Berlin Noir

Convoluted but excellent. Bernie matches Smiley as an equal.

You won't find any better stories about life in Nazi Deutschland (Germany) before, during and after WW2. This collection of novels are the first three in a running series of books featuring the nazi loathing Police detective turned P.I. Bernie Gunther. Although the plots are fictionalized they all contain characterizations of many real life top ranking nazis that often enlist Gunther to work cases for them in spite of his often overt disdain for the NSdAP which is tolerated only because he's the best at what he does.
This is hard boiled noir at its finest, with a Protagonist that most certainly fills the shoes of Raymond Chandlers Philip Marlowe quite admirably. I have read all 12 of the series and each one is better than the last. Highly recommended for those interested in historical fiction, the noir genre, and the deplorable lengths the nazis are willing to go to to achieve total domination.
This is my absolute favorite series along with George R.R. Martins "A Song of Fire and Ice" series and Stephen Kings "The Dark Tower" series.
If you haven't read any of Philip Kerr's work you are definitely missing out.
I am currently reading his latest Bernie Gunther novel "Prussian Blue" and just 3 chapters in and inevitably I'm hooked. It's always a pleasure to rejoin the cynical, sardonic and darkly humorous Gunther on another "whodunnit" case.

Best thriller/mistery writer on the Second World War era that I have
discovered in a long time. Up there with Alan Furst. I love the city
of Berlin and reading Kerr I feel like being right there in the middle
of the action.