Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Philip Kerr


Five or six years ago, I read Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir and was blown away. Berlin Noir is actually three books under one cover--March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem--that describe the travails of a Marlowe-esque detective name Bernie Gunther in 1940s Berlin. They're brilliant and excruciatingly dark, in the sense that it is by no means clear that the good guys (and Bernie is definitely a good guy) are going to win. I've read some of Kerr's other books since and they're kind of a mixed bag. I was really excited for his most recent book, Hitler's Peace, which involves British spies, plenty of sinister Nazis, etc., but as actually disappointed--the story is preposterous and the characters didn't convince--and would be reluctant to recommend it to anyone. However, Kerr has been a busy boy. The postman today brought Kerr's latest, The One from the Other, a fourth Bernie Gunther novel. I am actually genuinely excited to read this and am praying it's more like the Berlin Noir books than his more recent stuff.

This reminds me of something else I've been meaning to blog about. I've been a little bored with the reading selections at hand of late--though the next few evenings are accounted for (see above), and wonder if our readers might suggest some things that, given our varied though not limitless interests, we might enjoy. In particular, I quite enjoyed Moore's "V for Vendetta" and wonder if there are other graphic novels that I shouldn't miss. Other novels? I've never read LeCarre's George Smiley books. Any thoughts about those?

Posted by jwb at 4:25 PM   

3 Comments:

Blogger Bram said:

Well, if you're working your way through the classic Moore, you should check out Watchmen. In this post-Cold War era of peace and brotherhood, it's kind of dated, but is a pretty amazing read. Plus, you'll want to get to it before the perpetually threatened movie gets made.

You might also want to try Gotham Central, collected volumes of the recently cancelled series. Homicide in Batman's hometown. Smart stuff.

Read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy sometime in high school. Remember liking it, and thinking I didn't need to read any more. Picked up another Smiley book when visiting Raph, gonna give a try now that I'm on the spy novel thing.
at 3:26 PM     

Blogger jwb said:

Ah, the Good Will booksale. Such memories. Which reminds me, my Canadian buddy Marty is coming to visit in November and wants to visit some of Boston's better used book stores. Alas, several we visited on his last trip don't exist any more (except, in at least one case, on the internerds). Even Cambridge can't seem to sutain them any more. Kind of a bummer.

I'm happy to take you up on your offer, whatever Bram says.

I think I've actually got copies of Watchmen from the original run in my parent's house somewhere. (I've got 3-4 boxes of comics, all in pristine condition and in bags, there. I'm inclined to leave them there for a while. Perhaps they'll put our kids through college some day.)
at 11:41 AM     

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at 6:12 PM     

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