεων σε όλο της το μεγαλείο. By 1949 Bernie has shifted his quarters from Berlin to Munich, and after a terribly unsuccessful stint running a small hotel near Dachau, has resumed his private investigation business.

Communism is the Americans' new enemy, and with the Nuremberg trials over, some strange alliances are being forged against the Red Menace—alignments that make many wartime atrocities look lily-white by comparison. Naturally Bernie’s investigations (there’s also a case involving the missing daughter of a wealthy businessman, another German expatriate) get him into a mess of trouble. The two parts of the story are connected by a woman Bernie loved and a man he despised back in 1930s Berlin. Brings to life the dystopia Germany of the30's and 40's, gives a lesson in one of our world's worst period in history from an angle rarely experienced, really makes the reader think, whilst enjoying and being gripped by the twists and mysteries.I did not manage to read through the book, quitting it before completing the first of the three stories. And even after the war, amidst the decayed, imperial splendour of Vienna, Bernie uncovered a legacy that made the wartime atrocities look lily-white in comparison . He occasionally experiences flashbacks and recurring nightmares, both symptoms of posttraumatic stress. I could think of lots of things that made you free, but work wasn't one of them: after five minutes in Dachau, death seemed a better bet. This is the kind of assignment that gives a man a reputation he can’t live down for the rest of his life!