by PhilipKerr (Author)
Berlin 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months but already Germany has seen some unpleasant changes. As the city prepares to host the 1936 Olympics, Jews are being expelled from all German sporting organisations - a blatant example of discrimination. Forced to resign as a homicide detective with Berlin's Criminal Police, Bernie is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. The discovery of two bodies - one a businessman and the other a Jewish boxer - involves Bernie in the lives of two hotel guests. One is a beautiful left-wing journalist intent on persuading America to boycott the Berlin Olympiad; the other is a German-Jewish gangster who plans to use the Olympics to enrich himself and the Chicago mob. As events unfold, Bernie uncovers a vast labour and construction racket designed to take advantage of the huge sums the Nazis are prepared to spend to showcase the new Germany to the world. It is a plot that finds its conclusion twenty years later in pre-revolution Cuba, the country to which Bernie flees from Argentina at the end of A Quiet Flame.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc
Published: 10 Sep 2009
ISBN 10: 1847249426
ISBN 13: 9781847249425
Prizes: Winner of CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2009.
Philip Kerr has created a wonderful character whose loyalties are not only to his tortured country but to the truth, a vocation that makes for a somewhat dangerous life' (selected as number 1 in the 50 Best Winter Reads)
Independent.