If the Dead Rise Not: A Bernie Gunther Novel - Couverture rigide

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.

'Kerr's period detail is utterly convincing... a sophisticated thriller that brings the war and its aftermath to life' Independent. (Independent)

'Kerr brilliantly evokes the edgy atmosphere of the post-war period in one of the most gripping and accomplished detective novels published so far this year' Sunday Times. (Sunday Times)

'The pace is cracking, the dialogue crisply Chandleresque, the characterisation refreshingly stereotype-free. Kerr's research, historical and geographical, is all but faultless' The Times. (The Times)

'The scope and breadth of Philip Kerr's historical research, and the subtle complexity of plot structure, are worthy of Le Carre. The fast-paced, crack-a-minute delivery smacks of Chandler. The comparisons are inevitable, but Kerr parries the plaudits with ease' Irish Examiner. (Irish Examiner)

'One of the great achievements of contemporary crime fiction' Observer. (Observer)