The Children Return by Martin Walker

(36. - 1325.) The Children Return by Martin Walker - A French paratrooper, Rafiq, on an undercover mission is found tortured to death and shackled to a tree just outside St. Denis. His feet had been doused with gasoline and set on fire.

French Intelligence will lead the investigation and Chief of Police Bruno is seconded to support them.

Published in 2014 there are still French forces stationed in Afghanistan as the American forever war drags on. Jihadists are present in France as with every other Western county.

The investigation becomes personal and local when a young Muslim boy Sami Belloumi, who grew up in St. Denis, seeks to come home from Afghanistan but radicalized French Muslims are seeking him. They do not want him to talk about how he came to leave France.

At the same time St. Denis can potentially receive a large bequest from the estate of a wealthy Jewish Paris doctor and professor, David Halevy. During WW II David and his sister, Maya, were saved from the Nazis by being secretly taken in by a farm family near St. Denis. 

Even though it has been seventy years since the war Bruno and Mayor, Gerard Mangin, are surpised there are no memories of the children. They set out to find out what happened.

Walker is brilliant at involving the people of St. Denis in investigations and bringing into the story historic connections often little known.

The Mayor will personally check town records concerning children.

Florence Pantowsky, a school teacher, has set up a computer club. Florence and her students will search the internet for information.

Bruno learns about the Jewish Boy Scouts of France as Halevy was its honourary President. To his surprise he learns there were four French Boy Scout organizations in that era (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim). The Jewish and Protestant Boy Scouts hid Jewish children in rural France.

Bruno’s biological clock for having children is also ticking. He wants a partner and children. He does not want to wait more years. He loves Pamela, the English lady living nearby, but she has no interest in marriage and no desire for children. 

Sami returns, emaciated and in a psychological quagmire. When a child, his autism was never really addressed. 

Sami’s situation is complicated by what he did in Afghanistan. American, European and Canadian governments will want to try him if he is not tried in France. For France the question of what is to be done with a citizen who turned against his country in the conflicts of the 2010’s and has returned deeply damaged is complex. France is a nation governed by the Rule of Law. Dictatorships have simple solutions.

The non-radicalized family of Sami back in France is also at risk.

The investigations into the past concerninig the Halevy children and the present with regard to Sami are thought provoking.

There is a profoundly moving meeting between the teenagers of St. Denis and Maya.

There is action as well as intellectual examination.

The Children Return is another satisfying journey to St. Denis. The book reminded me that Chief of Police Bruno was a soldier before he was a police officer and experienced in combat.

I have the next in the series beside me and look forward to reading it as my next book.

****

Walker, Martin - (2019) - Bruno, Chief of Police and The Magic of St. Denis and Three Pines; (2023) - The Dark Vineyard; (2024) Black Diamond and The Crowded Grave; (2025) The Devil's Cave; (2025) The Resistance Man

Green-Eyed Lady by Chuck Greaves

(24. - 1313.) Green-Eyed Lady by Chuck Greaves - Warren Burkett, in his mid-60’s, is easily lured by an attractive 40ish green-eyed woman, claiming distress beside a car in Los Angeles, into taking her home and breaking into her house and getting undressed. Then the L.A. police arrive and charge the naked Burkett for stealing from the house a multi-million dollar painting by Berthe Morisot, a female Impressionist. The lady is long gone. It was not her home

Burkett, the popular former mayor of L.A., is the Democratic candidate for Senator from California. He has a healthy lead over Republican billionaire candidate Larry Archer, until the arrest. Election day is but 20 days away.

Burkett hires Jack MacTaggert and his partner, Marta “Mayday” Suarez, to defend him on the charges.

Tom Slewzyski, the L.A. District Attorney, is a long time foe of MacTaggert and looks forward to taking an active role in court in the highly public case.

A Sierra Madre police officer, the lovely Regan Fife, assists McTaggert with information she gleans from police records and databases. Her actions are all breaches of privacy and blatantly illegal. No one appears troubled.

