Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
Bernie Gunther returns to trail a serial killer in 1950's Buenos Aires
When he introduced Bernie Gunther in the original Berlin Noir trilogy, Philip Kerr immediately established himself as a thriller writer on par with Raymond Chandler. His new Bernie Gunther novels have won him comparisons with Alan Furst, John le Carré, and Graham Greene. A Quiet Flame finds Gunther in Argentina, circa 1950, where he- falsely accused of Nazi war crimes-has been offered a new life and a clean passport by the Perón government. But the tough, fast-talking detective doesn't have the luxury of laying low when a serial killer- whose crimes may reach back to Berlin before the war-is mutilating young girls. Taut, gritty, and loaded with evocative historical detail, A Quiet Flame is among Kerr's best work yet.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame. A Bernie Gunther Novel. Penguin, ISBN: 9780143116486 (February, 2010), 416 p., $15.00.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame (USA 2009)

From the Publisher:
Philip Kerr returns with his best-loved character, Bernie Gunther, in the fifth novel in what is now a series: a tight, twisting, compelling thriller that is firmly rooted in history.

A Quiet Flame opens in 1950. Falsely fingered a war criminal, Bernie Gunther has booked passage to Buenos Aires, lured, like the Nazis whose company he has always despised, by promises of a new life and a clean passport from the Perón government. But Bernie doesn't have the luxury of settling into his new home and lying low. He is soon pressured by the local police into taking on a case in which a girl has turned up dead, gruesomely mutilated, and another -- the daughter of a wealthy German banker -- has gone missing. Both crimes seem to connect to an unsolved case Bernie worked on back in Berlin in 1932. It's not so far-fetched that the cases might be linked: after all, the scum of the earth has been washing up on Argentine shores -- state-licensed murderers and torturers -- so why couldn't a serial killer be among them?

But Argentina, just like Germany, holds terrible secrets within its corrupt halls of power. When beautiful Anna Yagubsky seeks Gunther out, desperate for help, to find out what happened to her Jewish aunt and uncle who have disappeared, he is drawn into a horror story that rivals everything he has tried so hard to leave behind half a world away.

In this new postwar world, Bernie Gunther is a man without a name or a country, but still in full possession of his conscience. He is "the right kind of hero for his time -- and ours." (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review).

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame. A Bernie Gunther Novel. Putnam's, ISBN: 9780399155307 (March, 2009), 389 p., $26.95.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie's final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve.

Circumstances lead the chief of police in Buenos Aires to suppose that the murderer may be one of several thousand ex Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. And, therefore, who better than Bernie Gunther to help him track that murderer down?

Redolent with atmosphere, this novel ends up asking some highly provocative questions about the true extent of Argentina's Nazi collaboration and anti-semitism under the Peróns.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame. A Bernie Gunther Mystery. Quercus, ISBN: 9781847245588 (October, 2008), 413 p., £7.99.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie's final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve.

Circumstances lead the chief of police in Buenos Aires to suppose that the murderer may be one of several thousand ex Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. And, therefore, who better than Bernie Gunther to help him track that murderer down?

Redolent with atmosphere, this novel ends up asking some highly provocative questions about the true extent of Argentina's Nazi collaboration and anti-semitism under the Peróns.

Philip Kerr: A Quiet Flame. A Bernie Gunther Mystery. Quercus, ISBN: 1847243568 (March, 2008), 407 p., £14.99.