March violets

Jon Nixon reviewed March violets by Philip Kerr

Review of 'March violets' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

First published in 1989 and the first of a dozen books so I don’t know why I’d never heard of this series. It’s hard boiled private detective first person noir so exactly my sort of thing. This one has the interesting twist of being set in Berlin just after the nazis took power. Most of the book is quite lighthearted considering the setting, but it gets considerably darker towards the end. The prose is smooth, the wisecracking anti-establishment narrator is a lot of fun, the plot tangles crime and politics, and the whole thing speeds along nicely. I will definitely read more.

Hugh reviewed March violets by Philip Kerr

Review of 'March violets' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Alternatingly syrupy noir and coldly brutal thriller. Starts off boozy and quippy, out Hammetting Hammett at points, but the fun definitively stops in the last third. The tonal shift doesn’t feel out of place but it recontextualises the first half quite well within the evils and nihilism of fascism.

One major difference to almost all hard boiled novels is that the city itself is not a character as in other authors’ work (Chandler and Hammett particularly) - it is an enemy. The city is riven with betrayal and nothing is genuine.

ManyRoads reviewed March violets by Philip Kerr

Review of 'March violets' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This book was a disappointment. It was just okay... the characters were a little too thin, the plot was nothing special, and there was more crude and less literate expression. Oh well...

Michael @ Knowledge Lost reviewed March violets by Philip Kerr

Review of 'March violets' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Bernie Gunther investigates the murder of the daughter of one of German’s wealthiest industrialists while the 1936 Summer Olympics play out in Berlin. Gunther is an ex-policeman that thought he had seen everything, but becoming a freelance Private Investigator has found him being sucked into the horrible excesses of Nazi subculture.

This is classic hard-boiled/noir fiction; it has the hard-hitting detective, a fast-paced plot and the everyday violence you come to expect. But this time that everyday violence comes in the forms of anti-Semitisms and the Nazi regime. The Nazi German backdrop is a great location for noir novel and makes for a whole cast of strong and interesting characters.

While the plot does need some polish, as it’s not a very strong crime plot, the interference from the Kripo and Gestapo did a great job of masking the flaws. March Violets reminds me a lot of Fatherland by Robert …

Bernie Gunther investigates the murder of the daughter of one of German’s wealthiest industrialists while the 1936 Summer Olympics play out in Berlin. Gunther is an ex-policeman that thought he had seen everything, but becoming a freelance Private Investigator has found him being sucked into the horrible excesses of Nazi subculture.

This is classic hard-boiled/noir fiction; it has the hard-hitting detective, a fast-paced plot and the everyday violence you come to expect. But this time that everyday violence comes in the forms of anti-Semitisms and the Nazi regime. The Nazi German backdrop is a great location for noir novel and makes for a whole cast of strong and interesting characters.

While the plot does need some polish, as it’s not a very strong crime plot, the interference from the Kripo and Gestapo did a great job of masking the flaws. March Violets reminds me a lot of Fatherland by Robert Harris with the concept but for me March Violets concept was much better just not as well executed.

The over used metaphors and attempts at humour really took away from the richly developed backdrop and while at times it did drag on a little, I really found myself enjoying this book. I’m not sure how well Philip Kerr researched this novel but the way he portrayed Nazi Germany felt right in my mind; the strong police state trying to play nice for the Olympic games and then the inability or unwillingness of ordinary Germans to try stop the crimes or injustices, while spending most of their time worrying about the coming war.

March Violets is the first in the Berlin Noir series and based on this book, I’m looking forward to reading the next two books. Not sure if I will continue the series after that but I will start with them. Bernie Gunther is a great protagonist with his hard hitting ways that seem like they will land him in a KZ (Konzentrationslager or Concentration camp). I’m glad I picked this book up, while there are some weak points, like I said before, they seem to be easily missed with everything else happening in this book. Well worth reading for pulp fans, it’s a fresh take on this genre.

This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2013/03/24/book-review-march-violets/

Jonathan Arnold reviewed March violets by Philip Kerr

Review of 'March violets' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Good to go back and reread an old favorite. This is especially interesting as I recently finished up all the current ones in the series (I hear there's another one on the way) and it was fun to read this with all the knowledge of the coming books.

In this, the first book of the Berlin Noir trilogy (there are also 3 more after the trilogy in the Bernie Gunther series by [a:Philip Kerr|53936|Philip Kerr|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1242600733p2/53936.jpg]), Bernie is asked by Herman Six, rich industrialist (do they have those any more or is that a WW2 idiom?), to find a necklace stolen from his murdered daughter's safe. Of course, it isn't that straight forward and before you know it, Bernie is involved in some nasty politics with such Nazi "luminaries" as Himmler and Goerring. He of course, is anti-Nazi, even to his detriment, and spends time Dachau even.

Looking back on it, …

Good to go back and reread an old favorite. This is especially interesting as I recently finished up all the current ones in the series (I hear there's another one on the way) and it was fun to read this with all the knowledge of the coming books.

In this, the first book of the Berlin Noir trilogy (there are also 3 more after the trilogy in the Bernie Gunther series by [a:Philip Kerr|53936|Philip Kerr|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1242600733p2/53936.jpg]), Bernie is asked by Herman Six, rich industrialist (do they have those any more or is that a WW2 idiom?), to find a necklace stolen from his murdered daughter's safe. Of course, it isn't that straight forward and before you know it, Bernie is involved in some nasty politics with such Nazi "luminaries" as Himmler and Goerring. He of course, is anti-Nazi, even to his detriment, and spends time Dachau even.

Looking back on it, there seems to be an over-reliance on coincidence. This is especially true in thes search for the women's necklace, as there is a sudden plot pivot towards the end that is a little hard to believe. He actually comes across the daughter but doesn't recognize her, because he's never seen a picture of her. Then he notices a picture on Six's desk of her and says "Oh, I know her!". They then have to try to rescue her from the clutches of Six's own thugs. Not sure I buy it - even if he isn't investigating her murder, and she was purportedly burned in a fire, I still feel like he would have seen a picture.

And I also need to read the next book in the trilogy, [b:The Pale Criminal|236816|The Pale Criminal (Bernard Gunther, #2)|Philip Kerr|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172986931s/236816.jpg|2127856] to see if Inge shows up again, as she went missing in this book and that plot point was left dangling.

But all in all, it was a fun read. I don't usually reread books, as I have too many on my To Read list already (313 at last count!). But this was fun, visiting an old friend, as I haven't read this book in probably 15 years. There were still some classic lines, which I need to get put into Goodreads. Try this book if you at all like dectective fiction - you won't be disappointed.