A Man without Breath

It's amazing what one can learn from well-written fiction. Who knew the Nazis had a war crimes bureau? Or that many Prussian officers in the World War II German Army also supported the German Resistance? Or that the Gestapo had Jewish officers? The prolific Kerr (Prague's Fatale) knew, that's who. Set in Nazi Germany just after Stalingrad, March, 1943 (the beginning of the end), this title reprises Kerr's German gumshoe Bernie Gunther, an ex-Kriminalpolizei (police) now working for the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau doing grunt work and taking depositions from witnesses. Likeable and personable, Bernie is German, but he's no Nazi. Readers will have a hard time not thinking of him as a straight-shooting Yank from NYC. He calls the Brits "sanctimonious bastards" even as he complains that "there wasn't one of us in the city—Jew or German—that couldn't have used a square meal." Kerr's direct, workmanlike writing style matches Bernie well. When Bernie is sent from hometown Berlin to the Eastern Front to investigate a mass grave of Polish officers in Smolensk's , the German propaganda mill pressures him to blame the Russians. While finding evidence and witnesses, Bernie is distracted by a brutal killer who really, really doesn't like German soldiers and hangs out with the aforementioned Prussians who've had it right up to here with Hitler. Superbly blending historical events, fictional characters, and detective work, Kerr also shows how empty a slogan like "duty, honor, country" can be to a cynical, perceptive hero who is on the wrong side and knows it.