WHO CARES? WHO REVIEWS THE REVIEWERS?

The Daily Telegraph of Saturday 31 October contains a review by Toby Clements of Philip Kerr's latest Bernie Gunther novel, If The Dead Rise Not.

The first paragraph of the review reads as follows:

In 1989 Penguin published March Violets, the first of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels. It was set in pre-war Berlin and it inverted the convention of having horrible Nazis and charming Jews.

No it doesn't, not in my copy of March Violets. The paragraph ends:

Not only was this wonderfully transgressive, it also lent the novel a real sense of doubt as to the whereabouts of the moral high ground, quite a feat when the subject is National Socialism.

March Violets is set in 1936 and the Jewish characters in it are much more concerned with staying alive, and on the "right" side of the Nuremberg Laws than attempting to be horrible.

I quote from March Violets:

"The Jewish population of Dachau was never large, but in all respects the Jews were worse off......In an Aryan hut the death rate was one per night; in a Jewish hut it was nearer seven or eight.

Dachau was no place to be a Jew."

"The starving steal from the starving, and personal survival is the only consideration......"

I don't see much moral ambiguity in the narrative of March Violets, which clearly describes the absolute evil of the Nazi regime.

But then perhaps TC has confused his books and his idea of an "inverted convention" might possibly apply to parts of the sixth Bernie Gunther novel, If The Dead Rise Not, although the Nazis in it are never very charming for very long.

TC writes that:

Perhaps like his hero, the author has become too world weary and flabby, because for the first part of this one-in which he flashes back to Bernie's early days as a 'hotel peeper' at the Adlon, just before the 1936 Berlin Olympics [well actually 1934, two years before]- you find yourself crying "enough already!"

I get it that the Nazis were bad, I get it that Bernie does not like them. It is not only that it is unsophisticated, it is actively unsettling, because you have to stop yourself reacting against it and cheering on the Nazis.

I plead guilty to being unsophisticated because I don't think you can ever cry "enough already" when telling any part of the story of the Nazis, and the horrendous crimes they committed. They were guilty of possibly the greatest crime in history, they were not just "bad", they destroyed a thriving culture and murdered 1.5 million children altering forever the ethnic makeup of Europe from Salonika to Vilna. I would be astonished if anyone reading the first half of If The Dead Rise Not would be cheering on the Nazis, apart from those who always do still cheer for them.

But it was not only the Jews who suffered under that terrifying regime.

From March Violets, referring to those imprisoned in Dachau:

"There were Sozis and Kozis, trade unionists, judges, lawyers , doctors, school teachers, army officers. Republican soldiers from the Spanish Civil War, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Catholic priests, gypsies, Jews, spiritualists, homosexuals, vagrants , thieves and murderers. With the exception of some Russians, and a few former members of the Austrian cabinet, everyone in Dachau was German."

I agree that in If The Dead Rise Not, there are horrible Nazis with a very thin veneer of charm, and indeed some horrible Jews, including Meyer Lansky, as well as some rather confused Cubans; after all there are good and bad in all races. But it would be clear from reading the book even to the most unsophisticated mind that Batista, Castro and Lansky are very much second division evil compared with Hitler and Stalin, or Heydrich and Eichmann.

TC does say some good things about the book, and he wants to learn more about Gunther's time with the SS in Russia. He thinks the numerous hints are not enough and that "Kerr really owes us another flashback, this time to the heart of Gunther's personal darkness in the Ukraine, rather than to the twilight of the Caribbean."

I could even forgive the bizarre understatement that the Nazis are bad, and apparent confusion over which book is which, if not for this passage;

'....Bernie in Cuba, just before the revolution, where he bumps into his old friends and once more finds himself involved in a murder investigation,********* '

There then follows a plot spoiler which reveals the murderer to anyone who knows anything about the history of crime fiction. I find it difficult to comprehend why a reviewer would do this, unless to prove to aficionados that he had read the genre.

This was a strange review of an excellent book, which won Philip Kerr both the prestigious and financially rewarding RBA Prize and the CWA Ellis Peters Award.

If you want to read my interview with author Philip Kerr click here and scroll down.

My own review of If The Dead Rise Not.

My review of March Violets.

