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• Super Service bei Ersatzlieferung

  Es gab Qualitätsprobleme bei der ersten Lieferung. Dank des super Service vom Verkäufer und Amazon wurde das schnell geklärt und erledigt!

• The Ultimate Detective Noir

  Hard to review these Bernie Gunther stores without tripping all over superlatives. Kerr totally immerses you into Nazi Germany. By the end of the story, you feel as if you've been to Berlin, in that time period, and have a better appreciation for how difficult it must have been for sensible, non-fanatics to carry on the best they could. You can't get any more noir than an honest detective operating in Nazi Germany. As one of the reviews featured on the back of one of the Bernie Gunther books puts it, he "walks streets so mean that nobody can stay alive and remain truly clean".

• Prime historical noir

  This collection groups the first three novels of a longer series known as the Bernie Gunther series: March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem. The first two stories take place in Nazi Germany, the third in Berlin and Vienna immediately after the war. Gunther, a detective, is the quintessential noir hero: tough, sarcastic, but upright and tender-hearted when it comes to women. The Nazi setting helps exposing our protagonist to the direst risks - he spends time in a concentration camp in one of the novels - but it also makes for interesting dilemmas for someone who can't entirely escape the system. And it is best to divulge the least possible of a thriller's plot, but the first two novels begin as ordinary detective stories only to draw Gunther into the murkiest conspiracies at the top echelons of the Nazi state. The third book remains filled with danger, this time as Gunther is caught in a triangular fight between Americans, Russians, and a group of ex-SS conspiring to erase their past. This was published in 1989-91 and, unlike much serious literature of the time, it has not aged a bit. Kerr's style emulates that of the noir classical era: Chandler, Hammett, and other masters, adapted to the German landscape and German slang. Without being as bright as Chandler's style, it is effective and never overreaches. And also notable is how Kerr manages to weave historical characters into the story without it ever feeling phoney. A thick tome, this is nonetheless quickly read and a great introduction to the series.

• Fine mysteries in 1930-45 Berlin; when local crime could incite the SS to arrest a policeman, but allow the malfeasant to go

  3 stories,there choice novellas, chosen for excellence and grouped and presented under one binding. Fine writer, esp his earliest books when there was more spontaneity in the writing and a bit more of the sarcastic German sense of humor which comes out more in literature than in the daily news. I have recommended all his books to my well-traveled children and grandchildren to read on long planes rides and when finished, give them to another English speak if my child has finished on the plane. These books are a cut above the ordinary mystery book, (now being represented by mushy producers who put goosh like Murder She Baked on ttelevision and expect an audience to expect that the 'Cinderella' type hero has n real life replaced the fine irregular thinking of of the bad guys in Agatha Christies' books, or the Endeavor Series, or Sherlock and all his science and his sidekick and all his patience, or the solving of the crime passionelle accomplished by planning, in other words, real life adaptations of real crime tragedies such as In Cold Blood,It would do well to compare works PD James, with longer works of Philip Kerr. The 3 books in this Kerr trilogy are scooped off the first heavy cream of his writing. As such the three novellas introduce us to life in Berlin before the war, during it, and after it when Germany fell into the mire of its own making. This three-for-one is a bargain, at almost any price, but if you buy a low priced paperback read it, enjoy it and then give it to the next long plane ride of chidlren or grandchildren your name will go down and blessed. Anyone liking literature will be delighted: as readers, we get where we are going all the while taking pleasure at Kerr's fine ear for dialogue, his wit, the well-drawn characters and his well-planned, tightness of plot. Kerr has translated even the slang used in Berlin during the time between before the war and through it and even after, all of which salts the book with verisimilitude. Also no nasty part of the Nazi regime is ignored to as to paint a softer picture. The stories are stark, the characters suffer increasingly so as time goes on and their stories plow up stones which Germans may think are better left submerged, but for those who appreciate a good solid background in the story and characters in the story who stick and to their own destinies, no matter what, the books are true to life. it might be useful to compare Kerr, (Fiction) to Gisevius (high up in Nzai regiime but informer to the Allies, if you read Gisevius's astounding book "To The Bitter End", that real memoire from a real spy for the real Allies who survived the whole war and was saved at the end by a real Allen Forster Dulles, you will find that one is hard-put to differentiate. I do recommend this writer: Philp Kerr- a gifted English writer- who is himself a gift to the reading world. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this subject. G Kossow. .

• Good purchase

  Did not expect to get all three novels together.

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