The Rule of Law and China

Desmond Shum Photo: Jonty Davies

Red Roulette by Desmond Shum provides a powerful story of what happens in a nation that is not governed by the Rule of Law. In Canada and other Western democracies citizens and governments must abide by constitutions and statutes and the interpretations by the courts of a country. In Communist China there is only the pretence of the Rule of Law. It is the Communist Party currently dominated by its General Secretary, Xi Jinping, which decides what is the law of the nation. 

The Rule of Law can be an abstract principle. I find examples best illustrate the application of principles. Shum provides examples of how it is the Party, rather than the Rule of Law, which controls China.

In Canada statutes are carefully drafted to be as precise as possible so that they can be clearly understood and consistently interpreted. Canadians, with the aid of lawyers and judges, can be confident that they can rely on the provisions of statutes being applied by the courts.

In China, Shum explains that statutes have a lot of “gray” in them which makes it impossible for the Chinese people to know how the laws, especially in business, will be applied.

There is no independent judiciary to provide a check on the Party.

Even worse, when new laws are passed they are generally “retrospective” rather than “prospective”. In Canada it is the reverse. The problem with “retrospective” laws is that people, in particular, businessmen make decisions based on the law at the time of a decision. 

Even if laws are not changed, the Party in China has the power to require private companies to share or give up ownership of ventures to state owned entities.

If laws are subsequently changed to negatively impact existing business decisions or the Party can involve itself in successful companies it is hard to convince businesses to invest in such an arbitrary country.

With the law so “flexible” in China it is essential for business people to have good and close relationships with the “red aristocracy”, high ranking members of the Party and their families, so that laws are not changed to their detriment and interpretation of “gray” laws on corruption are not applied to them negatively.

In Red Roulette Shum and his wife, Whitney, cultivated a close relationship with Auntie Zhang, the wife of Wen who became the Premier of China. Establishing and maintaining such relationships inevitably involves payments or advantageous business opportunities.

Under the Rule of Law statutes apply to all citizens. I acknowledge there is some discretion in Canada but I have confidence no class of Canadians is exempted from the law.

In Communist China the “princelings”, the families of high ranking Party officials, do not face the same consequences as common folk. Shum describes how Li Peiying, a non-princeling, was convicted of corruption and executed by a bullet to the back of the head but nothing happened to a princeling participating in another corrupt venture at the same time..

Shum stated “the courts functioned as a tool of Party control”.

So far the Communist Party of China has allowed enough economic opportunity for the non-princelings that the economy can flourish and resentment towards the princelings is muted.

When there is no Rule of Law with regard to enforcement of criminal law, especially corruption statutes, everyone lives with an element of fear. Once again, connections with the elite can reduce the fear but never eliminate the anxiety.

Whitney used her connections to prosper, probably to the status of billionaire, and vowed not to make dirty business deals.

However, when unwanted public attention was brought upon the wealth of the Wen family by the New York Times and the Party negatively reacted it was Whitney not Auntie Zhang who was sacrificed.

With regard to criminal charges under the Rule of Law you are entitled to know the charges and have a trial.

Where there is no Rule of Law you can simply be “disappeared” as Whitney was taken from her office in 2017.

Chinese laws requiring the police holding someone to release or formally arrest the suspect are circumvented by shuanggui which:

…. allows investigators to hold people suspected of violating Party regulations. But shuanggui is not limited by any law. Technically, detentions can last forever.”

If a billionaire can be “disappeared” ordinary citizens live at constant risk.

Will the system change?

In 1215 English Barons met with King John at Runnymede and compelled him to sign the Magna Carta which significantly limited the power of the King. 

Among the provisions, as set out in an article on the LawNow website, were:

Clause 39 of the document provided that “no free man” (at the time, this mainly meant the barons) could be imprisoned, lose his possessions or be “deprived of his standing in any way … except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land”.

