En 1936, Berlin se prépare à accueillir les jeux Olympiques d'été mais une série de disparitions risque de gâcher la fête. Lorsque la fille d'Hermann Six est assassinée, le magnat de l'acier engage l'inspecteur Bernard Gunther. Cet ancien membre de la police irrévérencieux et alcoolique tombé en disgrâce se retrouve au cœur d'un complot qui implique les plus hautes sphères du nazisme.
L'enquête explore les souvenirs d'enfance, données statistiques et arguments philosophiques sur les croyances et traditions liées aux relations entre hommes et animaux. L'écrivain réalise ensuite une expédition clandestine dans les élevages et usines d'abattage.
Now published in one paperback volume, these three mysteries are exciting and insightful looks at life inside Nazi Germany -- richer and more readable than most histories of the period. We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of derision which original Nazis used to describe late converts.) The Olympic Games are about to start; some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realize that they should have left while they could; and Gunther himself has been hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal, it's 1938, and Gunther has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich himself. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines. (For a review of Kerr's latest novel, The Grid, see our Thrillers section.)
A sharp-witted new sleuth unravels the deadly riddles of Renaissance Italy. With his bald head and black cape, Sigismondo is an imposing figure. A marriage is arranged to end a feud between two houses, but Sigismondo must investigate when the bride disappears and her handmaid is murdered. Previous publisher: St. Martin's.
When a beautiful foreign executive is found murdered carring a photograph of Otani's daughter, son in law, and grandchild in her purse, no one is more surprised than the illustrious inspector himself. What could this gaijin want with his family? And who would want her dead? Ever the professional, Otani excuses himself from the investigation but still manages to direct operations with a few well placed questions to his strait laced staff. Naturally, the can't help wondering if Otani has personal information he's not sharing. But when his son in law suddenly disappears, the whole team hits high gear to find him, following an unholy trail through the underworld and the spirit world where passion comes at a high price.
Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is called in to autopsy the body of convicted murderer Ronnie Waddell after his execution. Several days after the execution, a young boy is discovered murdered in the fashion of Waddell's earlier killings, with Waddell's prints near the body. Scarpetta, along with FBI Agent Benton Wesley and Detective Pete Marino, try to discover how a dead inmate could have possibly committed another murder after his death. As the story progresses she seeks the assistance of her 17-year-old niece Lucy after she discovers a strange folder on her computer.