Philip Kerr Books in Order (Bernie Gunther, Metropolis, Hitler’s Peace)

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Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1956, Philip Ballantyne Kerr began his literary career when he was just twelve years old, as a self-published writer: Bernie was writing pornographic stories and sold them to classmates. He studied at the University of Birmingham and worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming a full-time writer.

Kerr is best known for his Bernie Gunther series, historical thrillers set in Germany during the 1930s, the Second World War and the Cold War. He also wrote several children’s books under the pen name P.B. Kerr, including the Children of the Lamp series. He was married to fellow novelist Jane Thynne, and had three children, before his death from cancer on 23 March 2018. He was 62.

How to read Philip Kerr’s Series in Order?

The Bernie Gunther Series

Philip Kerr is the author of the Bernie Gunther series, which includes several historical crime books. The series covers the turbulent years of German history from the 1930s to the 1950s and is mostly set in Berlin throughout a number of decades.

Bernie Gunther, the show’s titular lead character, is a police detective who eventually becomes a private investigator. Being caught up in the political turmoil and criminal underworld of Nazi Germany, Bernie is a complex and morally confused figure.

For more details, go to the Bernie Gunther reading order.

1. March Violets (1989)
2. The Pale Criminal (1990)
3. A German Requiem (1991)
4. The One From the Other (2006)
5. A Quiet Flame (2008)
6. If The Dead Rise Not (2009)
7. Field Gray (2010)
8. Prague Fatale (2011)
9. A Man Without Breath (2013)
10. The Lady From Zagreb (2015)
11. The Other Side of Silence (2016)
12. Prussian Blue (2017)
13. Greeks Bearing Gifts (2018)
14. Metropolis (2019)

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Reading The Scott Manson Series in Order

1. January Window (2014) – Everyone knows football is a matter of life and death. But this time, it’s murder. Scott Manson is team coach for London City football club. He’s also their all-round fixer – he gets the lads into training, and out of trouble, keeps the wags at bay and the press in his pocket. But now London City manager Joao Zarco is dead, killed at his team’s beloved stadium at Silvertown Docks. Even Scott Manson can’t smooth over murder… but can he catch the killer before he strikes again?
2. Hand of God (2015) – Scott Manson and London City are in Athens, battling for the UEFA Champion’s League title. The situation in Athens is tense, and some of city’s players are so unpopular in Greece they’ve been assigned bodyguards. Karaiskakis Stadium is packed to the rafters when tragedy strikes: Christoph Bundchen collapses and dies mid-match. Is it a heart attack? Or something more sinister?
3. False Nine (2015) – Football manager Scott Manson needs a new job, but finding one in the star-studded world of international football isn’t easy. A new position in Shanghai turns out to be part of an elaborate sting operation – and in Barcelona, he’s not hired as a football manager but as a detective. Barca’s star player is missing, and Scott has a month to track him down. As Scott follows the trail from Paris to Antigua, he encounters the rotten heart of the beautiful game…

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Reading the Stand-alone novels by Philip Kerr

1. A Philosophical Investigation (1992) – Detective Isadora ‘Jake’ Jacowicz is hunting a murderer, code-named ‘Wittgenstein,’ who has taken it upon himself to eliminate anyone who has tested positive for a tendency towards violent behaviour – even if they’ve never committed a crime. His intellectual brilliance is matched only by his homicidal madness.
2. Dead Meat (1993) – In comtemporary Russia the old ghosts have been laid to rest, but the stench of corruption is just as strong as ever. Now a top-level Moscow investigator, dispatched to St. Petersburg, is about to discover just how deep the decadence runs–in both the corridors of power and the labyrinth of the human heart. The man from Moscow has been teamed up with Grushko, a palm-reading local detective with Elvis Presley hair. Together they embark on a investigation into the brutal murder of a famous and controversial journalist.
3. Gridiron/The Grid (1995) – Ray Richardson, a brilliant architechnologist, has created “The Gridiron” in the heart of LA. Every aspect of the building is controlled by an intricate computer system, but after two bizarre deaths, on the eve of the official opening, the computer reveals itself as set to destroy its creators.

