by Philip Kerr
Part of Bernie Gunther, book 6
First published 2009
Bernie Gunther has traded police work for hotel security at an upscale Berlin establishment in 1934. The Nazis are preparing to host the 1936 Olympics while working to downplay their anti-Semitic policies to ensure American participation. Hitler collaborates with U.S. Olympic Committee head Avery Brundage to present a sanitized version of the regime to foreign observers. Bernie finds himself pulled into this web of international deception and political maneuvering as competing Nazi factions vie for control. Twenty years later in Havana, Bernie has started over after being forced out of Buenos Aires. Batista has seized control of Cuba with CIA backing while Castro sits in prison and American organized crime expands its grip on the city's gambling and prostitution operations. Bernie's quiet new existence shatters when he encounters a brutal killer from his Berlin past. The man turns up dead soon after their meeting, and Bernie discovers that his former lover may be responsible for the murder. Bernie learns he cannot escape the weight of his history as past and present collide in dangerous ways.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, crime, political-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cuba, Havana
Period: 1934, 1936, 1950s
455 pages · Hardcover · Quercus
Content warnings: violence