Its concluding phrase – that no one could be punished or penalized except “… by the law of the land” – is perhaps the most significant of all, both in relation to criminal law and indeed, to our entire system of governance. This concept describes the Rule of Law, which underlies our form of democracy and law: the government, at whatever level and through whatever agency, may only act against a citizen where the law gives it authority to do so. Most important for criminal law, these words meant the state could only imprison or otherwise punish individuals where properly enacted legal provisions say this is possible. Arbitrary and illegal detention and imprisonment would not be tolerated any longer; citizens were no longer subject to being locked up simply because the king or queen took a disliking to their words or actions.

Other provisions established jury trials, that judges be qualified and the requirement that evidence be produced at trials.

Magna Carta was effectively the start of the Rule of Law in England. While the Charter was subsequently challenged the absolute power of the monarchy was at an end.

I think the “princelings” will some day compel the General Secretary of the Communist Party to share power and recognize property and personal rights.

I do not see the Rule of Law coming to China in the near future.

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Shum, Desmond - (2026) - Red Roulette

Red Roulette by Desmond Shum

(31. - 1320.) Red Roulette by Desmond Shum - Shum grew up in a family both cursed and blessed by the Communist Party of China. His paternal grandfather, a distinguished lawyer, declined to leave the mainland in 1949 when the Communists took over, trusting in the Party’s socialist rhetoric. The Party took away his assets and left him humiliated. His maternal grandfather moved to Hong Kong at the takeover and sent money regularly back to his grandmother gaining status and protection for her, even during the Great Cultural Revolution, as she was associated with “patriotic overseas Chinese”.

Ill-treated by his parents, Shum grew up in Hong Kong. For much of his schooling he was focused on sports, he was a Chinese giant at 6’5”, rather than academics. Seeking the status that comes from an elite education he studied hard to get into Queen’s College.

From their struggles on the mainland Shum and his parents were frugal in ways beyond money. They never wasted food. 

In 1989, just after the Party’s brutal crackdown on student protesters, Shum moved to the United States to attend the University of Wisconsin.

In 1994 he joined private equity firm, ChinaVest, seeking to become part of China’s economic boom.

He soon learned of the corruption within the Chinese government needed to facilitate business:

For me, Robertson’s cultivation of Feng Bo peeled back the curtain on the inner workings of a political system that mouthed Communist slogans whilte the families of senior officals gorged themselves at the trough of economic reforms. These sons and daughters functioned like an aristocracy, they intermarried, lived lives disconnected from those of average Chinese, and made fortunes selling access to their parents, inside information, and regulatory approvals that were keys to wealth.

Shum’s book confirmed the importance of guanxi (connections) described in the crime mystery stories of Xiaolong featuring Inspector Chin during this era.

When he returned to China to live in Beijiang he found himself at a disadvantage. He did not know how the new China worked and lacked connections. Both were essential to exploiting the tradeoff the Party provided:

....give us your freedom and we’ll let you make money.

After a faltering start in business he met The Lady Chairman Whitney Duan (Duan Zong), a powerhouse of a woman who had worked her way from the coastal province of Shandong to Beijiang. Her company, Great Ocean, engaged in real estate developments and importing IBM computers. She stood out in the male dominated business world of China. 

To succeed in China connections with the Party leadership were vital. Whitney had an elite connection through her friendship with Auntie Zhang, the wife of Wen Jiabo who became Chinese Premier, the second most important position in China.

Trained as a geologist Auntie Zhang was known as the “Diamond Queen” for her role in re-establishing China’s jewelry industry. 

While her husband devoted himself to work, Auntie Zhang was eager to do business.

Their children were avaricious, eventually becoming billionaires.

By 2003 Whitney was Auntie Zhang’s “closest female companion” and they had opened an office together.

Shum recounts vividly the intrigues in China’s red aristocracy as its members compete for riches and power. Conflicts in families are inevitable.

