The One from the Other

Munich, 1949. Germany lies defeated, and the country runs on dirty deals, greed and Nazis slipping away under false names. Bernie Gunther, a Berlin policeman before the war who was made to serve in the SS, has moved south to work as a private investigator.

Business is slow until a woman walks into his office with what looks like an easy job. She does not want her husband found. She wants proof that he is dead, and the husband is a war criminal.

The case turns out to be less simple than the woman's request. Bernie is pursued from several sides, as Nazi hunters, American occupation forces and the CIA all take an interest in what he is digging up.

The fourth Bernie Gunther novel returns to the character after fifteen years away from the original Berlin Trilogy. It is hard-boiled noir with a postwar setting, told in a dry, stylish voice. The question is who wants the husband's fate known, and who wants it buried.