In this anthology, Philip Kerr takes the reader on a tour of some of the famous and infamous fights, feuds and heartfelt hatreds which have peppered history from the time of Caesar to the present: Knox's invective against women, Dr Johnson's loathing of Americans, a 19th-century duel which lasted for nearly 20 years, the antagonism between Bobby Kennedy and the head of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa, the guerrilla war between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", the icy battle of etiquette between Wallis Simpson and the Queen Mother, Richard Branson versus Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols, Lennon versus McCartney and the clash of the soft drinks empires at war. Reasons rational and irrational have provided the spark that ignites the fuel of hatred, from religion to a fear of insects. The weapons chosen have been as innocuous as scorn, as devastating as genocide. Some antipathies have lasted lifetimes, others only moments, but all illuminate a darker side of human nature. For some, hatred seems to bring a measure of enjoyment. The incurably cantakerous writer Alexander Woollcott "loved a good bicker" and delighted in setting whole bookshops of his fans in a seething rage against him, James Agate had "an unparalleled zest for the most moderate of dislikes" and Hemingway relished his undisputed skill as a master in the gentle art of making enemies. On a more chilling note, Hitler's "justification" of his hatred of the Jewish people is included, as are accounts of Malcolm X's use of racism to counter racism, the code to violence behind the brotherhood of Hell's Angels, the continuing animosity between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland and John Osborne's outburst of spleen against his former wife, Jill Bennett. Philip Kerr has written three crime novels set in the Berlin of the 1930s and '40s: "March Violets", "The Pale Criminal" and "A German Requiem".
Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh in 1956 and read Law at university. Having learned nothing as an undergraduate lawyer he stayed on as postgraduate and read Law and Philosophy, most of this German, which was when and where he first became interested in German twentieth century history and, in particular, the Nazis. Following university he worked as a copywriter at a number of advertising agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi, during which time he wrote no advertising slogans of any note. He spent most of his time in advertising researching an idea he'd had for a novel about a Berlin-based policeman, in 1936. And following several trips to Germany - and a great deal of walking around the mean streets of Berlin - his first novel, March Violets, was published in 1989 and introduced the world to Bernie Gunther.
"I loved Berlin before the wall came down; I'm pretty fond of the place now, but back then it was perhaps the most atmospheric city on earth. Having a dark, not to say black sense of humour myself, it's always been somewhere I feel very comfortable."
Having left advertising behind, Kerr worked for the London Evening Standard and produced two more novels featuring Bernie Gunther: The Pale Criminal (1990) and A German Requiem (1991). These were published as an omnibus edition, Berlin Noir in 1992.
Thinking he might like to write something else, he did and published a host of other novels before returning to Bernie Gunther after a gap of sixteen years, with The One from the Other (2007).
Says Kerr, "I never intended to leave such a large gap between Book 3 and Book 4; a lot of other stuff just got in the way; and I feel kind of lucky that people are still as interested in this guy as I am. If anything I'm more interested in him now than I was back in the day."
Two more novels followed, A Quiet Flame (2008) and If the Dead Rise Not (2009).
Field Gray (2010) is perhaps his most ambitious novel yet that features Bernie Gunther. Crossing a span of more than twenty years, it takes Bernie from Cuba, to New York, to Landsberg Prison in Germany where he vividly describes a story that covers his time in Paris, Toulouse, Minsk, Konigsberg, and his life as a German POW in Soviet Russia.
Kerr is already working on an eighth title in the series.
"I don't know how long I can keep doing them; I'll probably write one too many; but I don't feel that's happened yet."
As P.B.Kerr Kerr is also the author of the popular 'Children of the Lamp' series.
