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), The Berlin Noir Series (2017).

28 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.

The Berlin Noir Series

release date: Nov 23, 2017
The Berlin Noir Series
The first three thrillers in the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Bernie Gunther series. 'The greatest anti-hero ever written' - LEE CHILD MARCH VIOLETS Hired by a wealthy industrialist to investigate the murder of his daughter and her husband, Bernie finds himself drawn into the lethal internal politics of the Nazi party. When Hermann Goering himself calls Bernie in with a task for him that throws his existing case into a whole new light, he must weigh up his hatred of the Nazis against his desire to live. THE PALE CRIMINAL Five German schoolgirls are missing. Four have been found dead, victims of horrific ritual murders. Bernie Gunther is reluctant to investigate, but when Reynhard Heydrich gives you an order, you obey it if you want to stay alive. What Bernie discovers is far worse than a lone madman: an occult conspiracy at the very heart of the Nazi Party. A GERMAN REQUIEM Postwar Vienna was supposed to be somewhere quiet for Bernie to lie low. Then he is asked to clear an old Kripo colleague's name of murder. 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 got away with their crimes once. Bernie will see it doesn't happen again.

March Violets

release date: May 24, 2016
March Violets
Discover the first crime novel in the late Philip Kerr''s Bernie Gunther series - Berlin Noir - set in Hitler''s Germany during the 1930s . . . Winter, 1936. A man and his wife shot dead in their bed, their home burned. The woman''s father, a millionaire industrialist, wants justice - and the priceless diamonds that disappeared along with his daughter''s life. He turns to Bernhard Gunther, a private eye and former cop. As Bernie follows the trail into the very heart of Nazi Germany, he''s forced to confront a horrifying conspiracy. A trail that ends in the hell that is Dachau . . . Stylishly written and powerfully evocative, Kerr''s crime classic transports readers to the rotten heart of Nazi Berlin, and introduces a private eye in the great tradition of Hammett and Chandler. ''Wonderfully sharp and satirical'' Times ''An impressive debut'' Guardian ''Fast-paced, laconic, unpredictable, and witty'' Evening Standard ''For Christmas, I would like all of Philip Kerr''s Berlin Noir novels'' Sam Mendes, Guardian

German Requiem

release date: Mar 17, 2016
German Requiem
'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD The war may be over, but the remnants of the Nazis are still causing trouble for Bernie Gunther. In post-war Vienna, the term 'peace' is relative - the Americans, British and Russians govern the city in an uneasy truce, and the main difference is that now it's the Soviet secret police making people disappear rather than the Nazis. When Bernie is asked by a high-ranking Soviet official to clear an old Kripo colleague's name of the murder of an American officer, he quickly realises he's in over his head. Bernie's ex-colleague Becker was working for a secret society of Nazi hunters, tracking down and executing war criminals who faked their own deaths to escape the noose at Nuremberg. Infiltrating the group, Bernie finds himself face to face with men he thought he'd never see again. They've cheated justice once - now Bernie must see that they don't get away a second time. Perfect for fans of Raymond Chandler and John le Carré. ************************************ PRAISE FOR PHILIP KERR '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

Hand Of God

release date: Jun 04, 2015
Hand Of God
The beautiful game just got deadly. London City is playing in Athens, and football manager Scott Manson is keeping his team on a tight leash. He needs them home in one piece for a crucial match at Silvertown Docks. But Scott didn't plan for death on the pitch. As the Greek authorities are mounting a murder investigation, Scott must find the truth – and fast – to get his boys home in time.

Prayer

release date: Apr 07, 2015
Prayer
Acclaimed for his historical mysteries, the New York Times bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther series seamlessly shifts to a present-day setting in this intense psychological thriller. Gil Martins, an agent with the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Unit in Houston, sees the violence wrought by extremists of all kinds. Gil has always been on the side of justice—until he learns something that shakes his faith in the system, in himself, and in God. Desperate, he prays, begging to know God is there. When a serial killer begins targeting the morally righteous at the same time that a number of secular icons come under attack, Gil realizes that his prayers are being answered in a most terrifying way.

Research

release date: Jan 02, 2015

January Window

release date: Jan 01, 2015
January Window
Everyone knows football is a matter of life and death. But this time, it's murder. Scot Manson is the team coach for London City FC and an all-round fixer for the lads. Players love him, bosses trust him. But now the team's manager has been found dead at their home stadium. Even Scott can't smooth over murder ... but can he catch the killer before he strikes again?