Burkett, anxious to clear his name, except with his long suffering wife Bobbi,  instructs Jack to proceed to a prelim in 10 days.

Angela G. Archer, the glamorous wife of Larry, is also a trustee of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

In one of the cleverest twists I have seen in crime fiction concerning the arts, Greaves brings Ricky Rio and his crew of graffiti artists into the story. They are the avant garde of the 21st Century. 

They make “street art” described as a “quintessentially American art form, like jazz or rap”.

The group’s interests include forms of urban sculpture. They are performance artists as well. They have amazing creative energy. Angela describes Rio as a genius at “agitation and self-promotion”. He is skilled at turning their art into money.  

As the book progressed there was less about legal representation in criminal matters and more about participation in challenging estate situations and campaign finance documentation.

The election probabilities shift with every news revelation. Were I reading the book when it was published I would probably have thought the twists not credible. In 2026 it is a standard American campaign drama for high profile races.

Most fictional lawyers have a one dimensional practice. Normally it is criminal law. McTaggert is more of a generalist. He has a good knowledge of California estate law. Since I have always been a generalist in the law I admired that aspect of McTaggert. What dismayed me was that he had but one case to work upon through the book. I have yet to meet a lawyer in a small general practice who is not juggling dozens, if not more, cases at a time.

McTaggert is deft in convincing a judge to issue an order in the estate on slender evidence that allows him to go legally fishing. That would be as much fun in real life as it is for McTaggert in fiction.

Most real life lawyers avoid directly releasing information to the media that is likely to appear in court. Beyond the obvious risks that the media member given the information may not re-state it accurately it is hard to predict reactions to media stories.

McTaggert resembles Michael Connelly’s lawyer, Mickey Haller. Neither McTaggert nor Mickey ever pushed a microphone aside and each is adept at advancing their client’s position through media pressure.

The pace accelerates as the fishing expedition seeks information in Santa Barbara to break the case.

However, McTaggert is playing with fire. Multiple deaths have occurred. He is at risk with his provocations.

McTaggert is quick with the quip. Addressing a remark that he be careful about going into a new relationship after just breaking up McTaggert says:

“On the rebound? Please. I’ve already rebounded. I lead the league in rebounding.”

It is more a mystery with a lawyer as sleuth than legal fiction. I did enjoy McTaggert as a lawyer.

Jack McTaggert joins a select group of fictional lawyers. He is genuinely witty, even funny. Steve Solomon  from the Solomon and Lord books by Paul Levine and Mickey Haller are other light hearted lawyers.

In encouraging clients and witnesses to have faith in him McTaggert has a great phrase:

“Trust me, I’m a lawyer.”

Almost always I say.

****

Greaves. C. Joseph (also known as Greaves, Chuck) - (2016) - Tom and Lucky and George and Cokey Flo and George Morton Levy Lawyer

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAYS FOUR AND FIVE)

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAYS FOUR AND FIVE) -

By the time yesterday ended I was too tired to write about the day so I am combining the last two days of the conference.

DAY FOUR -

I took Saturday morning off. I have not wanted the conference to feel like work so I have not been going from morning to night.

My first panel on Saturday was Sustaining a Detective Character Across a Series. Libby Fischer Hellman was moderator. Participants were James W. Ziskin, Kathy Reichs, James Benn and Robert Rotenberg.

Kathy said nothing attracted her to forensics. She became involved when bones were found at the university where she was teaching. They were from a child. The police asked her to help them in the investigation. She found the work interesting and decided she could impact lives more with forensic work than she could as a scientist.

Robert has written a prequel in his Ari Greene series. It is called One Minute More and he kindly provided me with a copy. For sustaining a series he says a prequel gives an author the opportunity to write more about a character’s life than just proceeding forward from where a series starts. In One Minute More he takes the reader back to when Ari was a young police officer.

