Bernie Gunther Books in Order: How to read Philip Kerr’s Series?

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks!

A Series of historical noir detective thrillers written by Scottish author Philip Kerr (RIP), the Bernie Gunther series takes place before, during, and after World War II. Bernhard “Bernie” Günther is an ex-Berlin cop turned private investigator, a kind of Philip Marlowe in Nazi Germany. He is an honest cop trying to do his work in a corrupt world going crazy.

However, his talent as an investigator interests the Nazis, who force him to work for the regime, which leads him to approach such dangerous individuals as Heydrich or Goebbels and to wear the uniform of the SS. This forced membership in a state apparatus that he hated brought him many setbacks after the Second World War.

How to read the Bernie Gunther Series in Order?

The original Berlin trilogy was published between 1989 and 1991. Philip Kerr came back to Bernie Gunther in 2006. The novels in the Bernie Gunther book series were not published in chronological order, more about that at the end.

Reading the Bernie Gunther Series in publication order

a. The Berlin Noir trilogy

  1. March Violets – Private investigator Bernie Gunther specializes in missing persons, and as the Third Reich’s power has grown, Bernie has become a very busy man. But as he takes on cases involving millionaire industrialists, stolen diamonds, and Hitler’s most powerful cronies, Bernie finds himself mired in the brutality and corruption of a country on the brink of war.
  2. The Pale Criminal – In the sweltering summer heat wave of 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering whether Hitler will plunge Europe into another war. Meanwhile, private investigator Bernie Gunther has taken on two cases involving blackmail. The first victim is a rich widow. The second is Bernie himself.
  3. A German Requiem – Vienna, 1947. Bernie Gunther had his first brush with evil as a policeman in 1930s Berlin and came to know it intimately as a private eye under the Nazis, when each case drew him deeper into the enormities of the regime. Now the war is over and Bernie is in Vienna, trying to clear an old friend and ex-Kripo colleague of the murder of an American officer.

b. Later Bernie Gunther novels

  1. The One From the Other – Berlin, 1949. Amid the chaos of defeat, Germany is a place of dirty deals, rampant greed, and fleeing Nazis. For Bernie Gunther, Berlin has become far too dangerous. After being forced to serve in the SS in the killing fields of Ukraine, Bernie has moved to Munich to reestablish himself as a private investigator.
  2. A Quiet Flame – Buenos Aires, 1950. After being falsely accused of war crimes, Bernie Gunther-like the Nazis he has always despised-has been offered a new life and a clean passport by the Perón government. But the ex-Berlin detective doesn’t have the luxury of laying low. The local police pressure Bernie into taking on a case in which a girl has turned up gruesomely mutilated.
  3. If The Dead Rise Not – Berlin, 1934. Former policeman Bernie Gunther, now a hotel detective, finds himself caught between warring factions of the Nazi apparatus as Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, connive to soft-pedal Nazi anti-Semitism before the 1936 Olympiad…
  1. Field Gray – During his eleven years working homicide in Berlin’s Kripo, Bernie Gunther learned a thing or two about evil. Then he set himself up as a private detective-until 1940 when Heydrich dragooned him into the SS’s field gray uniform and the bloodbath that was the Eastern Front.
  2. Prague Fatale – Berlin, 1941. Bernie Gunther is back from the Eastern Front, once again working homicide in Berlin’s Kripo and answering to Reinhard Heydrich, a man he both detests and fears. Tipped off that there is an assassin in his midst, Heydrich orders Bernie to join him at his country estate outside Prague, where he has invited some of the Third Reich’s most odious officials to celebrate his new appointment. One of them is the would-be assassin.
  3. A Man Without Breath – Berlin, 1943. A month has passed since Stalingrad. Though Hitler insists Germany is winning the war, morale is low and commanders on the ground know better. Then Berlin learns of a Red massacre of Polish troops near Smolensk, Russia. In a rare instance of agreement, both the Wehrmacht and Propaganda Minister Goebbels want irrefutable evidence of this Russian atrocity. And so Bernie Gunther is dispatched.
  1. The Lady From Zagreb – Summer 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favor to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke. One year later, a superior gives him another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the rising star of German cinema. Bernie accepts the job. Not that he has many choices – the superior is Goebbels himself.
  2. The Other Side of Silence – Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, 1956. Having gone into hiding in the French Riviera, Bernie Gunther is working as a concierge at the Grand-Hôtel under a false name. His days and nights consist of maneuvering drunks to their rooms, shooing away prostitutes in search of trade, and answering the mindless questions posed by the absurdly rich guests. Now, the man who was once a homicide detective and unwilling SS officer in Hitler’s Third Reich is simply the person you turn to for touring tips or if you need a bridge partner.
  3. Prussian Blue – The French Riviera, 1956: Bernie Gunther’s old and dangerous adversary Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, has turned up in Nice–and he’s not on holiday. Mielke is calling in a debt and wants Bernie to travel to London to poison a female agent they’ve both had dealings with. But Bernie isn’t keen on assassinating anyone.
  1. Greeks Bearing Gifts – Munich, 1956. Bernie Gunther has a new name, a chip on his shoulder, and a dead-end career when an old friend arrives to repay a debt and encourages “Christoph Ganz” to take a job as a claims adjuster in Athens, Greece. Under the cover of his new identity, Bernie begins to investigate a claim by Siegfried Witzel, a brutish former Wehrmacht soldier who served in Greece during the war.
  2. Metropolis – A portrait of Bernie Gunther in his twenties: He’s young, but he’s seen four bloody years of trench warfare. And he’s not stupid. So when he receives a promotion and a ticket out of Vice squad, he knows he’s not really leaving behind the criminal gangs, the perverse sex clubs, and the laundry list of human corruption. It’s 1928 and Berlin is a city on the edge of chaos, where nothing is truly verboten.

