Memory Man, The Lady from Zagreb and Blood on Snow

The Lady from Zagreb

This is my first experience of Bernie Gunther, who starred as a good cop in the Third Reich in ten previous novels by author Philip Kerr. My immediate impressions were of a rather lazy Raymond-Carver-goes-to-Nuremberg pastiche.

Bernie is working for the Kripo, the criminal police, and has just sorted the Katyn Massacre for Joey the Crip – Gunther-speak for Goebbels. He is approached by a woman who requires help to recover her mansion, which just happens to be the villa at Wannsee where the Final Solution was conceived.

Philip Kerr’s historical references are as tight as his plot line is loose, but there are hidden depths. Bernie has a penchant for expressionist art and the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, though at times the prose is clumsy: “I felt my smile drying on my face like yesterday’s shit.”

At other times Kerr seems to mock his own pretensions: “Take my word for it realism plays very badly in modern fiction.”

The titular Lady from Zagreb is one Dalia Dresner, a film star who has caught Joey the Crip’s eye. Of course, our hero can’t resist and therein lies the gist of our story as he meets the Ustaše, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner and assorted evil motherfuckers, and slips needy Jewish prisoners Reichsmarks and ciggies.

As I said, the plot is cheesy but the text has some delightful moments and philosophical maxims,such as, “I can’t see the point of reading a book by someone who is dumber than you.” Philip Kerr is definitely no fool. Some descriptions of his are priceless. Take Mussolini: “Looking a little like a circus daredevil about to be shot out of a cannon.” Goering is characterised as Fat Hermann.

At times the political incorrectness approaches Celinian levels: “After all some Jews are just Muslims with a better tailor.”

The love scenes are refreshingly sexy: “The sibilance of her stockings, the curve of her neck and the frequency of her dazzling white smiles… every time she looked into my eyes the effect was devastating as if my heart had been stopped by some beautiful Medusa.”

Kurt Waldheim and Allen Dulles both have walk-on parts. There are poetic asides, too. “Perhaps it’s true what Goethe says, that our destiny grants us our wishes.”

The great thing about this book are the incidentals; they make a very ordinary storyline interesting as you don’t know where they will be coming from. A butler “with a face like a melted elephant”? Such gems are worth trawling for.

Bernie Gunther is a preposterous and hilarious invention. I believe another episode is already in the pipeline. It’s like Sven Hassel meets Richard Allen. It’s like wholemeal poptarts or a good drug story that features M-CAT – a rare species indeed.

That Philip Kerr can keep his writing fresh and interesting after so many outings with Bernie Gunther is a rare talent. The man is no thriller writer, but he is cheeky, tasteless, occasionally outrageous and his historical research is impressive. Sir Ian Kershaw could probably pull him to pieces but I can’t. It’s a shame Reiner Werner Fassbinder isn’t still around to direct a film version.

Author Philip Kerr
Title The Lady from Zagreb
Publisher Quercus
Price £18.99 (Hardback), £9.49 (eBook)
More info Publication web site