Kathy said she has a shelf in her lab with the remains of unidentified deceased. It is a reminder of work unfinished.

A photo of the panel is below.

After the panel ended Robert told me he is returning to writing about lawyers in his next book. I said I was very glad as I loved his lawyers and considered him the William Deverell of this generation.

My second session was Selling Books in a Challenging Chaotic Marketplace. Julia O’Connell was moderator. The panelists were Michael C. Bumsted, Angela Douglas and Josh Getzler.

The authors spoke about the challenge of distinguishing fake emails from real emails.

Easiest to detect were emails from the deceased. An email from Agatha Christie on behalf of a book club was ignored.

All urged any communications to an author be as human as possible. Flowery language is an indicator of fake emails. Lastly, closing an email with “warm regards” is a clear indicator to an author it is a fake email. 

The ending of mass market paperbacks is going to affect crime fiction. Where they could be sold for $9 - $12 trade paperbacks are going to be much more expensive. No one knows yet what will happen.

On what is the next trend the authors said trying to catch a trend is too late. By the time the book is written, edited and published the trend will have passed. Bumstead said editors have told him they are tired of reading manuscripts about AI criminals.

The first AI criminal I read was a chatbot earlier this year in Michael Connelly’s book, The Proving Ground, and it appears AI criminals are an already passing trend. The pace of trends has accelerated.

I came back in the evening for the Pub Trivia Contest featuring Two Truths and a Lie. Three Canadian authors - Anthony Bidulka, Brenda Chapman and Cathy Ace - provided 12 rounds of two truths and a lie about themselves. There were 12 different photos of each author put up with visual clues to help identify the lies. Participants recorded their answers through an app.

I sat with Ludvica Boota. It is a good thing she is a good companion. While we got more than half the lies we never placed in the top three for each author.

I regret to say I did not detect three lies related to Anthony Bidulka. There were a couple of twists in his lies but I should have seen through them.

DAY FIVE -

On the final morning I went to the session called White Collar Crimes: Commit a Crime from the Comfort of Your Home. Brad Elder was moderator. The panelists were Amran Gowani, Jenny Dandy, Susan Jane Wright and Lawrence Light.

Gowani, who worked on Wall Street, for a few years talked about “legal” crimes. An example was the promotion of opiods by companies when the consequences were clear. He spoke of London and Europe as leading places for money laundering. He left Wall Street as he felt silently complicit in deals which were difficult for him ethically.

Wright, who has worked in a large law firm and as corporate counsel in Calgary, spoke of the senior people in large companies as so persuasive they are hard to challenge and, if challenged, they would push down challenges. She indicated that if lawyers, following their duties, say a deal is illegal they will get fired and the scam will continue. She created a character willing to go outside the law to gain justice.

Wright spoke of favouring retribution over restitution in her writing of white collar crime. She added a story that, while she was working as corporate counsel, a secretary told her, some years later, that she had written an anonymous letter to the Board of Directors about a bad executive, who was not very bright, telling the Board they should look at his deals. The Board followed up and he was fired.

Dandy spoke of spreadsheets as dull and authors should avoid going into lengthy explanations of financial records. He said to keep explanations short to avoid Mego - my eyes glaze over.

I asked the panel if they had encountered threats of defamation and how they wrote to avoid being sued. Wright said she was careful. She is writing in Alberta where she worked and there are only a few large oil industry companies. On writing characters who were drawn from her real life experiences she said she was surprised by the number of people who did not realize they were the basis for a fictional character.

I found it a touch ironic that none of the panelists talked about crimes being committed from home. The crimes the panelists spoke about in fiction and real life were all corporate crimes committed at the office. Wright said the scariest criminal is a white guy with a spreadsheet.

I attended the closing remarks which included a final panel discussion. David Poulsen was moderator. The panelists were conference guests of honour - Louise Penny, Abir Mukerjee, Mark Greaney, Vicki Delaney, Kevin Sands and P.J. Vernon.

