Book Lists

New Releases by Philip Kerr

Philip Kerr is the author of The Shot (2020), Berlin Noir 2: Further Adventures of Bernie Gunter (2020), Metropolis (2019), Greeks Bearing Gifts (2018), Hinsides tavsheden (2017).

29 results found

The Shot

release date: Aug 06, 2020
The Shot
''Riveting... as shocking as it is brilliant'' Daily Mail ''A cleverly contrived reworking of the Kennedy assassination myth'' The Times ''A really terrific read'' Literary Review Darkly imaginative alternative history thriller from the global bestseller and author of the Bernie Gunther thrillers. America, 1960. In Washington, DC, John F Kennedy has just been elected President. In Havana, Fidel Castro has been in office for a year, and with Cold War tensions rapidly heating up and the Soviets leading the space race, the thought of a Communist leader so close to home is already raising American blood pressure. Anti-communist fever is rampant in the USA, with a paranoid establishment seeing reds under every bed. Nevertheless, the decision to snuff out the threat of Castro by hiring Tom Jefferson, America''s best assassin, to kill him comes from an unusual quarter: the Mafia. But Jefferson''s very skillset that makes him the perfect man for this job also ensures he has no qualms in double crossing his criminal paymasters. Jefferson has no issue with Castro: his preferred target is someone much closer to home... ''Mind boggling ... keeps you guessing until the end'' Sunday Express

Berlin Noir 2: Further Adventures of Bernie Gunter

release date: Jun 25, 2020
Berlin Noir 2: Further Adventures of Bernie Gunter
Three outstanding historical thrillers in one superb volume. Treat yourself to the further adventures of Bernie Gunther, the iconic detective, ''One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'' - Lee Child ''Kerr''s Bernie Gunther novels are modern classics'' Simon Sebag Montefiore THE ONE FROM THE OTHER Munich, 1949: Amid the chaos of defeat, it''s home to all the backstabbing intrigue that prospers in the aftermath of war. A place where a private eye can find a lot of not-quite-reputable work. It''s work that fills Bernie with disgust - but it also fills his sorely depleted wallet. Then a woman seeks him out. Her husband has disappeared. She''s not looking to get him back - he''s a monster. She just wants confirmation that he''s dead. It''s a simple enough job. But in post-war Germany, nothing is simple. A QUIET FLAME Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal, Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie''s final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve. The chief of police suspects that the murderer may be one of thousands of ex Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. Who better, therefore, than Bernie Gunther to help him track that murderer down? IF THE DEAD RISE NOT - Winner of the CWA Historical Dagger Berlin 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months but already Germany has seen some frightening changes. As the city prepares to host the 1936 Olympics, Jews are being expelled from all German sporting organisations - a blatant example of discrimination. Forced to resign as a homicide detective, Bernie is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. Two bodies are found - one a businessman and the other a Jewish boxer. As Bernie digs to discover who killed them, he unearths a plot that finds its violent conclusion twenty years later in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Metropolis

release date: Jan 01, 2019
Metropolis
"A portrait of Bernie Gunther in his twenties: He''s young, but he''s seen four bloody years of trench warfare. And he''s not stupid. So when he receives a promotion and a ticket out of Vice squad, he knows he''s not really leaving behind the criminal gangs, the perverse sex clubs, and the laundry list of human corruption. It''s 1928 and Berlin is a city on the edge of chaos, where nothing is truly verboten. But soon a new wave of shockingly violent murders sweeps up society''s most vulnerable, prostitutes and wounded ex-soldiers begging on the streets. As Bernie Gunther sets out to make sense of multiple murders with different MOs in a city that knows no limits, he must face the fact that his own police HQ is not immune. The Nazi party has begun to inflitrate the Alex, Berlin''s central office, just as the shakey Weimar government makes a last, desperate attempt to control a nation edging toward to the Third Reich. It seems like the only escape for most Berliners is the theater and Bernie''s no exception. As he gets deeper into the city''s sordid underground network, he seeks comfort with a make-up artist who is every bit a match for his quick wit and increasingly sardonic view of the world. But even this space can''t remain untouched, not with this pervasive feeling that everything is for sale in Berlin if you''re man enough to kill for it"--

Greeks Bearing Gifts

release date: Apr 03, 2018
Greeks Bearing Gifts
Bernie Gunther returns in the thirteenth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris. ''One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'' LEE CHILD ''Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature'' TOM HANKS ''One of the greatest master story-tellers in English'' ALAN FURST 1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther''s latest move in a string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on. Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a sunken ship, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an act of vengeance. And so Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe prepares to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.

