THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE Bernie Gunther, Book 11

Narrator John Lee and author Philip Kerr's German cop, Bernie Gunther, have been together for a while now, but familiarity hasn't dimmed their affinity for each other. In Lee's well-pitched narration of the eleventh book in the series, Gunther is as wry, jaded, and curiously hopeful as ever. We find him in 1956, lying low as a hotel clerk on the Riviera. Recruited to play bridge with Somerset Maugham, he finds himself helping the author outwit a blackmailer whom Gunther himself knows from the bad old days in Nazi Germany. Lee's telling interpretations of oily ex-Nazis, local rich folk, the elderly Maugham and his un-closeted gay set, and Gunther's love interests help color Kerr's undecorated writing and add to the book's undisputed pleasures. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2016]