Book
Greeks Bearing Gifts
Munich, 1957. Bernie Gunther has moved into yet another post-war career, this time working for an insurance company that values the same ability to detect lies he once used as a policeman. He is sent to Athens to investigate a German claimant whose boat has sunk under suspicious circumstances.
Bernie discovers that the vessel once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz and begins to suspect that the sinking is connected to wartime theft and revenge rather than an ordinary insurance fraud. The enquiry leads back to the destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community and to Germans who have tried to bury their role in those crimes. As West Germany is being welcomed back into European political life, Bernie encounters people for whom the past is neither settled nor forgivable.
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