Hinsides tavsheden

release date: Apr 07, 2017
Hinsides tavsheden
Det er sommeren 1956. Bernie Gunther arbejder under falsk navn som receptionschef på det berømte Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat ved Den Franske Riviera. Da verdens måske rigeste og måske mest berømte forfatter, W. Somerset Maugham, mangler en fjerde mand til et spil bridge, træder Gunther til. Det viser sig hurtigt, at den excentriske Maugham ikke bare vil spille kort, han har også brug for professionel rådgivning i en penibel sag om afpresning. I sit sydfranske skjul forsøger Bernie Gunther at holde fortiden på afstand, men da en gammel fjende og naziforbryder, Harold Hennig, ankommer som gæst til Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, begynder alt at gå skævt. HINSIDES TAVSHEDEN er ellevte fritstående bog i Philip Kerrs prisbelønnede og atmosfærefyldte Berlin Noir-serie. Krigen er slut, men selv i 1956 er freden endnu ikke kommet til kontinentet. Stormagternes kontraspionage spidser til, Sovjetunionen har brintbomben, og spionerne ser hele Europa som deres legeplads.

The Lady from Zagreb

release date: Apr 07, 2015
The Lady from Zagreb
In this Edgar® Award-nominated novel in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling series, former detective and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther is on the hunt for a beautiful femme fatale... Berlin, 1942. Three players take the stage. The first, a gorgeous actress—the rising star of a giant German film company controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. The second, the very clever, very dangerous Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels—a close confidant of Hitler, ambitious schemer, and flagrant libertine. Finally, there''s Bernie Gunther—a former Berlin homicide bull now forced to run errands at the Propaganda Minister’s command. When Goebbels tasks Bernie with finding the woman the press have dubbed “the German Garbo,” his errand takes him from Zurich to Zagreb to the killing fields of Croatia. It is there that Bernie finds himself in a world of mindless brutality where everyone has a hidden agenda—perfect territory for a true cynic whose instinct is to trust no one.

The Winter Horses

release date: Jan 01, 2014
The Winter Horses
"Kalinka, a Ukrainian Jewish girl on the run from the Nazis, finds unlikely help from two rare Przewalski horses"--

A Man Without Breath

release date: Apr 16, 2013
A Man Without Breath
Bernie Gunther enters a dangerous battleground when he investigates crimes on the Eastern Front at the height of World War 2 in this gripping historical mystery from New York Times bestselling author Philip Kerr. Berlin, 1943. A month has passed since Stalingrad. Though Hitler insists Germany is winning the war, morale is low and commanders on the ground know better. Then Berlin learns of a Red massacre of Polish troops near Smolensk, Russia. In a rare instance of agreement, both the Wehrmacht and Propaganda Minister Goebbels want irrefutable evidence of this Russian atrocity. And so Bernie Gunther is dispatched. In Smolensk, Bernie finds an enclave of Prussian aristocrats who look down at the wise-cracking, rough-edged Berlin bull. But Bernie doesn’t care about fitting in. He only wants to uncover the identity of a savage killer—before becoming a victim himself.

Field Gray

release date: Feb 28, 2012
Field Gray
This Edgar® Award-nominated novel in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling Bernie Gunther series reveals the cynical, hard-boiled detective’s harrowing history as an unwilling SS officer in World War 2. During his eleven years working homicide in Berlin''s Kripo, Bernie Gunther learned a thing or two about evil. Then he set himself up as a private detective—until 1940 when Heydrich dragooned him into the SS''s field gray uniform and the bloodbath that was the Eastern Front. Spanning twenty-five tumultuous years, Field Gray strides across the killing fields of Europe, landing Bernie in a divided Germany at the height of the Cold War—revealing a treacherous world where the ends justify the means and no one can be trusted...

