Book
March Violets
Berlin, 1936. Former policeman Bernie Gunther works as a private detective in a city where Nazi power has transformed both ordinary crime and the institutions meant to investigate it. A wealthy industrialist hires him after the murder of his daughter and son-in-law, apparently during a burglary in which a valuable necklace disappeared.
The search leads Bernie into the corrupt overlap between business, the police, the Nazi Party and the security services. His dislike of the regime offers little protection when senior figures can redirect an investigation or make a suspect disappear. The novel uses the conventions of hard-boiled detective fiction to explore a society in which solving a murder may be less dangerous than discovering who is allowed to commit one.
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