4. Esau (1996) – In an ice cave high on a forbidden Himalayan mountaintop, renegade climber Jack Furness unearths a perfectly preserved skull, a fossil that may be the missing link and the scientific discovery of the century. To Berkeley paleoanthropologist Stella Swift, the miraculous find warrants an immediate expedition up the mountain’s treacherous Fish Tail Peak. But with neighboring Pakistan and India on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, the Pentagon and the GA have their own designs on the remote site. Now, they’re all about to enter a domain where one of nature’s fiercest creations has thrived for millions of years — and modern man was never meant to be.
5. A Five Year Plan (1997) – The hard-hitting tale of an ex-con bent on redirecting a cool million-and-a-half dollars from the mob to his own pockets.
6. The Second Angel (1998) – It is 2069 and mankind is on the brink of extinction thanks to a virus that will wipe out four fifths of the population within ten years. In a world where blood is more valuable than gold, a man, whose daughter needs regular blood transfusions, must do all he can to get at the supplies.

7. The Shot (1999) – America, 1960. In Washington, DC, John F Kennedy has just been elected President. In Havana, Fidel Castro has been in office for a year, and with Cold War tensions rapidly heating up and the Soviets leading the space race, the thought of a Communist leader so close to home is already raising American blood pressure. Anti-communist fever is rampant in the USA, with a paranoid establishment seeing reds under every bed. Nevertheless, the decision to snuff out the threat of Castro by hiring Tom Jefferson, America’s best assassin, to kill him comes from an unusual quarter: the Mafia. But Jefferson’s very skillset that makes him the perfect man for this job also ensures he has no qualms in double crossing his criminal paymasters. Jefferson has no issue with Castro: his preferred target is someone much closer to home…
8. Dark Matter (2002) – In 1696, Christopher Ellis, a young, hot-tempered gentleman, is sent to the Tower of London, but not as a prisoner. A sudden twist of fate has led him there to assist the renowned scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who as Warden of the Royal Mint has accepted an appointment to hunt down counterfeiters who threaten to topple the shaky, war-weakened economy. Armed with Newton’s superior intellect and Ellis’s skill with a sword, the new partners seem primed to solve the case. But when their investigation leads them to a mysterious coded message on a corpse hidden in the Lion Tower, they realize that something more sinister is afoot. In the heat of their pursuit, Newton and Ellis’s suspicions become all too real as the body count rises and the duo uncovers a menacing far-reaching plot that might lead to the collapse of the government-and cost them their very lives.
9. Hitler’s Peace (2005) – Autumn 1943. Hitler knows he cannot win the war: now he must find a way to make peace. FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate; only Churchill refuses to listen. The upcoming Allied Tehran conference will be where the next steps – whatever they are – will be decided. Into this nest of double- and triple-dealing steps Willard Mayer, OSS agent and FDR’s envoy to the conference. His job is to secure the peace that the USA and Hitler now crave. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

10. Prayer (2013) – Gil Martins investigates domestic terrorism for the FBI. He is a religious man but he’s coming close to losing his faith due to the nature of his job. Gil starts to investigate a series of unexplained deaths, and as the evidence mounts, it becomes apparent that they have been killed through prayer. His newfound atheism is severely challenged, and he finds his own life is next on the line.
11. The Winter Horses (2014) – It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine. But it’s 1941, and things are different this year. Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets-for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park. Kalinka has lost her home, her family, her belongings-everything but her life. Still, she has gained one small, precious gift: a relationship with the rare wild and wily Przewalski’s horses that wander the preserve. Aside from Max, these endangered animals are her only friends-until a Nazi campaign of extermination nearly wipes them out for good. Now Kalinka must set out on a treacherous journey across the frozen forest to save the only two surviving horses-and herself.
12. Research (2014) – If you want to write a murder mystery, you have to do some research… or pay someone else to do it for you. In a luxury flat in Monaco, John Houston’s supermodel wife lies in bed, a bullet in her skull. Houston is the world’s most successful thriller writer, the playboy head of a literary empire that produces far more books than he could ever actually write. Now the man who has invented hundreds of bestselling killings is wanted for a real murder and on the run from the police, his life transformed into something out of one of his books. And in London, the ghostwriter who is really behind those books has some questions for him too…
13. 1984.4 (2021) – As of 2021, published only in German and Turkish translations

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Non-fiction by Philip Kerr

1. The Penguin Book of Lies (1991) – Selections from authors from ancient times to the twentieth century discuss noteworthy lies and liars from history and the nature of lying as different periods have viewed it
2. The Penguin Book of Fights, Feuds and Heartfelt Hatreds: An Anthology of Antipathy (1992) – In this anthology, Philip Kerr takes the reader on a tour of some of the famous and infamous fights, feuds and heartfelt hatreds which have peppered history from the time of Caesar to the present.