Their lives changed when they were able to purchase a small share in Ping An, a giant insurance company. They borrowed $12 million. They held their shares despite a twelve fold increase in value after the company went public in Hong Kong because “China’s controls on the movement of capital banned the sale of Chinese stock overseas”.

When the company was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange the price went up to twenty-six times the value of their original shares and they cleared over $300 million.

Shum believes “that luck lies at the heart of most fortunes”. When they invested in Ping An they did not knowit was going to go public. 

Shum led the way in their next venture, a logistics hub at the Beijiang airport. Completing the approval process and building the hub took Shum’s people skills, great persistence and some help from their connections in the Party. Shum needed 150 chops (“Chinese seals that are used in lieu of a signature”) in the process and he led the way in getting almost every chop.

Business was unfriendly to family life. Most days he was circulating through offices working out problems. Almost every night he was meeting lower level officials who could keep a project on time or stall it. They would gather to eat and drink for hours. The amount of alcohol consumed was breathtaking.

They made almost $200 million on the project.

Their crowning project was a luxury real estate development in downtown Bejiang in which they combined their experience in luxury hotels and buildings around the world with great designers. It was called Genesis.

As they progressed they believed for a time the Party was ready to adjust governance and control to give some freedom. The opposite proved true. When the Party perceived its control was threatened it acted decisively. Individuals not part of the Red aristocracy would be sidelined and jailed in corruption investigations. State controlled companies demanded control or at least shares in private companies.

They reserved for themselves the 10,000 square foot penthouse in their hotel/condo building. Among its perks was an indoor pool.

When the NY Times ran a front page story that the Wen family was worth almost $3 billion Auntie Zhang sacrificed Whitney. It was Whitney practising “yiqi, the code of brotherhood”.

Shum describes how Xi Jinping maunouvered himself into becoming China’s leader as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Though Wen supported Xi, the family, caught up in the turmoil over their wealth, “ ‘donated’ all of their assets to the state in exchange for a guarantee that they wouldn’t be prosecuted”.

I felt I was reading a real life version, on a grander scale, of the fierce business and personal battles in Hong Kong 40 years earlier described in Noble House by James Clavell. 

The heavy hand of the party and the corrupt actions of high ranking families would seem bound to limit economic success but China has continued to thrive.

Shum has abundant anecdotes and brief histories of the participants while he keeps driving the narrative. 

What happened to Shum and Whitney will be discussed in my next post.

James Comey and FDR Drive and the U.S. Department of Justice

It is a coincidence that I have just finished reading FDR Drive when there are news stories appearing about the American Federal Department of Justice attempting to bolster their case against the author, James Comey, by using excerpts from the book.

In this post I make references to the book that I would consider spoilers. They do not reveal the ending but readers who want little information about a book before reading are hereby warned there is significant information in this post.

The Department of Justice  has alleged, as set out by Publishers Weekly:

…. that Comey threatened to harm President Trump when he posted a photo of seashells arranged on a beach to spell “86-47.” Comey’s lawyers have asked that the case be dismissed.

Earlier this month Publishers Weekly set out the Department of Justice position:

In a filing earlier this week, the Department of Justice maintained that Comey, similarly to a right-wing podcaster in his legal thriller FDR Drive, sent coded messages to his followers suggesting they kill an enemy of his. The new filing, which seeks to prevent the DOJ’s case from being thrown out of court, also includes a starred PW review of the book, which concludes with the observation that FDR Drive “proves that Comey the crime novelist is here to stay.”

I looked up and read the Government’s submission to the Court and Comey’s response.

The excerpts quoted by the Government from FDR Drive appear in the facts of the submission. They need to be claimed to be evidence to be relied on in an argument.

Leaving aside the issue of freedom of speech I cannot recall where a prosecutor or defence counsel have sought to use statements in a work of fiction as evidence in a criminal proceeding. 

While self-evident the Department of Justice appears to need reminding that the book is “fiction” not “non-fiction”.

