Customer Reviews

March Violets

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From page one the strength of narrative and the wisecracking of the PI Bernhard "Bernie" Gunther is a detective novel readers dream. Philip Kerr is able to bring 1936 Berlin alive it all it's nationalistic insanity. His ability to describe how the Nazi party had taken total control of this nation is remarkable.

He has picked-up the nuance of how people delude themselves into believing what they are told, no matter how implausible.

Right from the start you know that Gunther is as cynical as you can be, without being arrested by the Gestapo (which he is at a later point of the book). The way he weaves the disillusionment of the average German, while at the same time showing how they just acquiest to what was going on. Unlike most books about Germany at this time, he presents the Nazi's as people not cardboard cutouts. He does, though, show them in all their sadism and brutality. But it is a brutality that has become humdrum and expected. No one is surprised by what is going on. Everyone is just hoping it doesn't happen to them.

Especially appealing is Gunther's gumshoe comments and asides as to what is going on. At one point he gets out of his car and gives the "Hitler salute" when the party standard is paraded by. His comment, "it's not worth taking a beating for not saluting". He tells of a circulating joke, that next to Jews, Hitler hates homosexuals and cripples the most. The punch line is that everyone but Hitler knows that his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph "Joey" Goebbels has a club foot.

You can just imagine Robert Mitchum or Humphrey Bogart playing this "fleabite" PI. He drinks, he smokes, and he's like a junkyard dog when it comes to doing his job. There are great descriptions of the war between Reichfurher Himmler, the head of the Gestapo and SS and Prime Minister of Prussia Hermann Goering.

The ending, is just a pregnant pause, we know that there are two more books in the "Berlin Noir" trilogy, and that's the way that Kerr leaves us at the end of this book. You know you have to read the other two.

If you enjoy/enjoyed the old-school crime novels with characters like Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, you'll enjoy March Violets, which is set in Berlin in 1936 and features tough-talking, hard-drinking, chain-smoking and cynical Bernhard Gunther. Gunther is an ex-cop, now private investigator hired by a rich businessman to find some jewelry that was stolen, and which had belonged to the businessman's recently murdered daughter. In addition, Gunther is "requested" by Herman Goering to find some important missing papers. I found Kerr's description of prewar Berlin and life in Nazi Germany to be very good, and considered the plot to be engrossing. These two elements are worthy of a 4- 4 1/2 star rating. What brought my overall rating of March Violets down to 3 1/2 stars is that I found that Kerr went somewhat overboard in portraying Gunther's tough guy attitude and in having Gunther speak ad nauseum in cliches. At times, I felt that Kerr was trying to create a satire of the type of detective novels that were popular in the '30s, '40s and '50s. March Violets is a good book that held my attention, and created enough interest to make me want to read the next book in Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy. However, unless you are a lover of crime noir books, March Violets is not a book that I'd recommend you rush out to buy and put at the top of your To Be Read list.

"I didn't see the India Rubber so much as hear it sweep through the air towards my head. In the split second before I hit the floor and lost consciousness I told myself that I was getting tired of being knocked out." Bernie Gunther, PI

MARCH VIOLETS is the first book by Philip Kerr that I've read, but it won't be the last. This novel along with THE PALE CRIMINAL and A GERMAN REQUIEM make up Kerr's BERLIN NOIR trilogy. Set in Hitler's Germany, which was a terrifying place to live in then, especially for Jews, homosexuals, and communists, even before WW2, the story follows Berlin PI Bernie Gunther as he looks for a murderer/arsonist who killed an industrial tycoon's daughter and son-in-law and stole a very valuable piece of jewelry. He meets a lot of bad people along the way, and not all of them are Nazis, but Bernie is one tough fellow. He can, and does, take a punch on the chin (or a sap to the back of the head) and come up with a witty, albeit cynical, remark. I won't go into more, because others have done so better than I could. Read MARCH VIOLETS for yourself and I promise you'll get hooked on Bernie just like I did.

Highly recommended - 5 Stars

Philip Kerr is a very good writer - witty, clever and funny - if there is anything funny about 1936 Berlin (the Jesse Owens Olympics summer).

Besides his abundantly complex plot (involving perhaps a half-dozen too many characters and one or two complicating scenarios too many), Kerr's literary style includes approximately one or two similes per page. That would be about 250 at a minimum for his "March Violets," the first of 3 Bernie Gunther Private Eye novels in the "Berlin Noir" compilation. It can be purchased separately also.

Page 38, "There was an old Pickelhaube helmet, a stuffed marmot, in a glass case, that looked as if it had perished of anthrax..." Page 105, "A couple of times I caught her eye, but tight-lipped, like she had my neck between her teeth, she looked straight through me as if I was a piece of dirty glass." Page 132, "There were so many files on me around these days that I was beginning to feel like a medical case-history." Page 236, "Then he breathed in the tobacco smoke as if it was pure oxygen."

"Violets" is tidy and concise. There are few extraneous words. Some of the lurid punishment and killing scenes are gruesome, though not overdone. One readily gets the picture. This book seems to be historically accurate, and we "meet" some of the most notorious Nazis. Nazis like Goering and Himmler are sure to liven up a story!

In many ways, however, it's standard 30s-40s detective fare with Bernie Gunther -- the private investigator - a disheveled, messy guy, a sort of frustrated womanizer, a guy who loves his booze and cigarettes, one who gets beat up periodically and who breaks the "law" with abandon. He threatens people and kills some - all in a day's work. He even spends time at Dachau, during the quite disappointing final 50 pages.