'Yes, I noticed that the rain was a little warmer than usual. At least a rotten summer is one thing they can't blame on the Jews.'

'Don't you believe it,' I said.

[March Violets: Philip Kerr 1989]

IF THE DEAD RISE NOT: PHILIP KERR

If The Dead Rise Not is the sixth novel in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series. The story begins in Berlin 1934, where the Nazis are beginning to prepare for the 1936 Olympics, which were awarded to the Weimar Republic before Hitler's seizure of power.

Bernie, no longer able to tolerate Goering's police purges, has resigned as a homicide detective in the Criminal Police and has become a house detective at the fashionable Adlon Hotel.

The Nazis in just eighteen months have brought about some unpleasant changes including the expulsion of Jews from sporting organisations.

[ Gretel Bergmann was an example of this policy and a film has been made about this case.]

'Jews will be stripped of German citizenship and forbidden to marry or have sexual relations with pure Germans. Employment in any public capacity will be completely forbidden, and property ownership restricted. Crossbreeds will be obliged to to apply to the Leader himself for reclassification or Aryanization.'

'Jesus Christ.'

Otto Schuchhardt smiled. 'Oh, I very much doubt that he'd be in with any sort of chance for reclassification. Not unless you could prove his heavenly father was German.'

The body of a German business man is discovered at the Hotel Adlon in suspicious circumstances, and Bernie is also asked by an ex-colleague to investigate the death of a boxer who turns out to be Jewish. These activities involve Bernie with two of the hotel guests; Max Reles an American gangster, with a secret, who intends to obtain a share of the vast amount of money the Nazis are spending on the Olympics in order to showcase the New Germany; and the beautiful Noreen Charalambides [nee Eisner], a wealthy Jewish American left wing journalist, who intends to write an article to encourage a boycott of these Nazi games by the American Olympic committee.

Bernie's investigations of a criminal and romantic kind lead to a kind of stalemate, and the story flashes forward twenty years to pre-revolution Cuba, the country Bernie fled to from Argentina at the end of A Quiet Flame.

In Cuba Bernie finds new problems, new tyrants and new villains as we move towards the novel's gripping climax.

'Please, senor. At least read it,eh? If only because the man who wrote [Fidel Castro] it is currently languishing in the Model prison of the Isles of Pines.'

'Hitler wrote a rather longer book, in Landsberg Prison, I didn't read that one, either.'

I love the Bernie Gunther series and the books seem to be getting better and better. 'If The Dead Rise Not' brilliantly captures the menacing atmosphere of brutal regimes on two continents and uses Bernie's quick wit as a weapon to highlight their evil. The series is not just a polemic against the Nazis, there are good and bad in all races and a book that includes mentions of Hermann Goering, Meyer Lansky and Fulgencio Batista has a head start in proving that thesis.

The sharp first person narrative of 'If The Dead Rise Not' appears to pay tribute to Raymond Chandler, as Bernie and Noreen reprise a scene from The Big Sleep, Dashiell Hammett and Kenneth Fearing, while still retaining the unique qualities that have earned the series so much praise, and three nominations for the CWA Ellis Peters Award.

Sometimes a series can become stale because the author writes the same book over and over again, but Philip Kerr by moving the action first to Argentina, and now Cuba has avoided this situation and given Bernie Gunther and his wisecracks fresh impetus.

I really enjoyed reading this novel which features great characters [real and fictional], an intriguing plot and is full of clever lines and tense situations. Philip Kerr has given us in Bernie Gunther a flawed hero that we can believe in, because compromise is the only way to survive in his cruel world, in which 'the truly innocent are dead', and this makes for some great books.

In my opinion 'If The Dead Rise Not' must be one of the front runners on this year's Ellis Peters shortlist.

I will be posting an interview with the author Philip Kerr during the next two weeks.

The Capitolio was built in the style of the United States Capitol in Washington DC, by the dictator Machado, but it was too big for an island the size of Cuba. It would have been too big for an island the size of Australia.

Thanks to publishers Quercus and Maxine of Petrona for the book.

PHILIP KERR: AN INTERVIEW PART FOUR

More from my interesting interview with Philip Kerr.

11] If you could only take one book onto a desert island which would it be?

