Philipp Kerr: Greeks bearing gifts (Bernie Gunter thriller No 13), Quercus / Hachette UK, 9781784296537, trade paperback,

One of my former bosses at Penguin was a great Philipp Kerr fan, he had urged me to read them which I never did despite all the excellent reviews about Bernie Gunter, his German anti-hero. When I read in the paper of Philip Kerr’s untimely and sudden death, I decided to honor him by reading his last book “Greeks bearing gifts” which is not set in the Thirties and Forties during the Nazi years in Germany but placed in Greece in 1957.

Bernie Gunther is now called Christoph Ganz to conceal his true identity and has landed himself a job as an insurance adjuster in Munich.  His work as a former unorthodox cop comes in handy when he is sent to Greece to investigate the loss of a ship, the “Doris”, his company Munich RE has insured.  The claimant and owner of the ship is an unfriendly character Gunther dislikes immediately. When he learns that the ships was originally owned by Greek Jews from Salonika who had their possessions confiscated by the German Nazis before being sent to their death and the current mission of the ship had been to investigate sunken ancient gold treasures, Bernie’s instincts start raising red flags. He decides to pay the claimant an unannounced second visit only to find him murdered with a shot through both eyes.  Unlucky for Bernie, the Greek police lie in wait arresting him for murder. He persuades the Greek detective in charge to make uses of his old contacts and knowledge of former Nazi officials who had committed atrocities enriching themselves during their occupation of Greece to bring them to a proper trial in Greece. The beginning of a great plot with many twists and turns.....

I learned a great deal about the German occupation of Greece in this book, the crimes committed by the Nazis and the background of some prominent German government officials after the war and why so few were ever brought to trial.  The background of several characters in the book is factual; Kerr lists what actually became of them after the war in his afterword.  The German edition has not been announced yet, his former books in the series have been translated.

Paula McLain: Love and Ruin, 9781524798826, Ballantine Books (Penguin Random House USA), paperback, pub date May 1, 2018 

Deutsche Ausgabe: Hemingway & ich - Martha Gellhorn's grosse Liebe, 9783351037451, gebunden, Aufbau Verlag, 5.10.18

After the success of her first novel “The Paris Wife” I guess it was inevitable Paula McLain would return to another of Ernest Hemingway ‘s wives ; the first novel centersing around his first wife Hadley and the second, Pauline. I loved “Paris Wife” and could not wait to read her fictionalized account of Martha Gellhorn and Hemingway’s relationship.

Martha Gellhorn was by far the most equal of his wives, a gutsy, fearless war journalist and writer herself which is precisely what attracted Hemingway to her as did her legendary long legs and blond hair. Martha paved the road of war journalism for many female journalists to come and continued to work as a war reporter herself well into her eighties.  She took her own life at 89, being almost blind and ill.

“Love and Ruin” spans from their first encounter in 1936 until their split up in 1945. When Martha, her brother and mother enter Ernest’s Key West watering hole by chance during their Christmas Key West vacation, little do they know this encounter would change Martha’s life.  Ernest was immediately smitten by Martha although still married to Pauline with whom he had 2 sons.  He tells her of his upcoming trip covering the Spanish war as a journalist and offers her protection after Martha interest is ignited to investigate war journalism herself. She manages to get an assignment by Collier as a first female war reporter and follows Ernest to Spain.  Their initial deep friendship of two like- minded souls quickly turns into a love affair causing Ernest a real dilemma as he is still a married man.  I was already familiar with Hemingway and Gellhorn’s biography and the book stays close to their actual lives taking fictional liberties. Their time in Spain and Cuba was an intense and happy one mostly  although even then Martha saw Ernest’s dark side and jealously which clashed with her continued need to stay independent as a writer and woman,  something Hemingway could not deal with in the end.  Their relationship was not to last ;  Paula McLain does a great job writing up the story of their love.

I enjoyed “Love and Ruin” immensely but for me, Paula McLain’s strongest books still is “Circling the Sun” (!"Lady Afrika" in German) . For my taste Ballantine could have done a much better job with the cover, it is way too smaltzy for the quality of the book.