The other side of silence

*Starred Review* Readers who love hard-boiled heroes fell for Bernie Gunther back when he was a Berlin cop talking tough to Nazi thugs (March Violets, 1989), and we loved him just as much when he was forced to become an SS soldier on the Eastern Front (Field Gray, 2011). And yet, those whose own dark core runs deep may well love the postwar Bernie most of all, the Bernie whose cynicism has slowly morphed into black despair, like whiskey gradually eating its way through a defenseless liver. We pick up Bernie's story on the French Riviera in 1956, where he is working (under a false identity) as a concierge in a luxury hotel, but still finding nothing right with the world (Cape Ferrat is a pine-planted spur that projects into the sea like the dried-up and near useless sexual organs of some old French roué). Before long, Bernie finds much more to ruethan the scenery. It starts with a plea to help another Cape Ferrat resident, Somerset Maugham, out of a jam: it turns out that Maugham is being blackmailed over a photograph showing the celebrated novelist in compromising positions with a group of other men, including British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. What follows is a marvelously intricate tale of betrayals and counterbetrayals the scam involves Bernie's past as much as it does Maugham's and in sorting it all out Bernie finds that he's not quite as dried up as he thought he was. But as good as Bernie is, the real star here is Maugham, who emerges as a world-class cynic for all seasons and a great foil for Bernie. One of the best in a sterling series.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2016 Booklist

Set in 1956 on the French Riviera, Kerr's assured 11th Bernie Gunther novel (after 2015's The Lady from Zagreb) opens on a dark note, with Bernie's confessing to a failed suicide attempt after his wife abandoned him. Bored by his current job as a hotel concierge, Bernie is brought back into action by bestselling writer and former spy Somerset Maugham, who lives in a nearby villa. Maugham, who's gay at a time when that was still a criminal offense in Britain, needs Bernie's help in dealing with a blackmailer who's threatening to publish a compromising photograph. Meanwhile, an attractive American journalist keen on writing Maugham's biography turns to Bernie for assistance in gaining access to him. The plot takes a surprising turn, but most compelling are the occasional flashbacks in which Kerr's hero tries to do the right thing while serving as a cop under the Nazi regime. Author tour. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.). (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In the 11th Bernie Gunther title (after The Lady from Zagreb), it's 1956 on the French Riviera at the Grand Hotel, where Bernie, a former homicide detective from Berlin, is serving its rich, famous, and shady guests as a concierge under an assumed name. Europe has yet to know peace as spies from the East and West parade across the continent. A local resident, the renowned and unorthodox W. Somerset Maugham, needs a fourth for bridge-and some professional help with the blackmailing Harold Hennig, a former Nazi and the man who in 1945 murdered a woman Bernie loved. While working for the British secret service in 1937, Maugham partied with some naked men-one being an infamous operative and homosexual who had since defected to Moscow. Hennig has the photograph of the gathering and a tape recording for which he's asking $250,000. Verdict Kerr carefully develops his plot, sense of place, and characterization, enabling readers to imagine what it must have been like to have lived in a postwar morass of political and moral ambiguity. This is more than a crime or espionage novel; it's a marvelous, hard-boiled political read. [See Prepub Alert, 10/4/15.]-Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

*Starred Review* Readers who love hard-boiled heroes fell for Bernie Gunther back when he was a Berlin cop talking tough to Nazi thugs (March Violets, 1989), and we loved him just as much when he was forced to become an SS soldier on the Eastern Front (Field Gray, 2011). And yet, those whose own dark core runs deep may well love the postwar Bernie most of all, the Bernie whose cynicism has slowly morphed into black despair, like whiskey gradually eating its way through a defenseless liver. We pick up Bernie's story on the French Riviera in 1956, where he is working (under a false identity) as a concierge in a luxury hotel, but still finding nothing right with the world ("Cape Ferrat is a pine-planted spur that projects into the sea like the dried-up and near useless sexual organs of some old French roué"). Before long, Bernie finds much more to ruethan the scenery. It starts with a plea to help another Cape Ferrat resident, Somerset Maugham, out of a jam: it turns out that Maugham is being blackmailed over a photograph showing the celebrated novelist in compromising positions with a group of other men, including British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. What follows is a marvelously intricate tale of betrayals and counterbetrayals—the scam involves Bernie's past as much as it does Maugham's—and in sorting it all out Bernie finds that he's not quite as dried up as he thought he was. But as good as Bernie is, the real star here is Maugham, who emerges as a world-class cynic for all seasons and a great foil for Bernie. One of the best in a sterling series. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

A New York Times best-selling author and winner of the British Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Award, Kerr returns with his series starring Bernie Gunther, a former Berlin homicide detective and unwilling SS officer. Bernie is at the Grand Hotel Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera in 1956 when Somerset Maugham asks him to find a fourth for a game of bridge. Maugham is being blackmailed, for reasons leading Bernie back to the Third Reich.

In the 11th Bernie Gunther title (after The Lady from Zagreb), it's 1956 on the French Riviera at the Grand Hotel, where Bernie, a former homicide detective from Berlin, is serving its rich, famous, and shady guests as a concierge under an assumed name. Europe has yet to know peace as spies from the East and West parade across the continent. A local resident, the renowned and unorthodox W. Somerset Maugham, needs a fourth for bridge—and some professional help with the blackmailing Harold Hennig, a former Nazi and the man who in 1945 murdered a woman Bernie loved. While working for the British secret service in 1937, Maugham partied with some naked men—one being an infamous operative and homosexual who had since defected to Moscow. Hennig has the photograph of the gathering and a tape recording for which he's asking $250,000. Verdict Kerr carefully develops his plot, sense of place, and characterization, enabling readers to imagine what it must have been like to have lived in a postwar morass of political and moral ambiguity. This is more than a crime or espionage novel; it's a marvelous, hard-boiled political read. [See Prepub Alert, 10/4/15.]—Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA (c) Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Set in 1956 on the French Riviera, Kerr's assured 11th Bernie Gunther novel (after 2015's The Lady from Zagreb) opens on a dark note, with Bernie's confessing to a failed suicide attempt after his wife abandoned him. Bored by his current job as a hotel concierge, Bernie is brought back into action by bestselling writer and former spy Somerset Maugham, who lives in a nearby villa. Maugham, who's gay at a time when that was still a criminal offense in Britain, needs Bernie's help in dealing with a blackmailer who's threatening to publish a compromising photograph. Meanwhile, an attractive American journalist keen on writing Maugham's biography turns to Bernie for assistance in gaining access to him. The plot takes a surprising turn, but most compelling are the occasional flashbacks in which Kerr's hero tries to do the right thing while serving as a cop under the Nazi regime. Author tour. Agent: Caradoc King, A.P. Watt (U.K.). (Mar.)