An NPR Book of the Year
A vicious murder puts Bernie Gunther on the trail of World War 2
criminals in Greece in this riveting historical thriller in Philip
Kerr's New York Times bestselling series.
Munich, 1956. Bernie Gunther has a new name, a chip on his shoulder,
and a dead-end career when an old friend arrives to repay a debt and
encourages Christoph Ganz to take a job as a claims adjuster in a major
German insurance company with a client in Athens, Greece.
Under the cover of his new identity, Bernie begins to investigate a
claim by Siegfried Witzel, a brutish former Wehrmacht soldier who served
in Greece during the war. Witzel's claimed losses are large, and, even
worse, they may be the stolen spoils of Greek Jews deported to
Auschwitz. But when Bernie tries to confront Witzel, he finds that
someone else has gotten to him first, leaving a corpse in his place.
Enter Lieutenant Leventis, who recognizes in this case the highly
grotesque style of a killer he investigated during the height of the
war. Back then, a young Leventis suspected an S.S. officer whose
connection to the German government made him untouchable. He's kept that
man's name in his memory all these years, waiting for his second chance
at justice...
Working together, Leventis and Bernie hope to put their cases--new and
old--to bed. But there's a much more sinister truth to acknowledge: A
killer has returned to Athens...one who may have never left.