Dave asked the sextet to provide abit of information about themselves not in their bios.

Louise said she loves to eat and owns a cafe but never cooks.

P.J. said his spiritualism manifests itself some evenings in shamanism.

Sands, a physicist, showed how to shoot rubberbands accurately with your fingers.

Later Dave asked, in a time when books and libraries are being challenged, for some indication of hope for the future.

The panelists all spoke of the challenges of AI. Louise said she had advised her publisher that if it or any subsidiary published AI written books they would no longer be her publisher. She eloquently urged all in attendance, writers and readers, to advocate for author written books and reject AI generated books. She believes we can make a difference.

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY THREE) -

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY THREE) -

I arrived at the Telus Centre just in time for the Deadly Canada session. Wayne Arthurson was moderator. Panelists were Anthony Bidulka, Charlotte Morgani, M.H. Callway and Dave Sweet. (A photo is below.)

Anthony, who is from Saskatchewan, opened the session by saying Canadians are polite people and you are less likely to be killed in Canada but we think alot about murder.

Sweet, a retired Calgary homicide detective, said he believes there is more good than bad in Canada. He added that even some of the baddest Canadians he has encountered have said sorry in the end.

On location Anthony said Saskatchewan has lots of space but still has intimacy. The openness and isolation can be horrifying. At the same time there is the closeness of rural Saskatchewan where everyone knows everyone in small communities.

Sweet spoke of dealing with 600 suspicious deaths during this career of over 20 years with Calgary Police Services. He said memories from the murders bubble up in his memory.

M.H. said real life is stranger than fiction. She wrote a mystery involving reptiles. As part of her research she learned of fashion shows for iguanas in Toronto.

I suggested in a question/comment that, in my experience Canadian police use more honey than vinegar when interrogating suspects. Sweet explained that he would sometimes ask a suspect what would your mother think about what you did and what would she want you to say.

After the session I had a photo with Anthony. I think we were two of the best dressed guys at Bouchercon.

I moved on to the session called Crime Writing Economics: Royalties, Advances, and Big Break Myth. Jaima Fixsen was moderator. On the panel were W. Michael Gear, Otto Penzler, Mike Farley and Neal Bailey.

Penzler provided a breakdown of the hidden costs of publishing a hardcover book in New York City. These are the costs in addition to the overhead of maintaining a business and employee costs.

Penzler’s hidden costs for publishing a 10,000 books run to be sold at $30 per book are:

1.) Say $10,000 advance to author;

2.) After internal editing $1,000 for a freelance copy editor;

3.) $1,000 for setting the book in type;

4.) $500 - $1,000 for a proof reader;

5.) $1,400 - $1,800 for having a studio prepare a dust jacket;

6.) $3 - $5 per book in printing costs;

7.) If distributed by a company like Simon & Schuster a 15% - 20% commission;

8.) From the $30 per book sales price a bookseller like Barnes & Noble will take $15;

9.) Royalties to the author would be 10% of the dust jacket price of $30 for the first 10,000 books sold with royalties increasing to 12.5% for the next 5,000 books sold and 15% for the books sold over 15,000;

10.) Promotions of the book at $1.50 per book.

He concluded that it is hard making money on sales of 10,000 for a book.

After that sobering session I went for a lovely lunch with Edmonton authors, Janice MacDonald and Candas Jane Dorsey. 

Included in our wide ranging  conversation was an explanation by Candas, who spent years publishing books, that it is even harder for Canadian publishers to make money as the price point for a book is set by what American publishers are charging. To help publishers address the inevitable losses the Federal Government provides payments. Canadian publishing is a precarious business.

All three of us have concerns over relying on digitization for storage of written materials. As the years go by there are increasing risks that the digitized documents may be inaccessible as platforms change.

