The story opens in 1956. World-weary, seen-too-much detective Bernie Gunther is living a quiet life on the French Riviera, working hotel security. He gets a note that his estranged wife Elizabeth has come to see him. Thrilled, Bernie goes to a restaurant for the rendezvous.
Only it isn't his wife, it's Erich Mielke, an old enemy and now chief of the Stasi in communist East Germany. Mielke has a job for Gunther: to assassinate Anne French, another Stasi operative and former lover of Bernie's, who once betrayed him. Mielke has brought along as his chief assistant one Friedrich Korsch, an old comrade of Bernie's, with whom Bernie once worked an unusual case.
Back in April 1939, with war looming, Bernie and Korsch were sent to the Obersalzburg, Adolf Hitler's Alpine retreat, now the unofficial capital of Germany. An engineer, one Karl Flex, involved in the feverish construction going on at Hitler's mountain, was standing on the balcony of Hitler's house when he was shot and killed by a sniper. Martin Bormann, chief of all activity relating to the construction of Hitler's retreat, regards it of paramount importance that Flex's murderer be caught before the Fuehrer arrives in a week to celebrate his 50th birthday. Bernie Gunther is the man he has tabbed for the job.
The novel plays out in two narrative tracks. In one, in 1939, Gunther and Korsch hunt for Flex's murderer, and are drawn into the tangled web of violence and insanity that is the Nazi state. This is occasionally interrupted with chapters from 1956 in which Bernie, refusing to murder his old lover , takes flight and heads back for West Germany, with Friedrich Korsch hard on his heels.
Tropes:
- Alcohol Hic: Bernie fakes one when he pretends to be a local drunkard, in hopes of escaping the attention of a French policeman. It doesn't work.
- As You Know: When introducing himself to Gerdy Troost, Bernie feels the need to say "Your husband was Paul Troost, wasn't he? Hitler's architect, until he died a few years ago."
- Big Ol' Unibrow: Bernie observes how Rudolf Hess's unibrow adds to his aura of creepy weirdness.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: It's a Running Gag throughout the Bernie Gunther series that for all his world-weary cynicism, Bernie can't help but admire a nice set of tits. In this novel he grills Johann Diesbach's wife, trying to find out Diesbach's whereabouts, while the whole time enjoying the sight of her ample bosom.The woman who switched on the hall light and answered the door was wearing a low-cut blouse...and was carrying more in front than a busy waitress at Oktoberfest.
- Call-Forward: Bernie, who hates having to step out into the bitter cold to smoke a cigarette, thinks Hitler's draconian anti-smoking policies are crazy. In the 21st century, of course, such rules are the norm.What kind of crazy damn world was it when such ordinary human pleasures like cigarettes were so strictly controlled?
- Chalk Outline: The chalk outline of Karl Flex's body is the only evidence left when Bernie comes to the Obersalzburg.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Bernie has to light a smoke to calm his nerves before going into the Schlossberg Caves to find the killer, his investigation (in 1939) over at last.
- Continuity Nod: Several. In 1939 Bernie talks to Korsch about the hazards of doing detective work in Nazi Germany, relating how he caught a murderer "last November" who "turned out to be Himmler's best friend." That's the second Bernie Gunther novel, The Pale Criminal. Early in the novel he's reminded of his finger that was cut off, which was in A German Requiem.
- Cool Car: Korsch, a gear head, is beside himself with joy when he discovers that Karl Flex had a choice Maserati sports car hidden in a garage. They wind up driving it around Berchtesgaden for a little while.
- "Eureka!" Moment: A sarcastic reference by Lola the hooker to Santa Claus causes Bernie to realize how the sniper avoided being seen: he hid in the chimney of the Villa Bechstein.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Bernie observes how Neumann pours a stiff drink and downs it, and how he lights a cigarette and smokes it while his first is still burning, and how his hand is shaking. He concludes that Neumann is nervous about something. On the very next page Neumann murders a prostitute as part of a scheme to get blackmail material on Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
- Framing Device: The 1956 portion of the novel starts Bernie thinking about his experience working the Flex case with Korsch back in 1939. The bulk of the novel is set in 1939, with occasional chapters flashing forward to 1956 as Bernie attempts to evade Korsch and the French police and make it to West Germany.