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I like Gibbon. He hated Christians for their religious intolerance, you know. I am somewhat to the left of Julian the Apostate here. We should have a pantheon where all gods are welcome, but monotheism is forbidden on pain of death. I like the Romana. We should get back to throwing a few people to the lions I think. And not just Christians. Law and Order Roman style in Britannicus for ten years would suit very well.

12] Your Bernie Gunther series both entertains and educates, if they could only do one of these which would it be?

Entertain. I don't think it's any accident that Graham Greene is always a better writer when he writes 'an entertainment'. Those books like Brighton Rock will endure for a while longer anyway.

You can pull a soap box out and preach about something only if you have taken the trouble to entertain your reader. Also, they don't notice it then, too. I learned that from Goebbels.

13] Are there any more Bernie Gunther books in the pipeline?

Yes. I am plotting one now. I like plotting for several months before I put pencil on paper.

[To be continued, the final part of this interview will be posted on Tuesday 13 October]

Noticing my attention, he was moved to inform me that the Polish foreign minister, Josef Beck, had demanded a solution to the problem of the Polish minority in the Olsa region of Czechoslovakia:

'Just like a bunch of gangsters, isn't it, sir?' he said. 'Everyone wants his cut.'

The Pale Criminal: Philip Kerr 1990

PHILIP KERR: AN INTERVIEW PART FIVE

The final part of my interview with prize winning crime fiction writer Philip Kerr.

14] On page 335 of A Quiet Flame Bernie gives a long list of those he blames for the rise of the Nazis. There were obviously many factors unique to Weimar Germany but do you ever worry that this situation could arise in the next few years in the UK?

No. The British are too keen on television and shopping for anything like this to happen. But I would welcome London becoming more like Weimar Berlin in a number of respects. At the very least I should like to see a lot more nudism in London's parks. And women wearing suspenders.

15] It is said that authors need talent, hard work and luck. Which of these do you think is most important? Do you think people appreciate crime writing as much as literary writing and understand that crime fiction is by far the biggest selling genre?

You need all three. But the most important thing of all is hard work. I know I did.

The great Geoffrey Boycott [a famous Yorkshire and English Test cricketer] once commented that he had worked bloody hard to be so lucky. There's truth in that, just as there's truth in nearly everything Sir Geoff says.

I try not to talk about my work and myself too much. I think I'm a very boring person to be honest. All of what's interesting about me goes into my books.

There is always a lot of special pleading for crime writing. But I think it gets as much appreciation as it deserves. If people didn't appreciate it they wouldn't buy it. End of story.

I see lots of good reviews in the newspapers for crime writers so I guess you're talking about things like the Booker and I really don't think anyone should be upset if they don't win that. Some terrible novels have won the Booker.

Besides it seems there are plenty of awards and rewards for crime writing and I think it's a good thing if people who often write very worthy but boring books should have their own little ghetto where their books can achieve a certain kind of success.

Thanks very much for the interview Phil, and the best of luck with If The Dead Rise Not for that elusive CWA Ellis Peters Award.

Part one, part two, part three, part four of this interview.

Reviews of :

If The Dead Rise Not

March Violets

The Pale Criminal

A Quiet Flame

EVENT AT DAUNT BOOKS: PHILIP KERR

If you have enjoyed or been intrigued by the Philip Kerr interview you can hear the man himself speak at Daunt Books, 83 Marylebone High Street tomorrow night Wednesday 14 October at 7.00 pm. tickets are £5.

NEW EURO CRIME REVIEW: DEATH IN BRESLAU

My review of Polish crime writer Marek Krajewski's Death in Breslau has been posted on Euro Crime.

This book features an excitingly idiosyncratic new detective Eberhard Mock and the good news is that there are three more books in the series. The book is set around the time of the collapse of Weimar Germany and  the Nazi takeover, the period that has been Philip Kerr territory with his Bernie Gunther series. 

I must say that in my opinion Death in Breslau is right up there with the Kerr series as both crime fiction and as a lesson from history.

Coming up next week I will be posting a very interesting interview with Marek Krajewski.

You can also read my review of A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr here. 