I had greatly enjoyed Janice’s Randy Craig mysteries and was very glad when she gave me a copy of My Heart Belongs to Dante, the third in her new series of Imogene Durant mysteries. Durant experiences adventures outside Canada by reading books in the place where the books were set. In My Heart Belongs to Dante she is in Florence reading Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Candas provided me with a copy of The Adventures of Isabel. From the dust jacket Isabel a “downsized-social-worker and her cat, Bunnywit, are jolted into a harsh, street-world of sex, lies, and betrayal”.

In the afternoon I visited the book room where I met a pair of authors pitching their books.

After listening to Paddy Hirsch, an Irish writer, I got a copy of The Devil’s Half Mile, a mystery set in 1799 New York.

Don Macdonald persuaded me to get The Faithful which is about the murder of a young Hutterite man.

By mid-afternoon I was ready to head back to the hotel to see my wife Sharon and her guide dog, Tilly. We went out for supper with our son, Michael, our daughter-in-law, Kaja, and our 2 year old grandson, Henrik. We went to Mina’s, a Brazilian steakhouse near the hotel. We had an excellent rodizio meal enjoying the waiters bringing skewers of cooked meat and pineapple to the table. I find it hard to be restrained at an all-you-can-eat place.

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY TWO)

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY TWO) -

I started the morning at The Hidden Load-Bearing Principles of a Murder Mystery Plot session with Juanita Violini. 

Violini analyzed the structure of a large number of mysteries including all the Agatha Christie and Rex Stout mysteries. From her studies she created diagrams.

The first was story structure as a murder cake. The bottom layer is actually what happens. The middle layer are the clues and red herrings. The top layer is what appeared to happen.

The second was the suspect equalizer diagram she calls a snowflake from its design. She emphasizes shining equal light on all the suspects. 

Third is the Whodunnit device. She states an author needs to decide on the villain. Only the villain will have method, motive and opportunity to commit murder. Other suspects will have one or two of the three requirements

Fourth is the clue calculator. She said clues lead to the truth while red herrings lead away from the truth. She recommends making a spreadsheet of clues.

Overall she recommends writing out what happens chronologically before working on clues and red herrings.

After the session I spoke with Toronto lawyer and author, Robert Rotenberg. He has written a series of books set in Toronto. The initial books combined lawyers and police. Later books have focused on detective Ari Greene. I mentioned to him that in his second last book What We Buried the opening describes an attempted murder on Clinton Street just off College. I said Sharon and I had been on that very block of Clinton Street a few months before I read the book.

I then participated in three truths and a lie game. Fellow participants were Liisa Kovala / A.L. Jensen, Scott McKinnon and Melissa Ye. Each participant wrote three truths about themselves and Erik D’Souza came up with the lie about each participant. We read the lie for the first time when we read aloud from a sheet containing the truths and a lie. We then answered questions from the Head Lie Detector, Shoshana (S.M. Freedman), and the audience. (Our photo is below.)

My three truths and a lie were:

1.) I have written approximately 2,500,000 words which were published but have never had published a book nor a short story nor a play.

2.) I have been to bookstores and/or libraries on 6 continents.

3.) I have visited the graves of more than a dozen famous mystery and crime writers while travelling.

4.)  I have visited the home of the late mystery author, Gail Bowen, in Regina, Saskatchewan where there is a Cold War underground bunker in the backyard in case of nuclear attack.

My lie was not detected. Poor Shoshana. She did not identify the lie of any of the four participants. I invite readers to say which of the above four statements about me was a lie.

Today was the birthday of Ludvica Boota, the Crime Writers of Canada Executive Director. We had a nice lunch together at Charcut.

This afternoon I attended Joys and Pitfalls of Collecting Crime Fiction and Non-Fiction. Vancouver writer Sam Wiebe was moderator. On the panel were Peter Rozovsky, Warren Moore, Chip Cowell and Sandy Bielesch.