There are defamation actions against the authors of fictional works that named real persons or created characters who were obviously real life people. I discuss the issue in a series of posts concerning Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews. In the book Matthews named Vladimir Putin and described him very negatively.

Once again, stating the obvious, defamation is civil not criminal.

In my review of the book I stated with regard to the evil podcaster, Sam Buchanan:

He calls on the patriots of White America to act to defend the nation from the others intent on taking over. He names people he identifies as tyrants. Two have been killed.

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As a precedent the prosecutors look back a thousand years to King Henry II asking his knights who will rid him of the meddlesome Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.

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Buchanan states:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, as Jefferson said.

The government’s filing quotes the reference to Henry II but not the portions of the book connected to the first and third references. I include them for context.

In the book prosecutors realize there is a problem with connecting the words to the actions of the killers. To remedy that weakness Comey creates a jailhouse informant. By accident Buchanan is housed with a serial criminal informant, Michael James Gerardi. Buchanan on tape, unprompted, freely says to Gerardi that he knew what would happen “because I wanted it to happen, I was committed to having it happen”. The prosecutors have the connection for a conspiracy.

The Department of Justice has no one saying Comey told anyone that FDR Drive is connected with his posting of the photo of the seashells to allegedly threaten President Trump. The Department of Justice does acknowledge that Comey denies arranging the seashells and that Comey stated:

I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.

I further note President Trump is not mentioned in FDR Drive.

It is ironic that the Department of Justice is using an example of writing in which a fictional highly conservative right wing podcaster is sending messages which incited violence.

If there is a message to be drawn from the book it is that any real life highly conservative right wing podcasters, talking about their opposition as tyrants and that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” are a danger to American society. I would not say they should be subject to criminal charges.

Publishers Weekly further said:

In the filing, prosecutors also said Comey had an “apparent financial incentive to stir up controversy,” suggesting the seashell photo was shared in an effort to juice sales for his “eerily on-the-nose novel.”

The “apparent financial incentive” was a poor incentive. The Guardian newspaper reports that, according to Circana BookScan, Comey’s novel has sold 6,471 copies as of August of 2026.

I consider the Department of Justice position such a far fetched theory that no author of crime fiction could advance it in a book.

Comey’s lawyers, in their reply to the Department of Justice submission, did not bother to respond to the submissions on FDR Drive.

The material is now before a Federal Court judge. I will be very interested to read the judgment.

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FDR Drive

FDR Drive by James Comey

(35. - 1324.) FDR Drive by James Comey - Being a federal prosecutor in New York City has made Nora Carleton acutely aware of “the darkness in the world”. Recently appointed “the Deputy United States Attorney, the number two position in the Southern District of New York” (SDNY), she is taking the lead on a prospective case of terrorism.

The United States Attorney for the SDNY is her friend and colleague Carmen Garcia.

Carleton is a lesbian in a good relationship with Captain Demitria “Demi” Kofatos of the Westport, Connecticut Police Department. 

A staff prosecutor at the SDNY, Sean Fitzpatrick, has come to believe:

“..... that the biggest domestic threat ws no longer Cosa Nostra but what the FBI called ‘racially motivated violent extremists’ - and the most active of these were White people who believed that non-Whites threatened them and the continued existence of the United States of America.”

One of the leaders of the movement is Sam Buchanan, a swift talking podcaster. While banned from the mainstream platforms he makes his way on to the internet through messaging apps, shared clips and a steadily growing email subscription service. He speaks eloquently, no doubt aided by his Harvard education, to the “voiceless Americans of European ancestry”. 

He is following in the footsteps of Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones though his words are more inflammatory. He calls on the patriots of White America to act to defend the nation from the others intent on taking over. He names people he identifies as tyrants. Two have been killed.

