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Overview
Bernie Gunther returns to trail a serial killer in 1950's Buenos Aires
When he introduced Bernie Gunther in the original Berlin Noir trilogy, Philip Kerr immediately established himself as a thriller writer on par with Raymond Chandler. His new Bernie Gunther novels have won him comparisons with Alan Furst, John le Carré, and Graham Greene. A Quiet Flame finds Gunther in Argentina, circa 1950, where he- falsely accused of Nazi war crimes-has been offered a new life and a clean passport by the Perón government. But the tough, fast-talking detective doesn't have the luxury of laying low when a serial killer- whose crimes may reach back to Berlin before the war-is mutilating young girls. Taut, gritty, and loaded with evocative historical detail, A Quiet Flame is among Kerr's best work yet.
Synopsis
Philip Kerr returns with his best-loved character, Bernie Gunther, in the fifth novel in what is now a series: a tight, twisting, compelling thriller that is firmly rooted in history.
A Quiet Flame opens in 1950. Falsely fingered a war criminal, Bernie Gunther has booked passage to Buenos Aires, lured, like the Nazis whose company he has always despised, by promises of a new life and a clean passport from the Perón government. But Bernie doesn't have the luxury of settling into his new home and lying low. He is soon pressured by the local police into taking on a case in which a girl has turned up dead, gruesomely mutilated, and another—the daughter of a wealthy German banker—has gone missing. Both crimes seem to connect to an unsolved case Bernie worked on back in Berlin in 1932. It's not so far-fetched that the cases might be linked: after all, the scum of the earth has been washing up on Argentine shores—state-licensed murderers and torturers—so why couldn't a serial killer be among them?
But Argentina, just like Germany, holds terrible secrets within its corrupt halls of power. When beautiful Anna Yagubsky seeks Gunther out, desperate for help, to find out what happened to her Jewish aunt and uncle who have disappeared, he is drawn into a horror story that rivals everything he has tried so hard to leave behind half a world away.
In this new postwar world, Bernie Gunther is a man without a name or a country, but still in full possession of his conscience. He is “the right kind of hero for his time—and ours.” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review)
The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio
Every time we're afraid we've seen the last of Bernie Gunther, Philip Kerr comes through—as he does in A Quiet Flame—with another unnerving adventure for his morally conflicted hero.
Editorials
Marilyn Stasio
Every time we're afraid we've seen the last of Bernie Gunther, Philip Kerr comes through—as he does in A Quiet Flame—with another unnerving adventure for his morally conflicted hero.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
At the start of Kerr's stellar fifth Bernie Gunther novel (after The One from the Other), the former Berlin homicide detective seeks exile in Argentina in 1950, along with others connected to the Nazi past (one of his fellow ship passengers is Adolf Eichmann). A few weeks after Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires, a local policeman, Colonel Montalbán, asks his help in solving the savage murder of 15-year-old Grete Wohlauf. Montalbán has noticed similarities between this crime and two unsolved murders Gunther investigated in 1932 Germany. Another teenage girl's disappearance heightens the urgency of the inquiry. In exchange for free medical treatment for his just diagnosed thyroid cancer, Gunther agrees to subtly grill members of the large German community. A secret he stumbles on soon places his life in jeopardy. Kerr, who's demonstrated his versatility with high-quality entries in other genres, cleverly and plausibly grafts history onto a fast-paced thriller plot. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
British novelist Kerr's fifth Bernie Gunther thriller finds the German private detective in 1950 Argentina, where he has fled with other "Old Comrades" after his identity was compromised (see The One from the Other). Bernie's past as a police officer involuntarily absorbed into the SS continues to dog his heels. Recognized by Colonel Montalbán of Juan Perón's secret police, he is forced into investigating an apparent lust murder and the disappearance of a wealthy young girl. The first case has eerie similarities to an unsolved homicide that Bernie investigated in Berlin in 1932; the second ties in with an attempt to seize Nazi plunder hidden in Swiss banks. But the situation becomes complicated as the detective risks his life to track down and interrogate several ex-Nazis involved in nefarious deeds. Authentic period detail, biting wit, sparkling metaphors, and an engaging character whose moral ambiguity places him in perilous situations make this a read to savor. Fans of the earlier series titles will love the extended sections that re-create the grimly decadent atmosphere of the last days of the Weimar Republic. Highly recommended for public libraries.
—Ron Terpening