PHILIP KERR: AN INTERVIEW PART ONE

Scottish writer Philip Kerr, creator of Bernie Gunther, the German detective with a wicked sense of humour, recently won the world's most lucrative crime fiction prize, the £109,000 RBA Prize for his latest novel If The Dead Rise Not.

In 2008 this prize was won by another of my favourite authors Andrea Camilleri for La Muerte de Amalia Sacerdote.

Philip very kindly took time off from wondering how to spend his prize money to answer a few questions.

The interview was conducted after I had read the first half of If The Dead Rise Not set in 1934 Berlin, and the emphasis of my questions might have been slightly different if at that stage I had read the second half of the book, which is set in 1954 Cuba. Both halves of the book brilliantly evoke the bleak atmosphere of living in a country where there is a disconnection between justice and the law.

1] Did you always want to be a writer and did any particular author or event inspire you?

I always wanted to be a writer. Ever since the moment when I was able to read fluently on my own. The alternative to becoming a writer- to work for a living-seemed to horrible to contemplate. I am lucky because I get paid for my hobby. Which is the true definition of real happiness.

However, I distrust inspiration. It's an overrated experience. I am more of a compulsive writer than someone who is inspired to write. But I feel a compulsion more whenever I read Dickens or Greene, or le Carre, or -on occasion- Marty.

2] Which books and authors did you read as a child?

Early inspirations were Ian Fleming, Micky Spillane, and D.H. Lawrence. I had an interesting childhood.

3] You studied law at university, went to work in advertising, and became an Arsenal supporter, do you think this has helped you in your writing career?

Not in the slightest. Not the way you mean. But I did manage to write about a third of a novel when I worked in one agency in St. James's Square. That was useful. Also that agency was opposite the London Library and I wouldn't ever have joined the LL had I not walked past it every day.

As for football I was never any good at the game myself. Like Camus I always ended up in goal. Being a goalkeeper gives you time to think. Although not if you're the Arsenal goalkeeper obviously. Our defence has been rather porous of late.

I was a better rugby player, I think.

Most sport I despise however. Especially Athletics. I detest the Olympics above all. It's essentially fascist. Football is truly egalitarian and free and the last bastion of absolute opposition to right thinking. I celebrate the visceral tribalism of football.

I hate lawyers. There are too many lawyers and too many laws. The first thing we have to do if we are ever going to have a truly free and fair society is to take more than half of the lawyers and shoot them down like dogs. Most of the SS Special Action Groups in Eastern Europe were commanded by lawyers and judges. Says all you need to know about these bastards.

[To be continued]

PHILIP KERR: AN INTERVIEW PART TWO

The second part in an interview with prize winning crime writer Philip Kerr.

4] What was the original inspiration for March Violets, the first Bernie Gunther novel? Did you make Bernie a tough guy to appeal to women readers?

The original inspiration was not Raymond Chandler as a lot of people think, but Gorky Park. And I made Bernie a tough guy to appeal to myself. But I'm from a pretty tough part of Edinburgh and I am told I can be quite threatening. The window cleaner is terrified of me. I speak nicely, with received pronunciation but that's just to hide the Easterhouse thug I really am. Underneath my smooth exterior I am really a gangster. I think I would have made a very good gangster, quite frankly. Teddy Bass? Don Logan? I could shit them both.

[I think many people will be surprised that the original inspiration was not Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. I can't recall much about Gorky Park, and wonder if it featured as much black humour and sharp one liners as the Gunther novels?]

5] There is a 16- year gap between the third Gunther novel A German Requiem and number four The One From The Other. Did the rise in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial play a part in your decision to bring Bernie out of retirement?

[I might have rephrased this question if I had read at that time the complete book including the Cuban section of the story which features Meyer Lansky, hardly a character likely to reduce anti-Semitism.]

Not in the slightest. I always intended to bring him back. It's just that in the beginning I didn't want to get into that cookie cutter kind of writing in which you just write the same novel again and again and again. I wanted to write other stuff too. I have always felt that as a writer I wanted to choose my subjects the way Kubrick chose scripts. So I wanted to do Strangelove followed by 2001, followed by Clockwork Orange.

Not all of my books have worked. Some have been abject failures. But at least I tried to do something different. It's lazy not to try.

