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This page lists novels that feature the German policeman and private investigator Bernie Gunther.

March Violets

Philip Kerr

1989

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"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."

The Pale Criminal

Philip Kerr

1990

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"It is 1938 and Bernie Gunther is back on the mean streets of Berlin with his new partner, Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer. But on a seemingly straightforward stakeout, Bruno is killed, and Bernie suddenly finds himself tapped for a much bigger job. A serial sex murderer is killing Aryan teenage girls in Berlin - and what's worse, he's making utter fools of the police. Gunther is forced to accept a temporary post in Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him tasked purely with hunting the killer. But can he trust his team any more than he can trust his superiors?"

A German Requiem

Philip Kerr

1991

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"In the bitter winter of 1947 the Russian Zone is closing ever more tightly around Berlin. So when an enigmatic Russian colonel asks Bernie Gunther to go to Vienna, where his ex-Kripo colleague Emil Becker faces a murder charge, Bernie doesn't hesitate for long. Despite Becker's unsavoury past, Gunther is convinced that shooting an American Nazi-hunter is one crime he didn't commit. But Vienna is not the peaceful haven Bernie expects it to be. Communism is the new enemy, and with the Nuremberg trials over, some strange alliances are being forged against the Red Menace - alignments that make many wartime atrocities look lily-white by comparison."

The One From the Other

Philip Kerr

2006

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"Munich, 1949: Amid the chaos of defeat, it is home to all the backstabbing intrigue that prospers in the aftermath of war. A place where a private eye like Bernie Gunther 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 is 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 is a simple enough job. But in post-war Germany, nothing is simple."

A Quiet Flame

Philip Kerr

2008

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"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?"

If The Dead Rise Not

Philip Kerr

2009

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"Berlin is preparing to host the 1936 Olympics, and Jews are being expelled from all German sporting organisations. Bernie Gunther, forced to resign as a homicide detective with Berlin's Criminal Police, is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. Two bodies are found - a businessman and a Jewish boxer, and Bernie is drawn into the lives of various hotel guests. One, beautiful left-wing journalist, is intent on persuading America to boycott the Olympiad. The other, a Chicago gangster, wants to use the Olympics to enrich himself and the Chicago mob. As events unfold, Bernie uncovers a vast network of corruption and racketeering, led by those who want a slice of the fortune the Nazis are spending to showcase Germany to the world."

Field Grey

Philip Kerr

2010

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"'A man doesn't work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.' So says Bernie Gunther, when he finds himself working for French Intelligence - it was either that or hang for murder. His job is to meet and greet POWs returning to Germany, and to find 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 is about to catch up with him - in a way he could never have foreseen."

Prague Fatale

Philip Kerr

2011

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"September 1941: Bernie Gunther returns from the horrors of the Eastern Front to find his home city of Berlin changed, and changed for the worse. Now back at his old desk on Homicide in Kripo HQ, Alexanderplatz, Bernie starts to investigate the death of a Dutch railway worker, while starting something - of an entirely different nature - with a local good-time girl. But he is obliged to drop everything when his old boss, Reinhard Heydrich of the SD, the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia, orders him to Prague to spend a weekend at his country house. The weekend turns sour almost immediately when a body is found, in a room that was locked from the inside. Now the spotlight falls on Bernie to show off his investigative skills and solve this seemingly impossible mystery. If he fails to do so, he knows what is at stake - not only his reputation, but also that of Reinhard Heydrich, a man who does not like to lose face."

A Man Without Breath

Philip Kerr

2013

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"It is winter, 1943. Bernie Gunther has left the Criminal Police and is working for the German War Crimes Bureau based in Berlin. Reports have been circulating of a mass grave hidden in a wood near Smolensk. The grave's whereabouts are uncertain until, deep in the Katyn Forest, a wolf digs up some human remains. Rumour has it that the grave is full of Polish officers murdered by the Russians - a war crime that is perfect propaganda for Germany. But it needs a detective of subtle skill to investigate this horrific discovery."

The Lady From Zagreb

Philip Kerr

2015

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"Summer 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favour to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke . . . One year later, resurfacing from the hell of the Eastern Front, a superior gives him another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the rising star of German cinema. Bernie accepts the job. Not that he has much choice - the superior is Goebbels himself. But Dresner's father hails from Yugoslavia, a country so riven by sectarian horrors that even Bernie's stomach is turned. Yet even with monsters at home and abroad, one thing alone drives him on from Berlin to Zagreb to Zurich: Bernie Gunther has fallen in love."

The Other Side of Silence

Philip Kerr

2016

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"The French Riviera, 1956. Bernie is missing his old detective life when his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service .... Hennig now enjoys a lucrative career as a blackmailer. Hennig's target on the Cote d'Azur is a famous resident with a dark past and plenty to hide - the writer, Somerset Maugham. A shared love of bridge draws Bernie to Maugham's magnificent villa, where Maugham tells him of the existence of a very compromising photograph. Hennig has the photograph and is demanding $50,000 for its release. Bernie is reluctant to become Maugham's agent but his former life has made him as vulnerable to blackmail as Maugham himself. Not only that - he has a massive score to settle with Hennig."

Prussian Blue

Philip Kerr

2017

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"France, 1956. Bernie Gunther is on the run. If there's one thing he's learned, it's never to refuse a job from a high-ranking secret policeman. But this is exactly what he's just done. Now he's a marked man, with the East German Stasi on his tail. Fleeing across Europe, he remembers the last time he worked with his pursuer: in 1939, to solve a murder at the Berghof, Hitler's summer hideaway in the Bavarian Alps. Hitler is long dead, the Berghof now a ruined shell, and the bizarre time Bernie spent there should be no more than a distant memory. But as he pushes on to Berlin and safety, Bernie will find that no matter how far he thinks he has put Nazi Germany behind him, for him it will always be unfinished business. The Berghof is not done with Bernie yet."

Greeks Bearing Gifts

Philip Kerr

2018

A Bernie Gunther novel.

"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."

Metropolis

Philip Kerr

2019

A Bernie Gunther novel.

Due for publication in 2019.

Berlin Noir

Philip Kerr

1993

Combines the first three Bernie Gunther novels: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; and A German Requiem.