- Glasses Pull: Winklehof, head steward at the Villa Bechstein, "took off his glasses and began to polish them furiously" when Bernie tells him that he needs a sledgehammer to smash the hell out of a fireplace. (The chimney was the sniper's nest.)
- Historical Domain Character: Loads. Bernie's frequent antagonist Reinhard Heydrich makes another appearance, as he dispatches Bernie to Berchtesgaden. At the Obersalzburg Bernie meets Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, who is rapidly becoming extremely powerful. Rudolf Hess makes an appearance, and Bernie briefly gets cooperation from Hitler confidante Gerdy Troost.
- It Will Never Catch On: Bernie says "Stalin would never make an alliance with Hitler." Four months later Stalin did.
- Kick the Dog: Bernie could have probably made his way across the border in 1956 without being seen by the Stasi agent looking for him, except that he saw the Stasi guy shoot a stray cat. He strangles the Stasi man to death.
- Miss Kitty: Lola, the cynical manager of the brothel reserved for Obersalzburg construction workers. The women are essentially sex slaves. After Lola admits that she's Jewish, Bernie gives her money to get out of Germany.
- Motor Mouth: A little bit of comic relief with Muller, the roofer who turns out to be a crucial witness. Bernie is irritated by how he won't stop talking.
- Never Suicide: Udo Ambros is found dead with a shotgun and a suicide note. Bernie sees through this immediately, as a man who is about to kill himself isn't likely to start a fire and skin a rabbit for dinner.
- No Dead Body Poops: The gory scene where Bernie strangles a Stasi agent to death ends with Bernie being bothered by the unpleasant smell of his victim pooping himself.
- Safecracking: Karl Krauss succeeds in opening up Karl Flex's safe and getting some important evidence for Bernie.
- Sequel: To The Other Side of Silence. In that book Anne French betrays both Bernie and the Stasi of East Germany, and he predicts that Mielke will come after Anne, looking for revenge. In this book, which is set soon after, Mielke does in fact show up, and tells Bernie to murder Anne.
- Sherlock Scan: The French priest that Bernie meets in 1956 shows a pretty impressive Sherlock Scan when he figures out that Bernie is the Blue Train murderer. He observes that Bernie's shoes are too nice for a traveling onion salesman, his wristwatch is too fancy, his hands are soft and and manicured, his teeth are too nice, and the lenses in his glasses aren't real lenses.
- Shout-Out:
- The dark, narrow streets where Bernie lives in the south of France remind him of Peter Lorre being chased in M.
- "Lola" the Miss Kitty compares herself to Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel.
- Bernie likes Angels with Dirty Faces, which is screening at Berchtesgaden.
- Bernie compares a creepy Nazi's creepy smile to Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs.
- Swiss Bank Account: Where Martin Bormann and his minions (like Karl Flex) have been storing the enormous amounts of money they've been getting in kickbacks and bribes in Berchtesgaden.
- Title Drop: Prussian blue pigment is the only antidote for the thallium that Bernie is supposed to kill Anne French with. And towards the end Bernie uses "Prussian blue" as a password, since the man he's chasing, Johann Diesbach, is a namesake of the painter who invented Prussian blue in 1706.
- Vehicular Sabotage: How Hermann Kaspel was killed, something Bernie didn't know was possible until Korsch explains it to him. Someone cut the brake lines to the Mercedes Kaspel was driving, causing him to veer off a winding road to his death.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A brief epilogue lists the fate of the historical domain characters. Gerdy Troost lived to be 98.
- Yiddish as a Second Language: The Krauss brothers, Jewish burglars and expert safecrackers, whom Bernie has liberated from Dachau in order to open Karl Flex's safe. Bernie knows that their Yiddish is an act.Karl Krauss: That red Italian car? It's a nice car. But even in Italy it's just a noodge. Not a car for gonifs like us....We gay avek in a car like that and the whole world sees, and hears, too, probably.