II. Reading the Bernie Gunther Series in chronological order

Each book in the Bernie Gunther series can be read as a standalone, but the story of the characters is developed a little more each time. Therefore, it may be better for some readers to read the series in chronological order.

Some of those books offer stories in the past, but there are framing scenes in the 1950s. The chronological order is about the main stories, not about those scenes.

  1. Metropolis, set in 1928.
  2. If The Dead Rise Not, set in 1934.
  3. March Violets, set in 1936.
  4. The Pale Criminal, set in 1938.
  5. Prussian Blue, set in 1939.
  6. Prague Fatale, set in 1941.
  7. A Man Without Breath, set in 1943.
  8. The Lady From Zagreb, set in 1943-4.
  9. A German Requiem, set in 1947–48.
  10. The One From the Other, set in 1949.
  11. A Quiet Flame, set in 1950.
  12. Field Gray, set in 1954.
  13. The Other Side of Silence, set in 1956.
  14. Greeks Bearing Gifts, set in 1957.

If our article about the Bernie Gunther reading order is useful to you, don’t forget to bookmark it to come back later to find out what’s the next book to read! Also, you may want to check out Alan Furst’ Books, the St. Cyr and Kohler series, or the Stefan Gillespie books.

NDR: the main illustration is coming from the French comic adaptation of the Berlin trilogy by Pierre Boisserie (writer) and François Warzala (artist).

Similar Posts

31 Comments

  1. Yeah very strange, finished March violets and Pale criminal, move on to book 3 A german requiem only to find the war over and he is married. Really strange that the first book to read in order was the last published.

  2. Thank you, very helpful. I can now read the whole Bernie Gunther series again but this time in chronological order. Of all the books I have read, Bernie is without doubt the best character I have come across.

  3. Reading all the books again and this time in the years order. Superb reading, suspect that I may return to these again.

  4. I notice that some of the synopses mention dates that don’t quite match the book ordering at the end. For example, “Field Gray” appears to start in 1940, then moves onto the cold war era. I guess the 1940 scenes are minor?