If the Dead Rise Not

release date: Apr 05, 2011
If the Dead Rise Not
Detective Bernie Gunther navigates two corrupt regimes in this “richly satisfying mystery...that evokes the noir sensibilities of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald while breaking new ground of its own”(Los Angeles Times). Berlin, 1934. Former policeman Bernie Gunther, now a hotel detective, finds himself caught between warring factions of the Nazi apparatus as Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, connive to soft-pedal Nazi anti-Semitism before the 1936 Olympiad... Havana, 1954. Batista, aided by the CIA, has just seized power; Castro is in prison; and the American Mafia is gaining a stranglehold on Cuba’s exploding gaming and prostitution industries. Bernie, after being kicked out of Buenos Aires, has resurfaced with a relatively peaceful new life. But he discovers that he cannot truly outrun his past when he collides with an old love and a vicious killer from his Berlin days...

The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan

release date: Jan 01, 2011
The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan
While volcanoes spew golden lava around the world, djinn twins John and Philippa, with their parents, Uncle Nimrod, and Groanin, face evil more powerful than ever before when they try to stop the wicked djinn trying to rob the grave of Genghis Khan.

Dark Matter

release date: Apr 28, 2010
Dark Matter
I swore not to tell this story while Newton was still alive. 1696, young Christopher Ellis is sent to the Tower of London, but not as a prisoner. Though Ellis is notoriously hotheaded and was caught fighting an illegal duel, he arrives at the Tower as assistant to the renowned scientist Sir Isaac Newton. Newton is Warden of the Royal Mint, which resides within the Tower walls, and he has accepted an appointment from the King of England and Parliament to investigate and prosecute counterfeiters whose false coins threaten to bring down the shaky, war-weakened economy. Ellis may lack Newton’s scholarly mind, but he is quick with a pistol and proves himself to be an invaluable sidekick and devoted apprentice to Newton as they zealously pursue these criminals. While Newton and Ellis investigate a counterfeiting ring, they come upon a mysterious coded message on the body of a man killed in the Lion Tower, as well as alchemical symbols that indicate this was more than just a random murder. Despite Newton’s formidable intellect, he is unable to decipher the cryptic message or any of the others he and Ellis find as the body count increases within the Tower complex. As they are drawn into a wild pursuit of the counterfeiters that takes them from the madhouse of Bedlam to the squalid confines of Newgate prison and back to the Tower itself, Newton and Ellis discover that the counterfeiting is only a small part of a larger, more dangerous plot, one that reaches to the highest echelons of power and nobility and threatens much more than the collapse of the economy. Dark Matter is the lastest masterwork of suspense from Philip Kerr, the internationally bestselling and brilliantly innovative thriller writer who has dazzled readers with his imaginative, fast-paced novels. Like An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Name of the Rose, and Kerr’s own Berlin Noir trilogy, Dark Matter is historical mystery at its finest, an extraordinary, suspense-filled journey through the shadowy streets and back alleys of London with the brilliant Newton and his faithful protégé. The haunted Tower with its bloody history is the perfect backdrop for this richly satisfying tale, one that introduces an engrossing mystery into the volatile mix of politics, science, and religion that characterized life in seventeenth-century London.

The Eye of the Forest

release date: Jan 01, 2010
The Eye of the Forest
An ancient Incan prophecy leads the Gaunt twins deep into the heart of the Amazon, in search of a cursed portal that has remained hidden for centuries. Along the way, they come across their old friend Dybbuk, but it''s not a happy reunion. Dybbuk has lost all his djinn powers and is desperate to get them back-even if it means destroying the world. Can John and Philippa stop him before it''s too late?