6] How much research was done before March Violets, and how much extra research is done before each novel? Is the slang used in the Gunther books your own invention or a translation of German police slang?

I did a lot of research for March Violets; about 18 months before I wrote one word. That was just lack of confidence, I think. But I always do as much as I can. It's got easier with the Internet. Books can be more easily sourced these days.

The slang is not my own invention nor is it anything to do with the police. The words are often more literal translations of real German phrases instead of their English equivalents. It's as simple as that, I'm afraid.

Writing a novel is a good excuse to go somewhere interesting. I went to Cuba to research If The Dead Rise Not. Fantastic place. Ruined by communists. I advise people to go soon before people completely ruin what's been so beautifully ruined.

7] Do you think the use of historical figures in the books is important in creating the right atmosphere? Which comes first for you the characters or plot?

Plot comes first for me. The great thing for me has been that whatever story I can create, whatever crime I'm describing, there's an even more horrible crime happening in the background that's called Nazism. Also the real villains can always walk onto my stage and trump any villain I can create, which is always very useful. The whole Nazi thing creates a wonderful echo chamber for my own poor stories. And the truth is always stranger than fiction.

[To be continued]

PHILIP KERR: AN INTERVIEW PART THREE

8] Humour is a powerful weapon used with great effect in the books but you seemed very sad when I heard your interview on NPR [American National Public Radio] about a visit to the 150 year old New Synagogue in Berlin, destroyed on Kristallnacht.

Have you ever got depressed when writing the books or does your liberal use of humour prevent this?

I was sad because I felt so very moved by being there. That synagogue is a very sad place. I almost cried when I was there. And you're right, that is why the humour is there otherwise the books would be too depressing to read.

Also, humour is Bernie's one real act of resistance. My own, too. I have a very black sense of humour. I find things funny that other people don't find funny at all.

9] Your tribute in If The Dead Rise Not to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall is brilliant, but which of today's film stars would you want to play the part of Noreen Charalambides and Bernie Gunther?

Is their a possibility of the books being filmed?

Hmm. I am not sure there is a tribute there. Noreen is based on Lillian Hellman. Who was married to a great crime writer of course. Perhaps the best. That's my tribute. Film rights were sold a while back. But frankly I could not give a toss if a film gets made or not. I almost hope that they're never made into films. Who cares? Watch Murder My Sweet with Dick Powell or Chinatown: there won't ever be two better noir movies than those two.

Crime Scraps explains:

Lillian Hellman was romantically involved for many years with crime writer Dashiell Hammett and was the inspiration for his fictional character Nora Charles. In Hammett's The Thin Man books Nora was married to Nick Charles [who changed his name from his father's original name Charalambides] and in the Philip Kerr book Noreen's husband is naturally called Nick.

This is a crackling scene from the movie The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall.

And from 'If The Dead Rise Not':

She took my hand and brushed them with her lips. 'I like you kissing me. You're are a good kisser. If kissing was in the Olympics, you'd be a medal prospect. But I don't like to be hurried. I like to be walked round the ring for a while before being mounted. And don't even think of using the whip if you want to stay in the saddle. I'm the independent sort, Gunther. When I run it'll be because my eyes are open and because I want to. And I won't be wearing any blinkers if and when we reach the wire. I might not be wearing anything at all.'

10] You pay tribute in the book to Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Kenneth Fearing. Do you have time to read crime fiction and if so which of today's authors do you think will be read in 50 years time?

Sadly I am not at all sure that anyone is going to be read in fifty years time except by a small elite. Who would have thought that Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 might come true for the reason that nobody is going to be interested in buying a book? People want to watch crap on TV- The Thick Factor and Strictly Come Fucking Dumb. The book's days are numbered I fear.

We are moving into an era of great stupidity and ignorance. I don't read much fiction at all, I'm afraid. I usually read some ugly twat's cook book or a biography of Simon Cowell.

[To be continued]

MY DARTMOOR DOZEN PART FIVE

9] HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION:

This was an incredibly difficult category to choose because I have read so many excellent historical crime fiction books. But I finally after much deliberation made the choice of A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr, which I reviewed here for Euro Crime. 

You can read an interview with Philip Kerr and a discussion of the book here.

