A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr

I just finished a more recent Kerr noir detective novel, “A Man without Breathe”.  I implied that Kerr’s writing might have the effect, for me, like that of Travis McGee, whom I associate with depression, because J.D. MacDonald had Travis doing the same thing: over and over again, without any steps forward.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I’ve got the itch for Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther now.  I finished my second, “A Quiet Flame” and am now working on a 3-story volume, “March Violets”, “The Pale Criminal”, and “A German Requiem”.

Bernie is a classic noir detective: he gets beat up a lot, but survives; he gets lots of gorgeous women chasing him, and he allows a few catch him; he’s after jewel thieves, missing persons, and/or murderers, and he always gets his man.

The twist with Bernie is that he’s a part of the German police in the 1930’s.  He’s anti-Nazi, and politically, liberal associations with Jews seem to cause him no end of trouble.  Somehow he gets through it all.

 

This book finds him seeking refuge in Argentina.  It’s the late forties, early fifties and the Peronistas are running the country.

As always, leading bad guys are not the mafia, but sadistic SS men.

The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill

This book is not for everyone; maybe not even most.

I loved it, but I have strange taste, and am open to stranger ideas.  I have a friend who does taxidermy; and an ex-wife who does marionettes, as well as dolls. 

This is a British book about a troubled woman, who just may not be the damsel in distress that she seems in the beginning of the story.

In fact, everyone in this tale is wacko crazy, but the reader is kept on the hook hoping that at least one of the sociopaths has a redeeming quality, as yet unraveled.

There’s lots of well-researched trivia here, into all the aforementioned slightly obscure areas of knowledge: dolls, puppets, taxidermy, theater of the absurd, haunted houses, and sick psyches.

The writing is solid and captivating.  It goes to the edges, but does not cross the boundary into the improbable, nor unbelievable.  It is a “can’t put it down” novel with suspense and terror that tingles the spine.

Dear Life by Alice Munro

What a turn-around from a dozen years ago.  My last reading acquaintance with Alice Munro was over her 2001 “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, and Marriage,” a light-hearted book, more anecdotal, comedic memoirs about relationships.  It struck a positive chord with me.  I wrote at the time [Oct 2002], “great stories; I cherished each one as I would a Christmas box of chocolates.”  I was “doing” memoir classes and studies at that time and Munro was the epitome at that time of fictionalized memoir writing.

I fear that the young legs pictured on the cover of this book are not Alice’s, but her grandmother’s.  Alice’s point of view has shifted dramatically over the past dozen years.  Like me, she has shifted into the age-category of “OLD.”  I’m still holding on to where I met her at “young at heart”; she unfortunately has lapsed into slightly confused depression, ready for the OD-packet of painless pills.

I read the first of her dozen-plus stories, “To Reach Japan”, and thought to myself, “Wow, that was horrible.!  I may have read enough.”  But the next day, glutton that I am for punishment, I read “Amundsen”, and thought, now that’s enough, I’ll write it up at this point; I can’t deal with any more. 

And then, the rain having ceased, and having gone to Church for the first time in over a year, and as the Warriors (23-2) won another game, I read, “Leaving Maverley”.

If I could drop the book in molten lead, I would; then dump it in the ocean.  I’m a happy person, who wants to approach the final decades of my life with a smile and a hopeful, positive outlook. 

What a total turn-about from last month’s book club selection of “God’s Hotel”, which was an uplifting, positive story about hope for the world and the individual reader.  Here in “Dear Life,” we have total negativity, pessimism, and regret.  Maybe it’s the time of year, Winter Syndrome, or Christmas Syndrome; darkest days and all that.  Maybe it’s me, maybe tasting some of the same changes that Munro must have experienced the past few years as she turned 80; maybe it’s because I’ve been reading too much of Philip Kerr’s Nazi detective books.  This happened to me once before, decades ago, when I read too many of John D MacDonald’s Travis Mcgee books.  I had to stop – there were depressing me – and I feel the same way about Munro’s “Dear Life.”

I consulted with my muse who said this wasn’t valid commentary.  So I read three more vignettes from the “Finale” section at the end; and then two more from the middle of the book.

Sorry, my immune system just isn’t up to it – too many flu & cold germs going around; too much foreign war and local murders; too many lost elections and apathetic citizenry; too many drones, and too much spying.

In the religious spirit of this season, I wouldn’t recommend this book, Alice Munro’s “Dear Life” to my worst enemy.

A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr

This is an awesome book for the confirmed, mystery reader, who has the self-confidence to lay their values out for self-examination and live with the results of reviewing the past century from a different viewpoint.

I’ve tried Kerr’s “Gunther” books before, without success.  My old radio partner, Pat Nolan, raved about this guy for years.  Maybe I didn’t have, or devote, the time to get “into” Kerr’s style.  Maybe the style wasn’t in vogue, though now that I understand it; it will never be in style.  I’m writing this review based on my German ex-wife’s recent e-mails about the resurgence of socialism in German political life.

[Germany gets first socialist state governor since reunification
http://gu.com/p/44vee/sbl ]

Even my post-modernist Berkeley-Intellectual daughter has chimed in (see below)[1].

And now, Yahoo interrupts me with, “Poland unearths one of WW-II’s darkest secrets.”

[ http://news.yahoo.com/poland-unearths-one-of-wwii-s-darkest-secrets-161947503.html  ]

 

O.K

This is a novel about the Nazi era.!!  Right there I’ve probably lost 2 out of 3 readers.  That was enough for me a decade ago when Pat was extolling the virtues of this writer.  But that’s not really the point.  It’s like, Science Fiction is often just a device, to take the reader so far away from their current reality, that they can more clearly examine the inter-relationships between people.  In my favorite, JCO’s writing, she delves into the mind of her psychopaths and perverts.  Kerr uses the viewpoint of a Berliner: 1930’s noir detective, Bernie Gunther, and plops him into the cesspool of early 1940’s Germany.  Not as an American hero [Herman Wouk’s horribly miscast Winds of War, 1983], but as a seasoned German beat cop, over-promoted to lend credence to – some really, really bad people.
How does he act.?  He’s a German authority figure, a cop, in an evil dictatorship.
How would you act.?  Bernie’s scared all the time; but makes time for some beautiful women.
Would you; could you, execute a man.?
Would you make a deal with Göebbles.?  Bernie steals his schnapps and cigarettes;
Would you smoke a cigarette with Himmler.?
Would your dust be being exhumed these days in Eastern Poland.?  and to what end.?
 

Bernie Gunther has no political position.  He’s a cop and distrusts everyone.

Bernie Gunther, loves Bernie Gunther, first and foremost.

In this day and age;

  we may all be Bernie Gunthers: trust no one; get what you can; scam the system; get the girl.
 

This book is an examination of that position.  It will obviously never be a movie.

    Philip Kerr goes into Communism vs Fascism vs Capitalism
    Kerr dabbles with war, religions; national traits; and sado-masochistic penchants.
 
This is definitely a euro-centric novel,
   no American good guys.
 
Hey, a German point of view,
    and they lose the war.

---

[1] “I think that the waning of Cold War mentalities has opened up an arena within which Marx's ideas can be taken on their merits and applied to societies in a constructive way. During the Cold War he was so demonized. Now that we are not afraid to utter his name, some reasonable people are actually finding that they can give his ideas a serious listen and that maybe, just maybe he had some useful things to say about the way capitalist economies work. So yay for Germans for having the guts to elect someone who might be able to bring Marx's voice into serious political debate in post-Cold War Germany!”