Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr (2017)
April, 1939. Honest, moral Berlin police detective Bernie Gunther (Michael Fassbender, at least in my imagination) is personally selected by SS General
Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh in
Conspiracy) to investigate a shocking murder committed on the terrace of Hitler's mountain retreat home The Berghof (seen in
Valkyrie). Failure to apprehend the killer will result in elimination, but the investigation may not be any safer, let alone the possible consequences of actually finding the culprit. Oh, and Gunther has a strict time limit of about a week. Good thing he's been given a tube of
Pervitin - some newfangled chemical compound called "methamphetamine hydrochloride" to help him remain alert. And, if all that's not enough, we
also follow Gunther on a desperate race across France to evade East German secret police in 1956. (Why the two-track narrative? Well, that'd be telling, wouldn't it?)
A riveting, challenging story that may just send you to the library in search of Gunther's eleven other adventures. My only quibble is that Kerr might have eased up a bit on Gunther's constant internal quipping in the final third, when the action reaches its peak. Outside of Sherlock Holmes, I've never been a reader of detective stories, but this novel might change that.
A-