Fitzpatrick, as the  Chief of the National Security and International Narcotics unit better known by its acronym, NSIN, wants to investigate Buchanan for “seditious conspiracy”. (The SDNY is an acronym rich environment.) He needs to know if Buchanan has direct links with the killers.

As a precedent the prosecutors look back a thousand years to King Henry II asking his knights who will rid him of the meddlesome Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.

In the highly polarized America of the mid-2020’s Garcia wants to proceed cautiously.

Assisting Carleton is Benny Dugan, a huge powerful man, who is an investigator for the office. 

Buchanan is portrayed in every unflattering way possible from demagogue to sexual predator. He has not a single redeeming quality. He is a cardboard villain.

While an evil guy I wondered where the evidence would come for a conspiracy involving Buchanan. There is no physical evidence. There is an abundance of Buchanan making vile comments but where is the connection with the killers. There is a mid-plot twist to deal with that issue that felt contrived. The effort to distance the SDNY from the twist supported my feeling.

The pre-trial manoeuvring was well done. Comey knows U.S. Federal Court rules and practice. Legal issues are handled credibly.

I would have said one of the defence lawyers was incompetent and it was not credible that the lawyer represent an accused on a murder charge had I not watched several of the lawyers who have represented President Trump in recent years.

Jury selection is prolonged and challenging for the lawyers as they have to consider which potential jurors will move to becoming jurors as the prosecution and defence use their peremptory strikes.

The trial was interesting. It reminded me of many television shows on trials where the questioning is condensed to just the highlighted issue. The compression takes up fewer pages than a real examination or cross-examination. What is lost is the subtlety of how a witness testifies and responds on cross. The book could be taken directly to a T.V. series or movie. The producers would hardly have to cut any dialogue.

The trial addressed whether Buchanan was a just a loudmouth advocate for his vision of America or inciting his listeners to violence. What was the intent of his words? He never directed anyone to commit violence in his lengthy monologues on his show. What does it mean for a criminal prosecution when he says:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, as Jefferson said.

The Anglo-American-Canadian legal systems require accused to be found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt of the charges against them. It is an intentionally high burden. It is difficult to meet that standard on a charge of conspiracy.

While there is a shortage of analysis in the book there is a recognition of perspective with regard to the participants in the January 6 storming of the Capitol and the participants in riots after George Floyd was killed.

There is a conspiracy that has elements of plausibility and improbability.

As often occurs in crime fiction an informant of the State lies to strengthen the prosecution.

The book reminds me of many television shows in that the good people are great and the bad people are wicked. There is barely any gray in the characterizations.

FDR Drive is well written and crisply paced. I find it not possible to discuss a significant flaw in the structure of the book for me because it is too big a spoiler. I think I need to read another of Comey’s books to draw better conclusions about the author. I am sure he can write a book that is not a T.V. show in print.

I am very aware Comey is the former director of the FBI and a continuing target for the Trump Department of Justice. I reached my thoughts for this review without considering his non-authorial life. I may have more to say on the current references to the book in a Department of Justice brief in its effort to prosecute Comey.

The Music of What Happens by John Straley

(34. - 1323.) The Music of What Happens by John Straley - Reading of bitter custody, now called parenting, disputes reminds me of the many cases in which I have represented a father or a
mother or grandparents. They are among the most difficult of legal cases for objectivity is lost. Emotions are dominant. I have not found that either gender is dominant in being irrational.

Cecil Younger, private investigator in Alaska, is working for Priscilla “Cilla” DeAngelo in a battle with Robert Sullivan II over the custody of Young Bob Sullivan that started while he was in the natal ward of the hospital in which he was born.

Priscilla is convinced that State Senator Wilfred Taylor, a friend of Young Bob’s grandfather Old Bob Sullivan, has corrupted the trial judge against her. She storms off to Juneau to confront him. Taylor ends up dead and Priscilla is charged with murder.

Three of the most colourful lawyers I have read about are involved in her defence. 

