Wir schreiben das Jahr 2034. Der Staat hat die völlige Kontrolle über Leben und Tod, der geheimnisvolle 'Winston' wacht über alle. Die 16-jährige Florence arbeitet aus voller Überzeugung für den sogenannten Senior Service, dessen Aufgabe es ist, ältere Menschen zu enttarnen und zu töten, die sich weigern, freiwillig aus dem Leben zu scheiden, um Platz für die Jüngeren zu machen. Doch dann verliebt sich Florence in Eric. Und sie beginnt, das System in Frage zu stellen. Bestsellerautor Philip Kerr liefert mit seiner Hommage an Orwells Klassiker einen höchst aktuellen Roman - und zeigt, dass die Kraft der Liebe stärker ist als jede Unterdrückung.
1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move sees him working for an insurance company. Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a ship that has sunk, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he's convinced the sinking was no accident. Then the claimant is found dead. Bernie is strong-armed into helping the Greek police with their investigation - who is behind the murder, and why?
From New York Times–bestselling author Philip Kerr, the much-anticipated return of Bernie Gunther, our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer. With his cover blown, he is waiting for the next move in the cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany’s defeat, continues to shadow his life.
The French Riviera, 1956: The invitation to dinner was not unexpected, though neither was it welcome. Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, has turned up in Nice, and he’s not on holiday. An old and dangerous adversary, Mielke is calling in a debt. He intends that Bernie go to London and, with the vial of Thallium he now pushes across the table, poison a female agent they both have had dealings with.
But chance intervenes in the form of Friedrich Korsch, an old Kripo comrade now working for Stasi and probably there to make sure Bernie gets the job done. Bernie bolts for the German border. Traveling by night, holed up during the day, Bernie has plenty of down time to recall the last time Korsch and he worked together.
It was the summer of 1939: At Hitler’s mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, the body of a low-level bureaucrat has been found murdered. Bernie and Korsch are selected to run the case. They have one week to solve the murder—Hitler is due back then to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Lucky Bernie: it’s his reward for being Kripo’s best homicide detective. He knows what a box he’s in: millions have been spent to secure Obersalzberg. It would be a disaster if Hitler were to discover a shocking murder had been committed on the terrace of his own home. But the mountaintop is home to an elite Nazi community. It would be an even bigger disaster for Bernie if one of them was the murderer.
1939 and 1956: two different eras, seventeen years apart. And yet, not really apart, as the stunning climax will show when the two converge explosively.
It's 1956 and Bernie Gunther is on the run. Ordered by Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, to murder Bernie's former lover by thallium poisoning, he finds his conscience is stronger than his desire not to be murdered in turn. Now he must stay one step ahead of Mielke's retribution. The man Mielke has sent to hunt him is an ex-Kripo colleague, and as Bernie pushes towards Germany he recalls their last case together, finding that there is some unfinished business awaiting him in Germany...
Football manager Scott Manson needs a new job, but finding one in the star-studded world of international football isn't easy. A new position in Shanghai turns out to be part of an elaborate sting operation - and in Barcelona, he's not hired as a football manager, but as a detective. Barca's star player is missing, and Scott has a month to track him down. As Scott follows the trail from Paris to Antigua, he encounters the rotten heart of the beautiful game...
From New York Times bestselling author Philip Kerr, comes a story of a young man growing up in colonial America.
No one knows when "something infernal" crept into the heart of young Master Edgar, a well-bred British orphan in the hands of a cool stepfather in 19th century Richmond, Virginia, and under the care of the home's educated and proper slave, Scipio. Was it when his actress mother died, years after moving Edgar and his brother from England to America? Was it during his strange education at the hands of the calculating Scipio? Or was it when he plotted another boy's death so that he could gain entry, through the boy's grave, into the underworld? "The Pocket Handkerchief" by Philip Kerr is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and read them all!
From New York Times-bestselling author Philip Kerr, the much anticipated return of Bernie Gunther in a series hailed by The Daily Beast as "the best crime novels around today."
