“ … the traffic jam of Nazi flags and banners the soldiers were carrying - an entire haberdasher’s store of red and black and white curtain material."
A confrontation after the parade with an arrogant police officer, August Krichbaum, ends with Gunther delivering a powerful punch to Krichbaum’s stomach. When Krichbaum dies Gunther has to live with the uncomfortable knowledge he is a witness away from being arrested.
Gunther learns of impending measures against Jews from a former police colleague Otto Trettin, now a member of the Gestapo. Germans with four Jewish grandparents will bear the brunt of the new laws. Trettin recommends full Jews leave the country now. He tells Gunther, who has one Jewish grandparent, that he is a “crossbreed” (second-grade mixed race) and should find a way to make his Jewish grandparent disappear. He provides the name of a man who can change history. Gunther undergoes “an Aryan transfusion” in which Gunther’s Jewish grandmother will become his great-grandmother.
At the hotel Gunther is occupied by issues arising from hotel guests entertaining visits by “joy ladies”.
Mrs. Hedda Adlon’s dear friend, the beautiful and wealthy and Jewish Mrs. Noreen Charalambides, from New York wants to write an article of her own for the Herald Tribune on German Jews.
Hitler wants to burnish the Third Reich’s public image by hosting the 1936 Olympics. His desire is aided by American IOC President, Avery Brundage, absurdly concluding Jews are not being discriminated against in Germany.
Irritated by her righteousness Gunther points out to Mrs. Charalambides that Blacks are lynched and discriminated against in the U.S.
Gunther, enthralled by Mrs. Charalambides, offers but token resistance to becoming her personal investigator and protector.
They look into the past of a Jewish German boxer found floating in the Spree River as the focus for her story.
Gunther’s sarcasm peaks as he amuses Mrs. Charalambides.
He is deflated when Mrs. Charalambides calls him a cynic even though she is right.
He is inflated when Mrs. Charalambides says she wants to kiss him.
Love is an ill-fated word in crime noir.
They learn of the corruption around the vast new Olympic Stadium project. The 1936 Games are 2 years away and the Stadium is a hole in the ground. Workers are in such demand that even Jews, though secretly, are hired to work upon the Stadium.
The German Organizing Committee is composed of dedicated high ranking Nazis intent on pleasing the Fuhrer and enjoying the economic opportunities of the Games.
On seeing the gigantic pit where the Stadium is to be built Gunther is overcome as the area reminds him of No Man’s Land in WW I. Memories of a continuing nightmare in which he is sinking in the mud of a shell crater overwhelm him - “... I had to drop down on my haunches and take several deep breaths in an effort to pull myself together.”
I thought of an English lady I knew well who had been an air raid warden in London during the Blitz in WW II. Forty years later she could not be in a room where balloons were popping.
Kerr is so skilled at creating vivid scenes.
As Gunther is being suddenly released from a stint in police custody outside Berlin he is taken through a room with a falling axe:
Constructed of dark polished oak and dull-colored steel, the mahine was about eight feet in height - just a bit taller than an executioner wearing his customary top hat.
I shivered along with Gunther contemplating the guillotine before him.
Upon stepping outside he lifts his face up to falling rain:
The rain felt even better than it looked, and I rubbed it across my chin and hair the same way I’d washed my face with it in the trenches. Rain: it was something clean and free and fell from the sky and wasn’t going to kill you.
Gunther is a bulldog. He cannot give up the investigation no matter the risk.
Following up information takes Gunther to Wurzberg and the limestone industry. More dangers await him in Potsdam and Berlin.
Abruptly over three-quarters of the way into the book Gunther is in Havana in 1954. He has changed his name to Carlos Hausner. In Havana he has unexpected reunions. Gunther has mixed emotions about the reunions. Trying to live a quiet life without drawing attention is impossible for Gunther.
The shifts in power and the hard experiences of life before, during and after the war create new dynamics in the relationships. As in Argentina, Gunther is no longer at the mercy of thugs, Nazi and non-Nazi.
Gunther is asked by a group of businessmen, members of the American Mafia including Meyer Lansky, to find a killer. Equally wanting answers are members of the Cuban elite. Gunther will be well paid and have unlimited authority. He is given even more power than he had in Argentina. It is irresistible for Gunther that he is asked to exercise rather than restrain his detective instincts. His obsession to find killers is indulged and he is assured that the methods he undertakes are not limited by traditional police policies.
In the least likely description possible for Gunther he is described as a Knight of heaven. He responds that his “armor’s very dirty”.
Despite his professed indifference to “doing good” he places himself in yet another dangerous situation to help. In his soul Gunther is a knight errant who cannot turn away from helping no matter the risk.
Gunther’s sarcastic wit permeates the book. He cannot carry on a conversation without a biting comment or two or more.
Kerr is gradually filling in the gaps of Gunther’s pre-war life in Nazi Germany but not in a linear way. Over the 6 books I have read in the series, readers have learned about his life before the Nazis took over, during their reign from 1933 to the start of WW II, what he did during the war, the immediate aftermath of the war and his escape to Argentina. While I have set out the time frames chronologically the books weave in and out of the eras of his life.
Bernie will never have a routine life, though I found Kerr went overboard on the number of Gunther’s narrow escapes from death in If the Dead Rise Not I will keep reading to find out what dramas befall him in the next books in the series.
****
I like the Bernie Gunther character, Bill. I like his tenacity, and I do like his sometimes-dark wit. The hotel in this one is interesting, too, at least in my opinion. Some places have that sense of history, and I think Kerr did do a good job of evoking them.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Gunther is a memorable character. Kerr creates plausible settings in locations far removed from Germany. Not many writers are as successful taking their sleuths into lands distant from their homelands.
Delete