    1. It bounces around. The core of the book is 1954 and his (unwilling) role in several investigations that relate back to pre-War Berlin, the War years, and his post-War internment.

      It’s a mark of just how well it’s all put together that all the flitting about is never disorientating. It’s stunning.

  5. By chance I came across the latest book “Metropolis” from the „Bernie Gunter series.
    Besides knowing Berlin to a certain degree for some time, I do like the way the story is told, including the culture scene, during the final years of the “Weimar republic”.
    For me, the creating of the atmosphere, reflecting the time is more important than any detail is in perfect order.
    I am getting ready to get the next book in line.

  6. A helpful list and I used it to listen to all of the books on Audible over two months. However, if you want to read/listen to them in chronological order you should probably listen to “Prussian Blue” after “The Other Side of Silence”. In my opinion it’s more important to get the “present day “ in the correct order, rather than the flash backs.
    A hugely enjoyable series, especially with Jeff Harding as narrator. Gunther’s “Chandleresque” voice grates at first, but suits the character and the other characterisations are excellent and make following things at lot easier. Paul Hecht is a more European Gunter, but the other characters are less distinct.

  7. I noticed that neither the review or any of the reviewers who posted a comment about reading the books in date order or published order did not really give an opinion on which makes more sense oe is more enjoyable. Like one of the reviewers I read Berlin Noir and when I got to the third novel German requiem, I found the war was over and Bernie was married ! so I was confused as to whether I had missed reading an earlier book that explained his marriage and any other detail necessary for later books.

    Does anybody have an opinion on which way to read the books/

  8. This is my second time though the series. Ilove this Bernie character and the stories created by Kerr. I will continue to reread them until I am dead. And, by the way, Kerr died several years ago so there will be no Bernie novels ever to be written again. Enjoy them and read them however you like.

  9. I would still like someone who has read the series to clarify if it is best to read the books in the order that they were published or in chronological order?The reason that I ask is that I decided to read them in chronological order only to find that when I reached/read ‘The Pale Criminal’ , I encountered ‘spoilers’ for the following reason: Although the first half of the book is set in 1938, half way through the setting moved forward twenty years to the late 50s.The problem being that when Bernie reflected on events of his life in the intervening years i.e post 1938 he ‘revealed’ spoilers’ from novels set after 1938 e.g that he served on the Eastern Front in WW2. So, ‘Publication Order’ or ‘Chronological Order’?Thanks in anticipation.

    1. It is probably a bit late to respond to the question by Isidore Duncan but it is an important question. Firstly let me say that as a fan of crime noir series’ be they Scot/Brit and European/Nordic, my personal best is Kerr’s Bernie Gunther. My admiration for Kerr is boundless. He was a supreme craftsman. Some way into reading his books I started googling the characters. Many are self-evident, obviously (Hitler, Goebels, Goering, Eichmann, etc) but many others within his narratives are people from real life (Weiss, Nebe, Gennat, Adler, many others) thus installing a compelling component of “faction”into the series. Kerr’s research is amazing! And Gunther’s dark, irreverent humour often made me laugh out loud while alone with my Kindle. I was reminded of Philip Marlow but Bernie is far better. Kerr is supreme.
      Now to order!! Having visited Berlin in the past, unfortunately after the Wall went down (my wife worked there in the 70s travelling to both East and West and told me many stories) I am in love with the city and came to Kerr’s books via Kindle. I started in order of publication with Berlin Noir series’ 1 and 2. I The order disturbed me until I came across Fabien’s site (thank you very much) and all became clear!
      Reading Bernie Gunther MUST be read in strict chronological order. After visiting this site I immediately purchased and read Kerr’s last, Metropolis, which is chronologically his first (Gunther in 1928). Another great read. Furthermore it has a very insightful introduction by Ian Rankin, possibly the best of the Scottish Noir exponents (and it features a character in the book named Rankin, whether deliberate or I don’t know as Kerr had already died).
      I will carry on chronologically to the end and would urge others who may be beginning their interest in Bernie Gunther to do likewise. They will be eminently satisfied.
      I am so sorry that Philip Kerr died at the comparatively young age of 62 but I, once finished, will read the entire series again in a few years. And my thanks again to the author of this site.