Once I'd been a good detective in Kripo, but that was a while ago, before the criminals wore smart gray uniforms and nearly everyone locked up was innocent." Being a Berlin cop in 1942 was a little like putting down mousetraps in a cage full of tigers.
The war is over. Bernie Gunther, our sardonic former Berlin homicide detective and unwilling SS officer, is now living on the French Riviera. It is 1956 and Bernie is the go-to guy at the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, the man you turn to for touring tips or if you need a fourth for bridge. As it happens, a local writer needs just that, someone to fill the fourth seat in a regular game that is the usual evening diversion at the Villa Mauresque. Not just any writer. Perhaps the richest and most famous living writer in the world: W. Somerset Maugham. And it turns out it is not just a bridge partner that he needs; it's some professional advice. Maugham is being blackmailed-perhaps because of his unorthodox lifestyle. Or perhaps because of something in his past, because once upon a time, Maugham worked for the British secret service, and the people now blackmailing him are spies.
As Gunther fans know, all roads lead back to the viper's nest that was Hitler's Third Reich and to the killing fields that spread like a disease across Europe. Even in 1956, peace has not come to the continent: now the Soviets have the H-bomb and spies from every major power feel free to make all of Europe their personal playground.
It is 1956 on the French Riviera. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working as concierge at the Grand Hotel, living under a false name. Then his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service. Bernie never forgets a face, especially when it belongs to a mass murderer who, in 1945, was responsible for the deaths of thousands; among them a woman Bernie loved. Bernie has a score to settle with Hennig...
Die Ukraine, 1941: Als die Nazis das Naturreservat Askania-Nowa besetzen, muss der treue Tierwärter Max hilflos mit ansehen, wie die seltenen Tiere getötet werden - darunter auch seine kostbaren Przewalski-Pferde. Zur gleichen Zeit hält sich dort in den Wäldern die 15-jährige russische Jüdin Kalinka versteckt. Sie gewinnt das Vertrauen zweier Przewalksi-Pferde, und mit Hilfe von Max flieht sie mit den beiden letzten Pferden, um sich selbst und die kostbaren Tiere zu retten ...
Philip Kerr gelingt mit seiner spannenden und zutiefst berührenden Abenteuergeschichte ein einfühlsames Plädoyer für das Leben, den Frieden und die Menschlichkeit. Eine Geschichte, wie man sie generationsübergreifend am Lagerfeuer erzählt. Der Schauspieler Torsten Michaelis, deutsche Stimme von Sean Bean und Wesley Snipes, fesselt mit seiner packenden Stimme. Er lotet von der ersten bis zur letzten Sekunde die emotionallen Höhen und Tiefen dieser dramatischen Rettung aus.
It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine. But it's 1941, and things are different this year. Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets-for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park.
Kalinka has lost her home, her family, her belongings-everything but her life. Still, she has gained one small, precious gift: a relationship with the rare, wild, and wily Przewalski's horses that wander the preserve. Aside from Max, these endangered animals are her only friends-until a Nazi campaign of extermination nearly wipes them out for good.
Now Kalinka must set out on a treacherous journey across the frozen forest to save the only two surviving horses-and herself.
Scott Manson and London City are in Athens battling for the UEFA Champion's League title. The situation in Athens is tense, and some of City's players are so unpopular in Greece they've been assigned bodyguards. Karaiskakis Stadium is packed to the rafters when tragedy strikes, Christoph Bundchen collapses and dies mid-match. Is it a heart attack? Or something more sinister?
In 1942, there are worse places to be than Zurich and detective Bernie Gunther has seen his fair share of them. So when a superior asks him to track down a glamorous German actress believed to be hiding in Zurich, he takes the job. The actress, it emerges, is the daughter of a fanatical Croatian fascist, the sadistic commandant of a notorious concentration camp and Bernie finds himself involved in something much more sinister.
