A Man Without Breath A Bernie Gunther Novel

This is the ninth book in the resurrected Bernie Gunther mystery series. Kerr wrote the first three (collected in the masterpiece Berlin Noir) at the beginning of his career and then returned much later to the Bernie Gunther series. Gunther is a world weary cop, then detective, in war torn Berlin and later. The latter books jump around a bit chronologically. Not sure if anyone has done a chronological list of books, although BernieGunther.com does a good job of summarizing the series.

The previous two books ([b:Field Gray|9568416|Field Gray (Bernard Gunther, #7)|Philip Kerr|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1295546396s/9568416.jpg|13260504] and [b:Prague Fatale|11448085|Prague Fatale (Bernard Gunther, #8)|Philip Kerr|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1352849119s/11448085.jpg|16381927]) jumped back into Bernie's career and find him working in Nazi Germany during World War 2. This one does the same, only this time sending him to the Russian Front, where Goebbels himself hopes to score a real diplomatic coup by revealing that the Katyn Woods massacre, where over 4,000 Polish officers where summarily executed, was committed by the Russian intelligence office, the NKVD. He sends Bernie out to check out the graves and then to guide an international inquiry into the atrocity.

Of course, things get even more complicated for Bernie, when two German telegraph operators are murdered and he's the only who seems to think it is an inside job. Then one of the international group of coroners gets taken down, and there is another brutal double slaying, as well as missing Russian nationalists helping out in Smolensk.

Bernie also uncovers a conspiracy at the highest levels of the local German command and this gets him into even more hot water. He slowly gnaws at the loose ends, until he really gets himself into trouble, facing the hangman's noose.

Phew! Yes, it was as complicated as it sounds. And that made it quite problematic for me, as I was listening to it on audiobook while driving, so no chance to make notes. There were a lot of characters, many with similar names (especially the German "Von" group), who I often had a hard time distinguishing. This is especially important, as one of the Vons is his mortal enemy and one is trying to help out the best he can.

But it was really immersive and Bernie wasn't quite so strident in his protestations of innocence and hatred of Nazis. It got a little tiring in previous books, but here he is just weary. You got a real feel for the German state of mind, as the German invasion of Russia had failed at Stalingrad and now they were worried about the Russian counterattack.

He also had a fling with a beautiful German coroner, which seemed a little far fetched to me. Of all the people to come out to help investigate the massacre, one of them happened to be a gorgeous, smart, single, female coroner who immediately fell for Bernie. Hmmm...

The narrator, Paul Hecht, of the audiobook was just okay. He had a habit of putting pauses in weird places. I would think the sentence was finished, only he would continue it with the next breath. It's amazing how misleading that can be when the action gets involved! But he did a great job with the tricky German, Polish and Russian that was involved.

All in all, an excellent entry into the Bernie Gunther saga. Full of historical details and people, with plenty of action and suspense.