Prague Fatale: A Bernie Gunther Novel
Philip Kerr
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: 0143122843
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The latest New York Times bestseller from the author of the Berlin Noir trilogy and the New York Times bestseller Field Gray brings Bernie Gunther back—to a house party from hell
First introduced in Philip Kerr's celebrated Berlin Noir trilogy, Bernie Gunther is an honest cop living in the most ruthless of times. Prague Fatale is Bernie's latest outing, and it's a tantalizing locked-door mystery-cum-political-thriller that's poised to build on Field Gray's success, confirming Kerr as a master of espionage literature.
It's 1941 and Bernie is back from the Eastern Front, once again working homicide in Berlin's Kripo and answering to Reinhard Heydrich, a man he both detests and fears. Heydrich has been newly named Reichsprotector of Czechoslovakia. Tipped off that there is an assassin in his midst, he orders Bernie to join him at his country estate outside Prague, where he has invited some of the Third Reich's most odious officials to celebrate his new appointment. One of them is the would-be assassin. Bernie can think of better ways to spend a beautiful autumn weekend, but, as he says, "You don't say no to Heydrich and live."
Hitler's Forgotten Secret Weapon
Hitler's Tank Killer: Sturmgeschütz at War, 1940-1945: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives
Men At Arms (Sword of Honour, Book 1)
1946-52: Years of Trial and Hope (Memoirs, Volume 2)
imagined. And since there was little else but the war on anyone’s mind, this meant that none of the other passengers in our compartment said very much. Even Arianne, who liked to talk, was silent for most of the journey. The train travelled north of the Elbe until Bad Schandau, where it passed over a bridge onto the south bank, then east and south again until Schöna, where it halted to allow several customs officers to board. Everyone – myself included, until I flashed my beer-token – was
battalions on the eastern front he had come back into the force to make a nice cosy corner for himself at the Alex. The little Party pin he wore in the lapel of his cheap suit would only have made it easier for him to do as little real policing as possible. We walked south down Dircksen Strasse to Jannowitz Bridge and then along the S-Bahn line with the river under our feet. There was a moon and most of the time we didn’t need the flashlights we’d brought, but we felt safer with them when the
uniform. The top was down. There was no armed escort. We were in enemy territory. To me it felt like visiting an Indian Thuggee village wearing a red coat and whistling ‘The British Grenadiers’. And noting with some amusement my obvious discomfort, Klein explained that the General scorned any escort as a sign of weakness, which was why he preferred him to be driven around Prague with the top down. ‘And how often do you drive him around Prague?’ ‘Between Prague Castle and the General’s
successor, Heydrich, accorded him much of this. From time to time he would pat the old man on the hand like a pet dog and speak to him in a louder voice, as if the Baron were deaf, although it was quite plain to anyone who had talked to him that there was nothing at all wrong with his hearing. I suspected that von Neurath was only present to make the new Reichsprotector’s triumph complete. Heydrich avoided conversation with me until well after we had risen from the table and were out on the
so that we could listen to Hitler’s speech from the Sports Palast, in Berlin. ‘Gentlemen, please,’ he said, while the radio was warming up. ‘If I could ask you to be silent.’ ‘Thank you, Hans-Achim,’ said Heydrich, as if he and not the Leader had been at the microphone. And then solemnly, as the sound of the Sports Palast crept into that room, he intoned: ‘The Leader.’ It was typically thoughtful of Heydrich. I suppose he thought it would be a treat for those of us who were feeling a
