Crime fiction reviewed by Andrew Taylor

An epigraph taken from Goebbels’s only published novel certainly makes a book stand out from the crowd. A Man Without Breath (Quercus, £18.99) is the ninth instalment in Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series, which examines the rise, fall and aftermath of Nazi Germany through the eyes of a disillusioned Berlin detective. By 1943, the tide of war is turning. Bernie, now working from the German War Crimes Bureau, is despatched to the neighbourhood of Smolensk, where a wolf has dug up human remains in the Katyn forest. Is this a mass grave of Polish officers murdered by the Russians? If so, the Wehrmacht is more than happy to conduct a scrupulously fair war crimes investigation before the eyes of the world. But what if the killers were German?

It’s an intriguing set-up. There are some very ruthless people waiting for Bernie in Smolensk.The book has two particular strengths: Kerr’s detailed and nuanced portrait of Nazi Germany and his use of Bernie to provide a perspective on it.