I was startled when Sandy said she has 7,000 crime books in her home. I was stunned when Chip said he has 24,000 books!

On what gives them special satisfaction collecting books Sandy gets excited about completing a set of books for an author. She says to herself “Thank God. It’s done”. Chip loves the feel of a pristine book and the smell of vintage books.

On caring for books Chip says he washes his hands before handling any of his books and says he requires his children wash their hands before touching his books.

Sam said he had read a New York Times article on people wrapping a book in plastic and putting it in the freezer to kill any living bugs that might be in the pages. Peter quipped he now had another place in the house to store books.

This is a photo of the panel:

I wound up by listening to Louise Penny and S.A. Cosby talk about their books which have been nominated for the 2026 Anthony Best Hardcover Novel.

They are skilled speakers who have clearly spoken often about their books.

With regard to his book King of Ashes Shawn recounted an anecdote about crematorium operators as a creamatorioum is featured in the book. In real life he said he asked an operator if gangsters had ever asked him to dispose of a body. He was surprised when the operator said three times. He turned them down. 

Louise spoke of the challenge of how to make writing about the decent interesting. Armand Gamache and the residents of Three Pines are decent people. She said it is much easier to write about the cynical and the cruel.

On the way out I picke up my two free books from the Book Bazaar. I chose books by two authors I have not read. They are Laws of Solomon by Eriq La Salle and The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin.

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY ONE)

MY BOUCHERCON 2026 (DAY ONE) -

I am at my first Bouchercon in Calgary with almost 1,400 other registrants. It is being held in the heart of Calgary at the Telus Convention Centre. 

I had a good day.

After registering I took some time to look through the binder handed out with all the details of the conference. It is 144 pages.

I randomly spoke with someone sitting beside me. It was Shelley Marsh from northeast Florida. She has written a series called the Estate Sale Mysteries. We spoke about estate sales. I said in Canada, at least Saskatchewan, does not have estate sales. Saskatchewan does not have companies conducting estate sales.

I went to the media room where the Crime Writers of Canada is set up and met Ludvica Boota, the executive director. We have talked several times about the selection of jurors for the CWC Awards of Excellence but had never met in person. She is such a vibrant positive person.

I spoke with Erik DeSouza who is moderating a panel for a game, Three Truths And a Lie, in which I am one of the participants. I wrote up three truths about myself. Just before we start tomorrow morning he will give me a lie. Audience members will try to detect which of my four statements is a lie. I am not sure if I want to be a successful liar.

This afternoon I attended a panel session titled Welcome to Canada: Five Canadian Writers Debate, Politely of Course. Lisa Bush from Calgary moderated. The panelists were Iona Whishaw, Madona Skaf-Koren, Mike Martin and Randy McCharles. A photo of the panel is below.

They talked about the settings of their mysteries in central British Columbia, Ottawa, Grand Bank in Newfoundland and Calgary.

Iona spoke of the ever changing moods of the lake where her mysteries take place.

Mike mentioned the fog of Grand Bank and spoke of Sgt. Windflower emerging from the fog to speak to him.

Madona referred to the canals of Ottawa providing boating experiences in the summer and skating in the winter.

On her inspiration Iona said she learned a year before her mother died at 86 that her mother had worked in British Intelligence in World War II. Iona’s sleuth, Lane Winslow, worked in British Intelligence before coming to B.C.

I asked if any had been encouraged by publishers to set their books in the United States. Iona said an unnamed American publishing agency had told her she would need to set a book in America if she wanted American readers as Americans are not interested in mysteries set outside the U.S.

Mike said with the current dual streams of traditional publishing houses and self-publishing it has not been an issue the last 10 years.

As I expected all were polite.

My second panel of the day was titled Best 2025 Humour Mysteries / Thrillers.

Caro Ramsey from Scotland was moderator. The panelists were Cathy Ace, Lisa Harkrader and Rob Osler. They were a delightful witty group.

