March Violets, by Philip Kerr

I was on some kind of a kick when I picked up Berlin Noir, though I don't remember now what it was. Had I decided I wanted to read more detective stories? Or was it connected to my interest in interwar Europe? The latter sounds more convincing to me, though for that I tend to go for primary source material, so maybe it was the former. In any case, at some point a few years ago I got this copy of Berlin Noir -- a collection of the first three Bernhard Gunther novels -- and then I shelved it and forgot about it. I remembered it because I am heading to Berlin for the first time at the end of this week. I could have read any number of books in my possession ahead of my trip (more Jenny Erpenbeck, for instance; Nabokov's writing about Berlin; or Joseph Roth's Hotel Years would be a good option), but I decided on this. I figured I could at least get through the first novel before I left, which I did. Having done so, I don't think I'm likely to read the others. It's not that March Violets was bad; it's just not really my thing. 

Bernhard Gunther, the narrator of March Voilets is so much the stereotype hard-boiled private detective that it comes up even in the book when he's brought in by a Gestapo agent who's a fan of American detective fiction. Gunther's tastes - cigarettes, alcohol, curvy women - are exactly what you expect if you've watched any film noir from the postwar era. At times it felt like parody to the point where it was almost distracting. With the central character (and frankly, many of the surrounding characters as well) so much a type, what becomes the distinguishing feature of March Violets is the setting. It essentially plays out the idea, what if you take a classic American noir detective story and drop it in 1936 Berlin. Add in the warring government forces to the usual list of suspects and this is where you end up. Of course the denouement of the story takes place in Dachau. 

I don't read detective stories often, but I do usually enjoy them when I do. And I did enjoy March Violets to a point. It was a bit too violent for my tastes (and not because of the Nazis surprisingly enough). I also found it ultimately unsatisfying, because of a major storyline that was left unresolved. I did wonder if I needed to read the subsequent book(s) to get the resolution I wanted, but I'm not sure it's worth my time.