The One From The Other

release date: Feb 07, 2008
The One From The Other
''One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'' LEE CHILD Bernie Gunther has learned the hard way that it isn''t possible to distinguish ''the one from the other''. The cynical P.I. sees through the deceit and hypocrisy of both friend and foe - a lifesaving skill in postwar Germany. Munich, 1949 is home to all the backstabbing intrigue that prospers in the aftermath of war. A place where a private eye can find a lot of not-quite-reputable work: cleaning up the Nazi past of well-to-do locals, abetting fugitives in the flight abroad, sorting out rival claims to stolen goods. It''s work that fills Bernie with disgust - but it also fills his sorely depleted wallet. Then a woman seeks him out. Her husband has disappeared. She''s not looking to get him back - he''s a wanted man who ran one of the most vicious concentration camps in Poland. She just wants confirmation that he''s dead. It''s a simple enough job. But in post-war Germany, nothing is simple... ******************************* PRAISE FOR THE BERNIE GUNTHER SERIES ''Kerr''s novels are modern classics'' SIMON SEBAG-MONTEFIORE ''Pure Chandler. Powerful and impressive'' OBSERVER ''Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature'' TOM HANKS ''One of the greatest master story-tellers in English'' ALAN FURST ''One of the most memorable and original characters'' THE SUNDAY TIMES ''Bitterly, darkly funny'' SUNDAY HERALD

A Quiet Flame

release date: Jan 01, 2008
A Quiet Flame
''One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'' LEE CHILD Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie''s final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve. Circumstances lead the chief of police in Buenos Aires to suppose that the murderer may be one of several thousand ex Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. And, therefore, who better than Bernie Gunther to help him track that murderer down?

The Day of the Djinn Warriors

release date: Jan 01, 2008
The Day of the Djinn Warriors
After getting help for their father, who is cursed with rapid aging, twelve-year-old djinn twins John and Philippa and friends travel through the spirit world in search of Faustina, the only one who can keep their mother from becoming the Blue Djinn, and discover a link to museum thefts and hauntings throughout the word.

The Cobra King of Kathmandu

release date: Jan 01, 2007
The Cobra King of Kathmandu
Djinn twins John and Philippa Gaunt are back and ready to tackle a brand-new magical mystery. As they travel around the world on a whirlwind adventure, the twins help their friend and fellow djinn, Dybbuck, find out who murdered his best friend, using the venomous snakebite of the king cobra. All too soon, John and Philippa find themselves caught up in the lethal world of the Cult of the Nine Cobras, only to discover that they are a target of the creepy cobra cult. Now, the twins must find the invaluable Cobra King talisman and stop the cult leader''s deadly plan!

Hitler's Peace

release date: Aug 01, 2006
Hitler's Peace
The New York Times bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther novels reimagines the end of World War 2 in this gripping standalone spy thriller. Autumn 1943. Since Stalingrad, Hitler has known that Germany cannot win the war. The upcoming Allied conference in Teheran will set the ground rules for their second front-and for the peace to come. Realizing that the unconditional surrender FDR has demanded will leave Germany in ruins, Hitler has put out peace feelers. (Unbeknownst to him, so has Himmler, who is ready to stage a coup in order to reach an accord.) FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate. Only Churchill refuses to listen. At the center of this high-stakes game of deals and doubledealing is Willard Mayer, an OSS operative who has been chosen by FDR to serve as his envoy. A cool, self-absorbed, emotionally distant womanizer with a questionable past, Mayer has embraced the stylish philosophy of the day, in which no values are fixed. He is the perfect foil for the steamy world of deception, betrayals, and assassinations that make up the moral universe of realpolitik. With his sure hand for pacing, his firm grasp of historical detail, and his explosively creative imagination about what might have been, Philip Kerr has fashioned a totally convincing thinking man’s thriller in the great tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.

The Blue Djinn of Babylon

release date: Jan 01, 2006
The Blue Djinn of Babylon
Twelve-year-old twins Philippa and John have more adventures when they become involved in an international adventure involving the Blue Djinn, the supreme arbiter of all Djinn.