Dickie Stein is Cecil’s friend. He graduated from Harvard Law at 19 and moved North “disdaining Wall Street to make a name for himself in frontier justice”. He often wears his maroon Harvard sweatshirt. 

Harrison Teller also got his law degree at Harvard. He hates authority and “he would represent you with a depth of passion and vitriol that would garner thousands of dollars in contempt citations with each trial”. Cecil encounters Teller. He is “[A] big man in a heavy wool coat that could have been a buffalo robe”. He has a bushy beard and a wide brimmed felt hat. 

Cecil cannot remember the name of the Associate Public Defender. He does remember meeting the APA in his office: 

His hair had those dirty black horns from where he had been pulling at it all day in court. He was wearing a Blackhawks jersey and baggy black shorts. His tennis shoes were unlaced ….

I doubt I would trust any of the trio with a murder defence.

There is a powerful scene in which Younger accepts he will drown as he sinks down. He feels comforted by knowing “this time I would be the first on the scene and I would know more than the cops, even if I was dead”. When he is unexpectedly rescued he is disoriented.

Younger literally and figuratively stumbles into the investigation. He struggles to make sense of what has happened and is happening.

The setting is so physically different from Saskatchewan. Younger lives amidst the sea, trees and mountains. Only the isolation is the same.

Younger desperately wants to help Priscilla and her sister, Jane Marie, and Young Bob.

While Younger tries to puzzle his way through what is happening he has an amazing experience swimming near a quartet of humpback whales:

Rubbery white fins flashed in front of me. The shadow of something trailing bubbles the size of cantaloupes. The shadow moved slowly but with inexorable force, like a school bus rolling off a cliff. I could never see its entire length in this murky water, but only dim parts of the whole: a shifting of enormous curve and shadow.

Jane Marie is a whale scientist who uses imagination to try to gain abit of understanding of what whales tell each other.

She plays a recording of the whales:

Through the headphones I heard a chorus of sounds: squealing, creaking, and broad sweeping moans.

Younger describes the tape as eerie and beautiful.

While the portrayal of Alaska and life there is brilliant I found the plot somewhat disjointed. It is never going to be easy to describe a fierce custody dispute. Participants too often act illogically. I found it hard to follow the “why”. The senator’s death made it harder.

The conclusion was as dramatic as the opening. It is the middle I found slow going.

I consider The Music of What Happens a good book. I consider the previous two books in the series better.

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Straley, John - (2019) - The Woman Who Married a Bear and Maureen's Reply; (2020) - The Curious Eat Themselves and Clothes in The Curious Eat Themselves

Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

(28. - 1317.) Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr - In the summer of 1942 Bernie Gunther returns to Berlin from Prague with SS-Obergruppen-fuhrer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, the Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia. Bernie is alive. Heydrich is dead having been assaassinated by Czechs sent from England. Heydrich receives possibly the most elaborate funeral in the history of the Third Reich.

Bernie thinks back to the fall of 1941 when he returned to Berlin from Belorussia where he had witnessed the start of the Holocaust and been involved in the horrific acts recounted in Field Gray. He returns to working in the Homicide department of the Berlin police. Bernie contemplates, even prepares to commit suicide, In the end he goes to unsettled sleep night after night.

It is a difficult time to live in Berlin. Rationing has every common citizen on a diet. Beer, when available, is bitter. Cigarettes have little tobacco. Clothing is restricted. Everything is ersatz. Hospitals are filled with wounded soldiers returned from the Eastern Front to recuperate or die in Germany. I had not thought about the economic consequences on the home front in a great war.

Nazi leadership expects the police to focus on enforcing discriminatory laws against Jews including the requiremenet to wear the yellow cloth star. Crimes such as murder and assault are not a priority. Not surprisingly, Bernie will not overlook murder.

