FIELD GREY by Philip Kerr

Philip Kerr has been writing about a pre-WWII Berlin detective for more than a decade. These novels cover Bernard Gunther's career from policeman to private detective to SS soldier to post-war criminal. The books introduce infamous Nazis at various points of their lives and in FIELD GREY the old veteran is entrapped by the CIA and French to undercover a mass murderer heading back to Germany from captivity in the USSR. Bernie is no friend to the Nazi, but likes his Cold War masters even less and given the chance to betray them to save an old nemesis, Bernie does the right thing. The Financial Times thought Kerr's crisscrossing time plot was too convoluted to force the storyline forward without confusion, but I read the book with enthusiasm, especially since Bernard Gunther never takes himself or life too seriously, but Kerr puts the right words in his hero's mouth for the wrong times such as telling a beautiful Cuban revolutionary, "Whenever someone talks about building a better society, you can bet he's planning to use a couple of sticks of dynamite." Bernard Gunther holds true to his honor. He is simple and pure. Like a glass of schnapps in a bad bar. Drank and not stirred.