Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing a Kindle copy of this novel for me to read and impartially review.
Philip Kerr's excellent "Bernie Gunther" series is not new to me, i have read and thoroughly enjoyed quite a number of this quality series, of which this is number 13, and whilst there are numerous references to our heroes previous escapades, this can quite easily be read as a standalone novel. So if you have not read any of the previous books WHY NOT! Sadly as the Author as passed away i feared this might be the end of Bernie, but i understand a new book will be out in the new year. After that i can only hope that some other Author will take on the mantle, which has happened successfully with several of my other favourite literary characters, Sherlock Holmes Moriarty and Lisbeth Salander to name but three.
Firstly the publishers blurb about this book.
1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on.
Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a sunken ship, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an act of vengeance.
And so Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe prepares to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.

Now for my opinion, Bernie Gunther is cynical and darkly funny, this is a memorable highly original character, like a German Philip Marlowe same dry humour and quick wit.
Based on historical facts with a mix of fictional and real life characters, also somewhat topical as the EEC is just being setup, this book is beautifully descriptive with a real feel for time and place, gripping from first to last page this is a highly enjoyable entertaining read.
Highly Recommended.

t’s 1957. Germany has lost the war, but under Konrad Adenauer is winning the peace. Bernie Gunther has lost his name, but is working in Munich in a hospital mortuary. Through a series of connected events, Bernie finds himself employed by an Insurance Company to investigate fraudulent claims – a task he proves to be very good at. When he is sent to Greece to assess the loss of a ship, he finds himself back in murky Nazi waters: the boat was formerly owned by a Jew and there are a number of Germans with Nazi backgrounds interested in the sinking.

Unlike previous novels in the series, this story remains in 1957 (just on the eve of the creation of the EEC), but its plot depends on some awful Nazi atrocities committed in Greece in the Second World War.

There is much to enjoy here: a complex and intelligent plot; Bernie’s trademark wit; the noir setting, underlined by reference to many noir movies of the period, A coffin for Demetrios, Suspicion and above all Double Indemnity. This movie is referenced throughout – after all Bernie is now an insurance man himself; characters in this novel share names with those in the movie – Walter Neff, for example, and even Bernie’s Greek driver in Athens, the affable coward Achilles Gorlopis. At one point the plot of Double Indemnity is even roped into Bernie’s own story. There is also constant reference and allusion to classical Greek myth, philosophy, culture, language and history underlining in an understated way the debt western society must pay to Greece.

All this is great fun, but it should not obscure what is a deeply depressing and cynical story, the barbaric treatment of the Greeks and especially Greek Jews by the Germans in the war. It is a story of one German’s sense of shame and of a nation’s collective loss of both conscience and memory of guilt. It is about how Nazi killers were rehabilitated by the Adenauer government and how ex-Nazis were instrumental in the establishment and governance of the fledgling European Community. It makes you think. It could make you weep.

I realise that this is tantamount to sacrilege, but I didn’t get on very well with the early Bernie Gunther books and haven’t read one for some time. I thought I’d try Greeks Bearing Gifts to see whether the later books suited me better and was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it.

It is 1957 and Bernie (under an assumed name) is eventually helped into a job as an insurance investigator, which he proves to be very good at. He is sent to Greece to look into the apparently accidental sinking of a boat and becomes embroiled in a plot involving German war criminals, gold plundered from the Jews murdered in Greece and so on. It’s a complicated, twisty plot, but a good one, which is rich in Kerr’s research into the subject and which makes for an involving read.

I have to say that the book is too long and Kerr is very keen to show off his research in lengthy speeches by various characters which, while accurate, don’t really ring true as dialogue. However, the relentless hard-boiled wisecracking of the earlier books is largely absent and the gratuitous misogyny is dialled down to the level of sexism which might be expected from someone like Bernie in 1957, both of which were a considerable relief to me.

So, for me this is a good read rather than a brilliant one, but well worth a look; there’s plenty to like and to think about here.

(My thanks to Quercus for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Greeks Bearing Gifts is the thirteenth book in the excellent Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr and it is another fabulous story.

The story starts in 1957 with Bernie working in a mortuary in Munich under a false name to try and avoid questions about his past. Circumstances result in him being offered a job with a large insurance company which he accepts for the pay rise, car and expenses.

Subsequently he ends up in Greece investigating the loss of boat but only to find himself surrounded by Germans and in particular the ones he would prefer to forget about.

The author brings his meticulous research to the fore as the fast talking Gunther tries to survive with his life and faculties in fact.

Overall an outstanding book which is thoroughly recommended.

Munich 1957 and Bernie Gunther is keeping a low profile, working as a mortuary attendant in a local hospital under the name Christof Ganz.. But a chance encounter with a corrupt Munich policeman leads to him being coerced into a robbery in which two men are killed. Bernie manages to avoid further trouble and is hired by a large insurance firm as a claims adjuster. He ends up in Athens, investigating a fire which led to the sinking of a yacht owned by a German diver, Siegried Witzel. This ship once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz and Bernie is suspicious of Witzel, whose replies to his questions seem deliberately vague.

Witzel is then found murdered, shot through both eyes. A similar murder had happened days before and Bernie ends up helping out Levantis, a Greek police lieutenant and getting involved with an attractive Greek lawyer named Elli, with whom Bernie flirts outrageously. But Elli may not be what she seems, while Levantis is trying to hunt down a Nazi war criminal who he believes is being protected by the Adenauer government in West Germany, working as an agent for the BND (Federal Intelligence Service). It's a historical fact that many Nazis escaped prosecution by working for various Allied spy networks during the Cold War. This particular Nazi was a member of Adolf Eichman's staff, responsible for the deportation of 70,000 Jews of Salonika to the death camps of Eastern Europe. No Nazi or Fascist war criminal was ever prosecuted for the horrific crimes they committed in Greece during World War II and Bernie believes finding and prosecuting this man may partly atone for his country's sins.
The shadow of World War II looms large in this story and Bernie is sympathetic to the aims of Greeks seeking justice for the horrors they suffered under Nazi rule. But Germany has changed in the past decade and is seen as a bulwark against Communist dominated East Europe and the Soviet Union. Then, there is the German "economic miracle" leading to negotiations to form the European Economic Community.
Throughout the book, Bernie is in a reflective mood and feels that his native land has suffered a form of collective amnesia about their guilt for the war crimes perpetrated in the name of Germany during the war. Even though he was never a Nazi, he has his own burden of guilt, since the Berlin police who he worked for before the war was taken over by the Nazis and he became part of the SD, which was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party from 1931 to the end of the war.

This is the 13th in the Bernie Gunther series since Philip Kerr died earlier this year, although, prior to his death, he was editing another in the series which will be published in 2019. Over the past 30 years, I have read all of the Bernie Gunther books and some of Philip Kerr's stand-alone novels. To me he is one of Britain's greatest writers and "Greeks Bearing Gifts" is another fine example of his work. Highly recommended.