I’ve been reading Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series–crime stories set (mostly) in Germany during the Third Reich and its aftermath. It’s serious historical fiction, but the main character is a hard-boiled wise-cracking detective, delightfully written and howlingly funny at times, even when his smart remarks get him in trouble with the Nazis (whom he hates, and secretly works against every chance he gets).

I knew Kerr was modeling Bernie’s character and voice on 40’s crime fiction. After all, the first three Bernie Gunther novels were reissued in a one-volume Penguin edition under the title Berlin Noir. Curious to see just to see how much of a resemblance there really was, I picked up a copy of The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler’s first Phillip Marlow story.

You can hear the bare bones of Bernie Gunther’s style in Phillip Marlow, but Kerr takes it so much further. Bernie’s voice is richer, more literary, more allusive, and much more revealing of his (Bernie’s) character. But Kerr, even while blasting by his predecessor in a blaze of glory, can’t help but sneak in a tip of the old chapeau to his forefather. Here are two excerpts, both from the first novel in the series, and both early on in the story.

First, from The Big Sleep, page 30:

The next morning was bright, clear and sunny. I woke up with a motorman’s glove in my mouth, drank two cups of coffee and went through the morning papers.

And from March Violets, the first novel in the Berlin Noir trilogy, page 25:

The following morning was grey and wet. I woke with a whore’s drawers in my mouth, drank a cup of coffee and went through this morning’s Beliner Borsenzeitung, which was even more difficult to understand than usual, with sentences as long and as hard-to-incomprehensible as a speech from Hess.

What fun! And what a tasty delight!