The Pale Criminal

release date: Jun 28, 2005
The Pale Criminal
Hard-boiled detective Bernie Gunther takes on a depraved serial killer terrorizing 1930''s Berlin in the second gripping mystery in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling series. In the sweltering summer heat wave of 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering whether Hitler will plunge Europe into another war. Meanwhile, private investigator Bernie Gunther has taken on two cases involving blackmail. The first victim is a rich widow. The second is Bernie himself. Having been caught framing an innocent Jew for a series of vicious murders, the Kripo—the Berlin criminal police—are intent on locating the real killer and aren''t above blackmailing their former colleague to get the job done. Temporarily promoted to the rank of Kommissar, Bernie sets out to solve the dual mysteries and begins an investigation that will expose him to the darkest depths of humanity...

The Akhenaten Adventure

release date: Jan 01, 2005
The Akhenaten Adventure
When twelve-year-old twins Philippa and John discover that they are descended from a long line of djinn, their mother sends them away to their Uncle Nimrod, who takes them to Cairo where he starts to teach them about their extraordinary powers.

The Second Angel

release date: Jan 01, 1999
The Second Angel
In a futuristic world where blood is more valuable than gold, a man, whose daughter needs regular blood transfusions, must do all he can to get at the supplies. From the author of MARCH VIOLETS and DEAD MEAT. Reissued.

Esau

release date: Jan 01, 1998
Esau
In an ice cave high on a forbidden Himalayan mountaintop, renegade climber Jack Furness unearths a perfectly preserved skull, a fossil that may be the missing link and the scientific discovery of the century. To Berkeley paleoanthropologist Stella Swift, the miraculous find warrants an immediate expedition up the mountain''s treacherous Fish Tail Peak. But with neighboring Pakistan and India on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, the Pentagon and the GA have their own designs on the remote site. Now, they''re all about to enter a domain where one of nature''s fiercest creations has thrived for millions of years -- and modern man was never meant to be.

The Grid

release date: Jan 01, 1997
The Grid
WELCOME TO THE MOST INGENIOUS BUILDING EVER DESIGNED. NOW TRY TO GET OUT ALIVE... In downtown Los Angeles it stands as a monument to man''s genius--a glittering, high-tech office tower that washes its own windows, purifies its own air, and even knows which of its employees is using drugs. But now, the building known as the Gridiron has turned malevolent. And its first victim is about to die. From its hardware-jammed computer room on the fourth floor to the 300-foot-high tree that rises in tis atrium, the Gridiron for the men and women trapped inside, there is only one way out: through the raw, human will to survive.

Dead Meat

release date: Jan 01, 1997
Dead Meat
Detective Grushko of the Moscow police is dispatched to Saint Petersburg to break up a gang war. A look at organized crime in post-communist Russia. By the author of A German Requiem.

Gridiron

release date: Jan 01, 1995
Gridiron
Technological thriller set in Los Angeles in 1998. The Gridiron is a state-of-the-art building controlled by an intricate computer system. When the bizarre deaths begin, the computer is chief suspect.

A Philosophical Investigation

release date: Apr 01, 1994

Berlin Noir

release date: Jan 01, 1994
Berlin Noir
Now in one volume—the first three novels in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling historical mystery series starring hard-boiled detective Bernie Gunther... “A Chandleresque knight errant caught in insane historical surroundings. Bernie walks down streets so mean that nobody can stay alive and remain truly clean.”—John Powers, Fresh Air (NPR) Ex-policeman Bernie Gunther thought he''d seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin. But then he went freelance, and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture. 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... This collection includes: MARCH VIOLETS THE PALE CRIMINAL A GERMAN REQUIEM

A German Requiem

release date: Jan 01, 1993
A German Requiem
The disturbing climax to the Berlin Noir trilogy Philip Kerrs Bernie Gunther novels have won him an international reputation as a master of historical suspense. In "A German Requiem," the private eye has survived the collapse of the Third Reich to find himself in Vienna. Amid decaying imperial splendor, he traces concentric circles of evil and uncovers a legacy that makes the wartime atrocities seem lily-white in comparison.
29 results found


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