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Children’s fiction by Philip Kerr (as P. B. Kerr)

Children of the Lamp

1. The Akhenaten Adventure (2004) – Meet John and Philippa Gaunt, twelve-year-old twins who one day discover themselves to be descended from a long line of djinn. All of a sudden, they have the power to grant wishes, travel to extraordinary places, and make people and objects disappear. Luckily, the twins are introduced to their eccentric djinn-uncle Nimrod, who will teach them how to harness their newly found power. And not a moment too soon . . . since John and Philippa are about to embark on a search to locate a monstrous pharaoh named Akhenaten and his eerie tomb.
2. The Blue Djinn of Babylon (2005) – John and Philippa Gaunt, twelve-year-old twins who have recently discovered themselves to be descended from a long line of djinn and in possession of magical powers, continue on their extraordinary adventures in this sequel to THE AKHENATEN ADVENTURE. When a powerful book of djinn magic goes missing, John and Philippa are called upon to retrieve it. Only, the book isn’t really missing. The trap was set and Philippa is abducted by the Blue Djinn. In this latest installment of the twins’ magical adventures, John and his uncle Nimrod must find Philippa before it’s too late.
3. The Cobra King of Kathmandu (2006) – John and Philippa Gaunt are on the trail of another magical mystery. As they travel from New York to London to Nepal and India on a whirlwind adventure, the twins try to help their friend and fellow djinn, Buck, find out who murdered his friend using the venomous snakebite of the king cobra. All too soon, John and Philippa find themselves caught up in the lethal world of the Cult of the Nine Cobras, only to discover that they themselves are a target of the creepy cobra cult.

4. The Day of the Djinn Warriors (2007) – Djinn twins John and Philippa are off on another whirlwind adventure that takes them around the globe and into unknown worlds. And it’s a race against time as they attempt to rescue their mother from her fate as the Blue Djinn of Babylon. An aging curse has been placed on their father, and if the twins are gone too long, he’ll rapidly become an old man. Meanwhile, museums all over the world are reporting robberies of valuable jade from their collections, as well as bizarre hauntings.
5. The Eye of the Forest (2009) – When a collection of Incan artifacts goes missing, the Blue Djinn of Babylon dispatches the twins and Uncle Nimrod to recover them. Along the way, though, John and Philippa encounter their friend Dybbuk, who was drained of his djinn powers but is determined to get them back.
6. The Five Fakirs Of Faizabad (2010) – The key to the world’s fate lies with five fakirs who were buried alive, each of whom guards a secret that can answer a great question of the universe. But there’s an evil djinn desperate to dig up the secrets. Without their mother’s powerful magic, John and Philippa must face this djinn alone. While traveling around the globe, from London, to Morocco, to Yellowstone National Park, to the snowy Himalayan peaks of Shangri-La, can the twins harness their own powers to defeat a new evil?

7. The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan (2011) – Djinn twins John and Philippa are off on another enchanting, and dangerous, adventure in the last book in the bestselling Children of the Lamp series. As volcanoes begin erupting all over the world, spilling golden lava, the twins must go on a hunt for the wicked djinn who wants to rob the grave of the great Genghis Khan. Can the twins stop this latest disaster before the world is overwhelmed?

Stand-alone fiction

1. One Small Step (2008) – It’s 1969 and thirteen year- old Scott is your typical teenage boy-except for the fact that he is flying airplanes with his air force flight instructor father. When Scott successfully crash-lands a plane, he grabs the attention of NASA, which recruits him for its top-secret test launch to the moon. Scott finds himself at the NASA training facility, where he realizes the chimps that will help pilot the craft are just as clever as the astronauts-and things are not what they seem at NASA. Full of nonstop action and adventure, this is the story of a courageous boy who follows his dream
2. The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (2016) – Billy Shivers doesn’t have a lot of excitement in his life. He prefers to spend his days reading alone in the Hitchcock Public Library. So it is a bit out of character when he finds himself drawn to the Haunted House of Books, and a competition daring readers to survive an entire night spent inside. The Haunted House of Books is a cross between a bookstore and a booby trap. It’s a creaky old mansion full of dark hallways and things that go bump in the night, and the store’s ill-tempered owner, Mr. Rapscallion, only adds to the mystery. But the frights of the store itself are nothing compared to the stories it holds. These stories are so ghastly, so terrifying, so shocking that once you’ve read them, you’ll never be the same. Does Billy dare begin? Do you?
3. Friedrich der Große Detektiv (2021) – As of 2021, published only in a German translation.

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If you like Philip Kerr, you may also want to see our Arkady Renko reading order, or our guide to Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers series. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.