Bernie Gunther finds himself in Argentina in 1950 posing as an escaped Nazi war criminal. He considers the past: 

I think something happened to Germany after the Great War. You could see it on the streets of Berlin. A callous indifference to human suffering. And, perhaps after all those demented, sometimes cannibalistic killers we had during the Weimar years, we ought to have seen it coming: the murder squads and the death factories.

Do we see today a certain extra brutality in the crimes we see reported in the media? Are we about to enter a period of depression which will destroy the middle class? Will some charismatic leader offer us easy answers to our problems allocating blame on to the "others"?

A Quiet Flame warns us over and over again about the dangers of following philosophies that put ideas above human beings. Towards the end of the book Bernie allocates the blame in a long moving passage that ends:

I blame the inflation and the Bauhaus and Dada and Max Reinhardt. I blame Himmler and Goering and Hitler and the SS and Weimar and the whores and the pimps. 

But most of all I blame myself. I blame myself for doing nothing. Which was less than I ought to have done. Which was all that was required for Nazism to succeed. I put my survival  ahead of all other considerations. That is self evident.

If I was truly innocent, then I'd be dead, Anna.  And I'm not. 

ELLIS PETERS HISTORICAL AWARD: THE WINNER

I have just received the news from blogger crimeficreader, straight from the award ceremony, that Philip Kerr's If The Dead Rise Not has won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical crime fiction award.

For once I got it right click here and scroll down for everything Philip Kerr including reviews and a five part interview.

NEWS FROM BOUCHERON 2010

Thanks to The Rap Sheet for this news from Boucheron 2010 I wish I was there.

Congratulations to a couple of authors who last year kindly agreed to be interviewed on Crime Scraps.

Philip Kerr has won a Barry at Boucheron for Best British Novel with If The Dead Rise Not. You can read my interview here, part one, part two, part three, part four and part five.

And my review of If The Dead Rise Not.

Rebecca Cantrell won the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award for A Trace of Smoke. This is a book I have promoted from the moment I viewed the trailer, and read its dramatic first sentence.

Echoes of my footfalls faded into the damp air of the Hall of the Unnamed Dead as I paused to stare at the framed photograph of a man.

My interview with Rebecca Cantrell part one, part two, part three, and part four, and my review of A Trace of Smoke, and the sequel A Night of Long Knives.

COMING SOON ON CRIME SCRAPS

Posts that are in the pipeline:

I am in the middle of reading the sixth Bernie Gunther novel If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr, and in the next couple of weeks I will be posting a very interesting interview with the author.

Also an anecdote on the influence of Agatha Christie by one of our major crime writers.

Uriah meets a Cartier Diamond Dagger winner by the seaside.

An October Quiz and hopefully another trip to Torquay, where I have an appointment with a poached salmon and cucumber sandwich.

"Besides, as soon as I saw you I knew you were trouble. And it so happens that's just the way I like my women. With big fenders, polished coach work, lots of chrome, and a supercharged engine, like the car Hedda drives. The kind of car where you find yourself in Poland the moment you touch the gas. I'd be on the bus if I was interested in sleeping with librarians."

Bernie Gunther in If The Dead Rise Not

[Thanks to Quercus and Maxine of Petrona for the book]

AN INTERVIEW WITH MAREK KRAJEWSKI

 

I recently reviewed Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski for Euro Crime comparing it favourably with the work of Philip Kerr.

This is the first of four books, the Eberhard Mock Quartet set in the German city Breslau which has since become the Polish city of Wroclaw.

Marek Krajewski is a lecturer in Classical Studies at the university in Wroclaw and his books are a homage to the city he knows so well and its turbulent history. I was lucky through the medium of the internet and a translator to be able to ask Marek a few questions.

1) I really enjoyed Death in Breslau is there a tradition of crime writing in Poland?

I am extremely pleased that you liked my novel. I am bursting with pride that in Great Britain-the homeland of Conan-Doyle and Christie- my debut novel was so well received.

In Poland between the wars there was a very faint tradition of crime writing, then, during the communist period authors were writing under pseudonyms [most often English, eg. Joe Alex=Maciej Slomczynski, a popular translator of Shakespeare] or created ideologically loaded police novels.

The situation changed after 1989, now we have many Polish crime writers, including me.