    2. That is a very helpful comment and I, like so many others, consider Gunther the greatest series character ever created. Reading this series actually led me to read Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I am nearly done with my first go through in the order written, but I have no doubt I will eventually come back to Bernie but next time chronologically based on your advice.

  10. Excellent writing, takes me back to Berlin where I lived in 1947.
    But, I have just finished “Metropolis” and early in the book it refers to a left-hand drive car, change gear with the right hand. Logical, but the story implies that it is unusual, which it wouldn’t be fo for Europe. Am I missing something?

  11. This is a great resource.
    There’s so many books, I found myself losing track which I’d read. As I’ve read more of them, I’m increasingly impressed by the writing, the dialogue, the humor, the pathos, the brilliance of the historical aspects, and Kerr’s unique rewrite of the genre. He’s up there the greats.

    I don’t think it matters what order you read them in. They jump back and forth in time as it is, and Kerr wrote the first (chronologically) last.

    The above comment that Bernie, the character, reveals a “spoiler” of his life reminds me of Borges

  12. I think I have read them all now with HUGE pleasure, and still cannot make up my mind about the best order in which to read them. Perhaps if a Gunther expert like Fabien could outline a timeline/ biography of Bernie listing his places of work, aliases, wives (and lovers) it would assist. It would make Bernie seem even more real. His cynical reading of super-powers and their capacity for war crimes remains hugely topical today .

  13. Hi
    Second time through I am trying chronologically as I just bought metropolis.
    If the dead rise not is a ‘tricky’ next read. The last third is 50s Cuba with references to the Argentinian time and some wartime experiences and events; and leaves Bernie in a tight jam – and it will be a while to catch up to then! But the spoilers are more like hints as to what will happen – and we know Bernie didn’t die!
    (Do you read the stories as narrated in the time or a memoir by old Bernie?

    1. , update on my progress. Up to German requiem and am enjoying the sequence. Some strangeness (eg man without breath happens in the middle of Zagreb, and Prussian Blue has quite a bit of ‘contemporary’ action and some spoilers for OSS) but manageable.

      Also an interesting Site is
      https://berniegunther.com/forum/index.php?p=/categories/general
      Which has some useful timelines to remind you as you work through the novels.

  14. A truly great character formulated by a truly great author.
    The novels are totally engrossing, with superb scene setting.
    So fortunate to have found them during studying the German experiences of the 20th century.
    I highly recommend Philip Kerr to everyone.

  15. I absolutely love these books and enjoy reading them. I’m hoping that they will be made into a TV series soon. I liked Babylon Berlin but can imaging that the Gunther series has even more potential.
    There were rumors in the past that it might happen but I didn’t hear anything recently.
    Does someone has any news?

  16. Great help. A word to future readers: You might want to NOT read Section 2 of ‘If the Dead Rise Not,’ which is set in 1954 and has quite a few spoilers and half-spoilers from the other books in the series.

    1. Thanks Patrick, I started with Metropolis and am reading ‘Dead’ now. Will the 1954 part spoil March Violets, Pale Criminal, Prussian Blue and Prague Fatale? Very helpful post – I hate spoilers!!

    2. Another Patrick here! I definitely wished I had skipped the 1954 part, set in Cuba, which does indeed have lots of spoilers and semi-spoilers. I would also say the same about Part 1 of “Prussian Blue, which is listed as “set in 1939” but actually starts in October 1956 and runs in that era for 25 chapters, with tons of overt spoilers, before moving to 1939.

      I’m going to try to put together a list in which books with sections set in different times are split into separate entities by chrono.

    3. Hi

      In you opinion what’s the best way to read these books? I’ve only read Metropolis so far and am wondering whether to read these chronologically or when they were written by the author.
      Thanks!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *