FIELD GRAY - Philip Kerr

This is the seventh "Bernie Gunther" novel.   Again, like "If the Dead Rise Not " most of it is told in back story spanning the years 1954 back to 1931 with the rise of the Nazi's.

It starts with Bernie being captured off the coast of Cuba by the CIA and ends with him back in Europe.

The main gist of the novel is Bernie's inter action with a German communist Erich Mielke, a real person, who was head of the East German Security System from 1957 until 1989.  Meilke was one of the most hated men that the East German communist regime threw up.

There is no mystery here just a history of the 25 years the novel encompasses.   Its a great read with the interweaving of fact with fiction fascinating but if you are expecting a straight line plot you will be disappointed.

One thing that stuck out for me was how complicit the French were in loading the trains for the death camps, they were great supporters and as Bernie points out in the book then stuck their hand up to be one of the occupying powers.

We have Bernie double crossing, being double crossed and then I suppose a triple cross at the end bringing the story to a close.  Again lots of violence as these novels have always dished up.

I loved it, Kerr can write and he has got better and better and is now a "real" novelist, not just a "crime" novelist , to me he is literary and is still extremely readable, two thumbs up.  (Published 2011)

CHARLOTTE GRAY - Sebastian Faulks

In 1942 Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman is parachuted in France to assist another intelligence agent who struggles with the language. She then stays on to look for her lover, a RAF pilot who is missing in action.

The books concentrates on the occupants of the village where she bases herself, Lavaurette. There is very little in regards direct wartime action but rather its all about the personalities of these people as circumstances change, some for the better some for the worst.

It is a harrowing read in places due to the fact that the weakness's and ignorance of people lead directly to the deaths of some of their fellow villagers. As the book says 'evil is easy'.

Reading this I didn't realise how keen the French were on bundling their Jewish neighbours off to the concentration camps, sadly they were very keen indeed.

This story has a basis in fact and I  believe  people should never be allowed to forget the monstrosity that was Nazism , that is why quality writing like this on the subject is needed.

Not a relaxing read but worth the effort. (Published 1998)

MOTHER NIGHT - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Simply brilliant.

Howard W. Campbell writes this story from an Israeli prison where he is about to be tried for war crimes,- being a collaborator broadcasting propaganda from Berlin during the Second World War. From the beginning Campbell admits that he is guilty of what he is being charged with.

The book is full of Vonnegut humour and killer satire and it has a moral:

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

This is more accessible than Slaughterhouse 5 I feel and I would suggest that if you haven't read "5" yet, you read this and then move on to "5".

What this book really made me do was wonder,would Vonnegut have been able to write these wonderful books if he hadn't been through the physical and mental hell that he endured in Dresden.