March Violets

This is a noir-style detective novel set in Berlin in the 1930s. The protagonist, private detective Bernie Gunther, is a disaffected police officer who has left its service because of the Nazi takeover of public institutions - and all the corruption and brutality that come with it.

I loved the book, the first of a trilogy, and I immediately read the next two because of its main character, Berlin. I have been visiting Berlin for 40 years and am fascinated by its seedy, gritty, and tragic history and its resilience as a city. Berlin Noir evokes the Berlin of the… show more.

March Violets plunges us into the darkness of 1930s Germany. The book is thoroughly researched and brilliantly evokes the decade which saw the terrible rise of Hitler and the Nazis. The narrative is fast-paced and introduces the character of Bernie Gunther, ex-cop turned private investigator, through whose eyes we witness the collapse of German society into savagery. 

Each of Philip Kerr’s fourteen Bernie Gunther novels, all of which feature a world-weary Berlin homicide detective achieving small feats of redemptive justice amidst the monstrous inhumanity of Nazi-era Germany, is a miracle of historical crime fiction. Bernie is a cynic, a romantic, an idealist, and oftentimes an unwitting tool of the various historical figures – Goering and Goebbels, Heydrich and Himmler – that populate Kerr’s novels. My recommendation is to begin at the beginning, with March Violets, first published in 1989, in which Bernie, working as a private detective in post-war Berlin, leads readers on a Chandleresque quest… show more.

This book is part of the Berlin Noir series featuring former Berlin cop and private eye, Bernie Gunther. It’s a great mystery thriller leaning on the wonderful American tradition of pulp noir. Set in pre-War Berlin, I loved the sense of place, dark foreboding, and the humour – something I’d love to inject more of into my own books.