A Quiet Flame is the fifth in Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, a set of 'noir' mysteries set in and around Hitler's Berlin. But now the war is over and Gunther, a long-time adversary of Nazism, has been misidentified as a war criminal. He escapes to Peron's Argentina, where he joins a large contingent of exiled Nazi's living under assumed names.
Gunther's investigative skills pique the interest of an Argentinian officer who offers him a deal: find the missing daughter of a prominent man, and in exchange Peron's own doctor will cure Gunther of his early stage cancer.
Along the way Gunther also takes the case of a beautiful Jewish woman who is looking for her missing relatives, and as the cases become intertwined it becomes obvious that Argentina hides a secret as dark as anything in Europe.
Noir often becomes boring to me, with its endless obsession with darkness and tragedy. Kerr is an acknowledged master of the form, and so I managed to avoid that fate. Instead Kerr failed in setting up and then resolving the mystery at hand. In the end it is resolved in a single, off-hand conversation, as if the facts were off-stage the whole time. He obviously wished our attention to be focused on the social and historical crimes of the era, and not the wanderings of a single young woman, but so what? He could have - he should have - done both.
2.5 out of 4.
You know, I'm reading a book right now about Stalin-led Russia called Child 44. It's by Tom Rob Smith.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty good.