The Gestapo draw him into an investigation of murder. The killer had false ID and may be connected to the Three Kings. They were three Czechs, residents of Bohemia and Moravia if you are a Nazi, who were military officers. They have been conducting sabatoge operations against the Nazis in Bohemia and Moravia and now Berlin. Two have been caught. Pressure is immense upon the Gestapo to capture the third who is known as Melchior.

Bernie makes the acquaintance of a bright and lovely woman, Arianne Tauber, who works at the Jockey Bar. She asserts she is not a “joy girl”. She will accept cigarettes, drinks, perfume, tips and “the odd present or two” for being a good companion to the patrons of the bar. 

Being on the Eastern Front has left Bernie impatient with those unwilling to answer his questions. He is quick to use violence to get answers. Bernie’s connections with Heydrich quell those in the police department from complaining about his conduct.

Heydrich summons Bernie to Czechoslovkia. Even Bernie is afraid of the blonde general:

That’s the only way I know that you can distinguish being brave from being stupid.

The general, as with other members of the Nazi elite, lives in sumptuous luxury. His residence is the Lower Castle at Jungfern-Breschan, a beautiful country manor, that was confiscated from its Jewish owner. Heydrich is attended by SS officers. The heart of darkness is cold and efficient. 

Over a multi-course lunch Heydrich casually discusses his plans for the Czech people:

“People of good race and good intentions, they will be Germanized. Those we can’t Germanize and educate to think differently from the way they think now, we’ll have to put them against the wall. The rest - potentially at least half the population of Bohemia and Moravia - will have to be moved out and resettled in the East, where they can live out their miserable days in Arctic Labour camps.”

Heydrich speaks directly to Bernie after lunch. After a failed poisoning assassination Heydrich wants Bernie as a personal bodyguard. He sees Bernie’s stubborn independence as useful for he can trust Bernie “to tell me those unpleasant truths that others would shrink from”. Bernie’s integrity makes him a fool but “a clever and resourceful fool”.

Danger for Heydrich is not limited to the Czechs. In talking to those around Heydrich, no one is close, who govern the Czechos for him Bernie realizes all are killers:

In a room full of murderers, anything seemed possible.

Heydrich has no inclination to listen to Bernie about his security. His arrogance is immense.

When there is murder at the Lower Castle Heydrich appoints Bernie to investigate with unlimited power to question anyone. Bernie can aggressively question generals to their dismay. 

It is a locked room murder with 31 suspects in the Lower Castle and more not far away.

While Bernie is troubled about investigating the death of a Nazi he cannot conduct a perfunctory investigation. It was impressive to read how he finds and extracts information.

Kerr cleverly has Bernie ferret out little facts that would escape the routine investigator.

As always, witnesses attempt to evade questions but Bernie will not be deterred and no one wants Bernie to tell the ruthless Heydrich that a witness, of any rank, was uncooperative.

It was fascinating reading Bernie’s impertinent, often aggravating, questioning of the Nazis who governed Bohemia and Moravia during World War II. It was like reading the cross-examination of Hitler by Hans Litten in the Eden Palace trial of the early 1930’s.

Heydrich occasionally mentions Hercule Poirot. He appears to have enjoyed reading mysteries. Bernie is dismissive of Agatha Christie.

The last quarter of the book sped by as Bernie gradually put together what happened. I spent most of a sunny Sunday afternoon sitting on the deck under our elm tree finishing the book.

As Bernie contemplates his experiences with the Nazis he realizes that while, as a Berlin homicide detective, he considered himself an expert on the science of murder he is actually a “rather quaint and old-fashioned amateur”.

The twists were striking and convincing. The resolution of the investigation was precisely logical. 

The solution to the locked room was byond clever. I should have had an inkling but failed yet again. Maybe some reading day I will figure out a locked room mystery before the end.

Kerr was a brilliant writer. His depth of understanding of what happened in Germany during World War II is breathtaking. He has helped me understand the psyche of Germans, especially non-Nazis, during the war better than any work of non-fiction.

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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