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A review by quaerentia
Metropolis by Philip Kerr
5.0
And this concludes the exploits of Bernie Gunther, grizzled and ornery Berlin detective, and above all, survivor. Philip Kerr’s series of 14 novels has all the grip and intrigue that you could want in a thriller, but what sets them apart is their historical authenticity. The research was evidently painstaking but worn lightly (crucial if a book is to be readable by any beyond the bounds of the nerdy or scholarly).
Each narrative revolves around actual events from Germany, and particularly Berlin, from the 1920s to the late 1950s. Turbulent seems hardly the world for what was one of the twentieth century history’s tumultuous epicentres. But they are always humanised with a perfect blend of fictional and real characters. Of course the plausibility of one cop having interactions (if not repeated close shaves) with everyone from leading Weimar names like Fritz Lang (this one’s called Metropolis - geddit?!) to the dreaded GDR Stasi boss Erich Mielke, via all the usual Nazi suspects, is exceedingly remote! But each case sustains its own internal logic, even if some of the antagonists are notorious. There is nothing predictable about the stories though; it’s a plus that Kerr doesn’t write chronologically, nor that he’s restricted to Berlin itself. Gunther has to navigate Hitler’s Bavarian retreat above Salzburg, the horrors of the eastern front in Ukraine, the nazi diaspora in South America and even pre-communist Cuba, and the French Côte d’Azur. Each time Kerr sets himself a challenge and seeks to pull his main character through it with something verging towards integrity but mainly just his life intact. Gunther does compromise to survive and never has easy choices. But his redeeming feature is a visceral determination to find the truth even if that causes excruciating confrontations with power.
Like the best of them, this fictional cop is screwed up and melancholic if not downright surly; he never gets to find a girl who sticks with him; he is at the constant mercy of the higher-ups. But he’s good at his job. And rather than just being told that, we actually see how he is.
So I for one am gutted to reach the end. Philip Kerr died in 2018 at only 62. So this, the 14th book, was published posthumously in 2019, introduced with an affectionate tribute from fellow Scot and detective creator, Ian Rankin—no doubt the recipient of a tribute of Kerr’s own since a fellow boardinghouse lodger in this book is a writer called Rankin (whose character and circumstances, in further tribute, is surely based on Christopher Isherwood when he wrote Mr Norris Changes Trains).
So there will be no more, alas. But I loved the ride and I feel sure I will be returning to Gunther’s company before too long.
Each narrative revolves around actual events from Germany, and particularly Berlin, from the 1920s to the late 1950s. Turbulent seems hardly the world for what was one of the twentieth century history’s tumultuous epicentres. But they are always humanised with a perfect blend of fictional and real characters. Of course the plausibility of one cop having interactions (if not repeated close shaves) with everyone from leading Weimar names like Fritz Lang (this one’s called Metropolis - geddit?!) to the dreaded GDR Stasi boss Erich Mielke, via all the usual Nazi suspects, is exceedingly remote! But each case sustains its own internal logic, even if some of the antagonists are notorious. There is nothing predictable about the stories though; it’s a plus that Kerr doesn’t write chronologically, nor that he’s restricted to Berlin itself. Gunther has to navigate Hitler’s Bavarian retreat above Salzburg, the horrors of the eastern front in Ukraine, the nazi diaspora in South America and even pre-communist Cuba, and the French Côte d’Azur. Each time Kerr sets himself a challenge and seeks to pull his main character through it with something verging towards integrity but mainly just his life intact. Gunther does compromise to survive and never has easy choices. But his redeeming feature is a visceral determination to find the truth even if that causes excruciating confrontations with power.
Like the best of them, this fictional cop is screwed up and melancholic if not downright surly; he never gets to find a girl who sticks with him; he is at the constant mercy of the higher-ups. But he’s good at his job. And rather than just being told that, we actually see how he is.
So I for one am gutted to reach the end. Philip Kerr died in 2018 at only 62. So this, the 14th book, was published posthumously in 2019, introduced with an affectionate tribute from fellow Scot and detective creator, Ian Rankin—no doubt the recipient of a tribute of Kerr’s own since a fellow boardinghouse lodger in this book is a writer called Rankin (whose character and circumstances, in further tribute, is surely based on Christopher Isherwood when he wrote Mr Norris Changes Trains).
So there will be no more, alas. But I loved the ride and I feel sure I will be returning to Gunther’s company before too long.