Caro started by going through all the Awards won by the other panelists and ended the review by saying she has never won any awards though she has been nominated multiple times.

On who they liked for humor in the last year both Cathy and Rob mentioned Carl Hiassen’s latest book, Fever Beach.

On setting up humour Lisa, who has written numerous books for the 10-12 year age group, spoke of creating a character who was a dung farmer from generations of dung farmers. She said Grade 5’s loved it.

She said she had a superhero called Beanman. She rhetorically asked what super power could a bean have? The room erupted in laughter. She said indeed he would have a powerful wind.

I am looking forward to Day Two.

A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr (Part II)

A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr (Part II) - In Part I of my review Bernie Gunther returns to the Eastern Front. He is checking out reports of mass graves of Polish Army officers. While investigating he gets involved in a local investigation of the murder of a pair of German soldiers.

Forensic experts from all over Europe and the Polish Red Cross come to excavate and study the buried bodies of the Polish officers. The Russians have developed a method of entombing mass graves with sand to prevent the decomposing bodies from damaging the environment. 

Dr. Marianne Kramsta, a beautiful German forensic doctor, arrives to assist in the investigation of the mass grave. As with every other German officer Bernie is smitten. 

She practises forensic medicine because it is not political. Unlike other areas of medicine taken over by fascist ideals she says “[T]heory and opinion have no place beside the dissecting table”.

Standing with her in the Cathedral Church of the Assumption in Smolensk, Bernie muses as he watches the Germans and Russians praying in the church:

Either way, God was going to have to choose sides and choose soon: the godless communists or the blaspheming Germans. Who would be God with a choice like that?

I wondered what would happen to this romance. Bernie has had so many disappointments.

Bernie’s investigation involves another prominent group in Germany. Numerous high ranking Army officers are members of the Prussian aristocracy. The “vons” and the “zus” are elitist, effortlessly arrogant and condescending. Few are devoted Nazis but they are quite willing to lead the Nazi war of conquest.

Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge commands Army Group Centre. He is a professional who has adapted to the extreme warfare of the Eastern Front.

I had read of Hitler buying the loyalty of Generals with gifts of money and land. Bernie is not surprised by what is given to Von Kluge.

Kerr has a great talent for weaving a plausible murder mystery into a plot concentrated on one or more of the great events and/or issues of World War II. The murder mystery and the major plot theme could be good stand alone books. Together they create great books.

The ending of A Man Without Breath was tense and involved yet more Nazi German leaders.

Several in the book, as others have in earlier books of the series, wonder how Bernie has survived the 11 years since the Nazis came to power with his unruly attitude to authority. Nazis were not noted for tolerance of the eccentric. Bernie lives because he is useful. Heydrich and Goebbels could easily have had him executed for his insubordination. Instead, they vest him with power far beyond his rank of Captain. Unlike the sycophants clustered around them they know he will find out the truth in an investigation not merely what subordinates think their superiors want to know.

The combatants on both sides of the Eastern Front have been so de-sensitized to death that they are indifferent to killing. Where Viktor Frankl, most prominently in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, said all life has meaning it is the reverse on the Eastern Front. 

It has been eighty-three years since the events explored in A Man Without Breath. I fear our current world is getting de-sensitized to death.

While each of the books featuring Bernie is hard to read because of the powerful descriptions of violence and vile human behaviour, A Man Without Breath may be the most difficult. I will read more of Bernie but I need a break from his life.

****

Kerr, Philip – (2004) - Dark Matter; (2016) - March Violets; (2016) - The Pale Criminal; (2016) - A German Requiem; (2016) - Berlin Police and the Holocaust - Part I and Part II;  (2016) - Comparing Serial Killers in Three Totalitarian States; (2023) - The One From the Other; (2023) - A Quiet Flame; (2024) - If the Dead Rise Not; (2026) - Field Gray; (2026) - Prague Fatale; (2026) - A Man Without Breath - Part I and Part II