2) Do you read much crime fiction from the English speaking world and has anyone inspired you?

Fiction from the English speaking world is the real empire of crime novels and thrillers, although Scandinavia slowly becomes a criminal superpower too. I read of course, and have read many authors writing in English. 

I was especially impressed with two, who were my true literary inspiration:

Frederick Forsyth and Raymond Chandler. These are true masters!

 

I also like novels by Elisabeth George. Recently I have taken real delight in reading Val McDermid.

3) What crime fiction novel would you like to have written?

If I understand correctly, you ask whether I envy any author their novels? It is not so much a question of envy, but rather of literary mastery I would like to achieve.

I hope that one day I will write  a novel as good and thrilling as "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler.

4) Eberhard Mock is a detective for his time and place; did you base his character on a real life person or is he drawn purely from your imagination?

It is an entirely fictional character although his name is authentic. I found it in a prewar address book and really liked it, because it creates interesting stress patterns.

[To be continued]

REBECCA CANTRELL INTERVIEWED:"FASCINATING TIME TO SET A NOVEL"

4] Do you have a favourite book or books that you would like to have written?

I don't have a favourite book. For me that's like having a favourite dessert. I like whatever I am eating or reading this minute most of all. Lately I've been reading about the golem, so I'm enjoying The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon and The Golem by Elie Wiesel (and the children's The Golem by David Wisnieski, with vivid paper-cut illustrations).

On a non-golem note, I recently finished Restless  by William Boyd and loved it too. It's a mother-daughter spy thriller set in the 1930s and the 1960s.

5] How did you become fluent in German and what inspired you to write about a woman crime reporter in Germany during and after the Nazi takeover?

I was an exchange student in Berlin in the mid-1980s (now those of you who can do math know how old I am). I was there for two years of high school and a year of college. I've kept it up by speaking a bit and reading a good deal more in German, especially once I started researching A Trace of Smoke.

The story started with Ernst Vogel, the murder victim. At first Hannah was male policeman, but after 50 pages the character felt too distant from Ernst. Once I had read about the death photos in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead in Joseph Roth's What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933, I knew the investigator would be someone who saw his photo there and the first person by was a crime reporter, and his sister, Hannah Vogel. Hannah would not let her brother's death go unsolved, so I was able to tell the story from her perspective as a sarcastic, insightful woman, an unlikely sleuth and reporter determined to save  a German boy [Anton] and a German people.

It turned out to be quite a fortunate decision, as I've since read many wonderful novels set in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s with male policemen as sleuths, from Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series to Jonathan Rabb's Nikolai Hoffner, and Jeffrey Deaver's standalone Garden of Beasts.

As for the time period, the late 1920s and early 1930s in Berlin was a time of intellectual and social freedom mixed with grinding poverty and violent protests. Berlin was a center for modern art, cinema, writing, and music. And yet within a few years it would all be gone: the artists fled, in camps, or in hiding. 

Just like that an incredibly vibrant part of a modern European city vanished to be replaced by the horror of the Nazis. 

How could such a transition NOT be a fascinating time to set a novel?

6] For SMOKE you obviously did a lot of meticulous research, did you do all this during the writing process or before you started the book?

I started researching the era back in high school when I walked into a building at the Dachau Concentration Camp and saw a fading pink triangle tacked on the wall. I wanted to know more about the people who had worn them. I researched the topic more when I wrote my college history thesis.

That gave me some historical background, but for A Trace of Smoke I still needed to do a great deal more research. I read many diaries from the era, such as those of Count Henry Kessler, Bella Fromm, Viktor Klemperer, William Shirer and Ernst Rohm himself. Plus various scholarly tomes and a bound collection of Berlin Illustrierte Zeitung newspapers from 1931.

I was very fortunate in that Berlin was a center of filmmaking in 1931, so I could watch films shot on the very streets that Hannah walked, including M,  Blue Angel, Berlin: Symphony of a City, Emil and the Detectives, and The Testament of Dr Mabuse.

And my most important research was walking around Berlin in the 1980s, smelling the city, tripping on the cobblestones, and watching the brown coal smoke settle on the snow.

Rebecca's website can be viewed here.

[to be continued with more from this interview soon]