The Lady from Zagreb

By: Philip Kerr

Narrated by: John Lee

In this Edgar® Award-nominated novel in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling series, former detective and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther is on the hunt for a beautiful femme fatale...

Berlin, 1942. Three players take the stage. The first, a gorgeous actress—the rising star of a giant German film company controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. The second, the very clever, very dangerous Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels—a close confidant of Hitler, ambitious schemer, and flagrant libertine. Finally, there's Bernie Gunther—a former Berlin homicide bull now forced to run errands at the Propaganda Minister’s command.

When Goebbels tasks Bernie with finding the woman the press have dubbed “the German Garbo,” his errand takes him from Zurich to Zagreb to the killing fields of Croatia. It is there that Bernie finds himself in a world of mindless brutality where everyone has a hidden agenda—perfect territory for a true cynic whose instinct is to trust no one.

Critic reviews

Praise for Philip Kerr

“Kerr is the only bona fide heir to Raymond Chandler.” —Jonathan Ames, Salon

“Bernie isn’t one of those detectives who gets to solve crimes and put things right. Instead, he just tries to behave decently in a world where the serial killers run the governments and history itself may be the biggest crime of all.” —John Powers, NPR’s “Fresh Air”

“On any continent, in any decade, no one does melancholy better than Bernie Gunther, and melancholy, after all, is the hard-boiled mystery fan’s emotion of choice.” —Booklist

John Lee is back!

So glad John Lee is back as the narrator in this series. Classic Philip Kerr/Bernie Gunther at its best.

Pleased to see Bernie Gunther back.....

Returns to a familiar time WW2 jaded, cynical detective is one of my fave characters. Was kind of lost with some of Philip Kerr's recent offerings, recommend the whole series for Noir fans.

Love this series

Another great Bernie Gunther novel, this one involving Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry and a famous movie actress. I love these German noir novels.

Not one of the best

While John Lee does his usual excellent narration, I have come to be a Paul Hecht aficionado. I think Hecht captures Bernie's cynicism much more effectively. The narrative has too many side trips that really don't propel the story.

Good to be back in Berlin with Bernie.

Any additional comments?

When you've lived life through with this great Nazi hating dick for a while - this is the 10th Bernie Gunther novel by Kerr - you begin to really enjoy his breath and pace, like the last drag of a smoke on the firing line, Bernie might say. He loves similes. This book is more of a love story than a detective novel, and really it's more of a rumination on the Faustian nature of bargaining and re-bargaining your way through Hitler's Struggle. Survival with a grain of dignity preserved, if even only preserved in high octane grain alcohol or with the fine leading grain of a few well placed bullets. Keeps a man feeling like a man. But nothing will make a man of you more than falling for and - of course - losing that lovely Lady From Zagreb.