The first of a series of quite excellent books featuring detective Bernie Gunther, a private eye in 1930’s Berlin. Bernie is a former policeman, and a veteran of the great war. But now, he makes a living running missing persons cases, mostly Jews, who have invariably been shipped off to KZs (Konzentrationslager, the German name for concentration camp) by the gestapo on trumped up pretexts.
At the height of Hitler’s ascent, shortly before the the Olympics Games, Bernie is approached by a wealthy industrialist whose daughter and son-in-law have been murdered brutally. Bernie is charged with finding the murderer, or more specifically, a diamond necklace stolen by the murderer. This search leads him down the entire sordid world of Nazi excesses, right up to the infighting between Hitler’s sidekicks, Goering and Himmler.
Through morgues, Olympic stadiums, abandoned mansions and finally, to Dachau concentration camp, Gunther chases a trail that keeps the reader on edge throughout. Told in first person with the same cynical outlook to life as the classic detectives created by Chandler and Hammett, it’s an outstanding read, opening a window into the extreme living conditions during the worst of the Nazi regime.
The title is a reference to the slang term used for people who entered the Nazi party after the Enabling Act passed in March ‘33 making Hitler dictator.