The good thing about Herr Gunther is that he actually solves the mysteries, the deaths, and the ambiguities mostly on the merits of his brains, police experience and connections to just about everyone in Berlin. He, Gunther, does not rely on miracles, weird circumstances, chance occurrences, or the cavalry riding in at the last minute to save him - a style so disappointingly apparent in modern-day authors in this genre. (See Cara Black's Aimee Leduc series set in Paris for an example of incompetent sleuthing.) Only when he is temporarily at Dachau does Gunther fall victim to a chance occurrence that helps him ultimately to solve one of the mysteries and save his own neck.

One more thing: "Violets" is written in pure U.K. Scottish lingo. So, you'll need a translation from time to time.

But with all its flaws (too many similes, too much mimicking of established P.I. authors - Chandler and Hammett, for starters, and a seriously weak and unbelievable finale), it's a good read -- a 4, I'd say, though I prefer the early Alan Furst novels.

Like it or not, the Germans (Nazis or not) were also humans. At the mid-30s, Germany was a totalitarian country more or less like any totalitarian country today. Many supported the regime, a minority tried in vain to oppose it and some stayed in the middle, trying to not interfere and to survive (even if their non-interference was very well welcomed by the regime).

This book is about that. About people trying to carry their lives, despite the circumstances. Some of them, for one reason or another, joined the regime and some of them thought they could survive without needing to make a pact with the devil. But eventually they did sell the souls.

March Violets (1989) introduces Bernie Gunther in 1936 Berlin, Germany. This historical mystery is full of fascinating details. Soon to be the site of the Olympics, the book starts with the temporary removal of street showcases featuring drawings from Der Stürmer, the Reich's violently anti-Semitic journal, in order to avoid shocking the foreign visitors coming to Berlin for the Games. Bernie has left the increasingly corrupt police force to become a private detective and is hired by Hermann Six, a rich businessman, to recover some diamonds that were stolen during a burglary that left Six's daughter and son-in-law dead. Bernie discovers that the son-in-law was an SS agent, and the secret documents hidden in the safe may have been the real reason for the theft and murders. His investigation uncovers possible connections between Six and organized crime, and between Herman Goering and the theft. The hard-boiled wise-cracking Bernie is an appealing character who is willing to do just about anything to get to the truth. He is interrogated by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau, all the while battling the March Violets, new members of the Nazi party who joined in order to be on the side in power. Kerr does an amazing job of showing how the Nazis take total control of the country, and how people can be deluded into believing what they are told, no matter how unrealistic.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/K_Authors/Kerr_Philip.html

March Violets is the first entrée in Kerr's Berlin trilogy. The book may be found separately or in Berlin Noir, the compilation of all three books.

March Violets is set in the darkening days of Hitler's Germany; the 1936 Olympics are just coming to town. Kerr's protagonist, Bernard Gunther, is a private detective hired by a very wealthy conservative (i.e. non-Nazi) German industrialist to find out who murdered his daughter and her Nazi husband, burned down their home, and stole a diamond necklace from their safe.

Kerr's tale gets a bit convoluted and he is prone to excessive flights of language (usually intended to be funny, but falling flat to this reader). Kerr excels in recreating the complex world of Berlin, one of Europe's most cosmopolitan cities as it is being smothered by the Nazis. Gunther is an ex-cop and we meet his former police colleagues, several colorful underworld characters, and a number of revolting Nazis, too. (Although even among the Nazis, there are levels of malevolence; Goering is on one level, Himmler on another one altogether.). Gunther also falls into bed with beautiful women with an ease sure to make most men jealous.

By the way, the title refers to the numerous new members the Nazi party gained after leveraged its 1933 electoral victory into total control of the German government. Older Nazis derided these latecomers as "March Violets."

An intelligent and entertaining tale that makes one want to read the second volume. Highly recommended.

March Violets is a brilliant start to a great trilogy. The descriptions of wartime and post-war occupied Germany mixed with hard-boiled detective fiction is facinating. Geared more towards the fans of good old detective noir than for the fans of cold-war spy thrillers.

Don't recall how I stumbled upon Kerr. I put him up there with Nesbo and Connelly. His use of imagery is fantastic! I have read two Bernie Gunther books and two others. I prefer Bernie. He has a great smart ass personality

Bernie Gunther is a Private Investigator in Berlin 1935. He is hired by a wealthy man to find a stolen diamond necklace, and the murderer of his daughter and son-in-law. Bernie is the typical hard-boiled private detective of the Noir genre; hard drinking, gun toting ex-cop turned PI. Nothing too original, except the backdrop, Berlin 1935-36. Kerr does an excellent job of setting the pre-WWII atmosphere in Germany. I found the historical information of Nazi Germany much more interesting than the actual nuts and bolts of the who-done-it. I liked the way in which Keller uses Bernie to show the perspective of what many typical Germans thought about what was happening to their country in the hands of Adolf Hitler. There aren't many books that I've come across that show the typical German sentiment at the time, although his portrayal of all Nazis are stereotypically bad.

I listened to this on audio, read by John Lee. I like Lee as a narrator, although it was a little strange having the very German story read by someone British, but I did get used to it. The jury is still out on whether I will continue reading this series.