A Man Without Breath

release date: Mar 25, 2014
A Man Without Breath
Original publication and copyright date: 2013.

Prague Fatale

release date: Apr 17, 2012
Prague Fatale
Former detective and reluctant SS officer Bernie Gunther must infiltrate a brutal world of spies, partisan terrorists, and high-level traitors in this “clever and compelling”(The Daily Beast) New York Times bestseller from Philip Kerr. Berlin, 1941. Bernie is back from the Eastern Front, once again working homicide in Berlin''s Kripo and answering to Reinhard Heydrich, a man he both detests and fears. Heydrich has been newly named Reichsprotector of Czechoslovakia. Tipped off that there is an assassin in his midst, he orders Bernie to join him at his country estate outside Prague, where he has invited some of the Third Reich''s most odious officials to celebrate his new appointment. One of them is the would-be assassin. Bernie can think of better ways to spend a beautiful autumn weekend, but, as he says, “You don''t say no to Heydrich and live.”

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.

Field Grey

release date: Jan 01, 2011
Field Grey
'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD 'A man doesn't work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.' So says Bernie Gunther. It is 1954 and Bernie is in Cuba. Tiring of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky, Bernie acquires a boat and a beautiful companion and quits the island. But the US Navy has other ideas, and soon he finds himself in a place with which he is all too familiar - a prison cell. After exhaustive questioning, he is flown back to Berlin and yet another prison cell with a proposition: work for French intelligence or hang for murder. The job is simple: he is to meet and greet POWs returning to Germany and to look out for one in particular, a French war criminal and member of the French SS who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him - in a way he could never have foreseen. Bernie Gunther's seventh outing delivers more of the fast-paced and quick-witted action that we have come to expect from Philip Kerr. Set in Cuba, a Soviet POW camp, Paris and Berlin, and ranging over a period of twenty years from the Thirties to the Fifties, Field Grey is an outstanding thriller by a writer at the top of his game.

A Philosophical Investigation

release date: Apr 27, 2010
A Philosophical Investigation
A terrifyingly prescient cult classic by the bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther series. “Chilling...absorbing...part techno-thriller, part futuristic detective story, part diary of a serial killer.”—The New York Times Book Review LONDON, 2013. Serial killings have reached epidemic proportions—even with the widespread government use of DNA detection, brain-imaging, and the “punitive coma.” Beautiful, whip-smart, and driven by demons of her own, Detective Isadora “Jake” Jacowicz must stop a murderer, code-named “Wittgenstein,” who has taken it upon himself to eliminate any man who has tested posiu00adtive for a tendency towards violent behavior—even if his victim has never committed a crime. He is a killer whose intellectual brilliance is matched only by his homicidal madness.

A Quiet Flame

release date: Feb 23, 2010
A Quiet Flame
In this riveting historical mystery novel from New York Times bestselling author Philip Kerr, Bernie Gunther trails a serial killer in 1950’s Buenos Aires... Buenos Aires, 1950. After being falsely accused of war crimes, Bernie Gunther—like the Nazis he has always despised—has been offered a new life and a clean passport by the Perón government. But the tough, fast-talking ex-Berlin detective doesn’t have the luxury of laying low. The local police pressure Bernie into taking on a case in which a girl has turned up gruesomely mutilated. What’s more, her murder just might be linked to a missing German banker’s daughter and a long-unsolved case Bernie worked back in Berlin before the war. After all, the scum of the earth has been washing up on Argentina’s shores—state-licensed murderers and torturers—so why couldn’t a serial killer be among them?

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

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 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
John and Philippa Gaunt are young djinns, who can grant wishes and make themselves disappear. They go to stay with their eccentric uncle Nimrod to perfect their fledgling magical abilities and end up on a desperate quest to locate the tomb of the pharaoh Akhenaten. Pitted against them is the most evil djinn in the universe. This fast-paced fantasy is a breathtaking journey that grips readers from its first page to its last line.

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.

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

Dead Meat

release date: Jan 01, 1993
Dead Meat
Leningrad, 1993. A journalist who has broken into a Mafia gang who run a black market organisation that distributes nuclear-contaminated meat, is found murdered. Grushko investigates. By the author of À philosophical investigation'.
28 results found


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