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* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the area.
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* ShoutOut: Many.
** While living and working in the French Riviera, Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in thearea.area.
** While living and working in the French Riviera, Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the
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* LiteralMetaphor: When telling Julia to stay calm and not spill the beans about shooting Antimo, Bernie says If you keep your head about this, you can keep your head." (France still used the guillotine in the 1950s.)
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* LiteralMetaphor: When telling Julia to stay calm and not spill the beans about shooting Antimo, Bernie says If says: "If you keep your head about this, you can keep your head." (France France still used the guillotine in the 1950s.)
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* TheGreatestHistoryNeverTold: Namely, the biggest maritime disaster in history, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff#Operation_Hannibal_–_evacuation sinking]] of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' on January 30, 1945, killing over nine thousand people (six times the loss of life on the ''Titanic''). Lampshaded when a flabbergasted Somerset Maugham hears this story and says he's never even heard of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff''.
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* {{Flashback}}: One chapter takes the action back to 1938, and establishes why Bernie hates Harold: Harold was part of a blackmail plot that involved the torture and beating of Bernie's old CO from World War I, a Captain Frisch. A second, longer flashback section set in 1944-45 finds Bernie in Konigsberg as the Russians bear down on the city. Bernie falls in love with a woman named Irmela, she gets pregnant...and thanks to Harold Hennig, Irmela winds up on the SS ''Wilhelm Gustloff'', which is torpedoed and sunk by the Russians, killing some nine thousand people, including Irmela.
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* {{Flashback}}: One chapter takes the action back to 1938, and establishes why Bernie hates Harold: Harold was part of a blackmail plot that involved the torture and beating of Bernie's old CO from World War I, a Captain Frisch. A second, longer flashback section set in 1944-45 finds Bernie in Konigsberg as the Russians bear down on the city. Bernie falls in love with a woman named Irmela, she gets pregnant...and pregnant ... and, thanks to Harold Hennig, Irmela winds up on the SS ''Wilhelm Gustloff'', which is torpedoed and sunk by the Russians, killing some nine thousand people, including Irmela.
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* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg. The British spies who come to France after getting word from Maugham are historical domain characters, including Anthony Blunt, who a few years after this would be outed as a Russian mole.
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* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham Many, most notably Creator/WSomersetMaugham who is a one of this novel's main character. characters. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters Gauleiter of Konigsberg. The British spies who come to France after getting word from Maugham are also historical domain characters, including among them Anthony Blunt, who a few years after this would later be outed exposed as a Russian mole.
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* {{Unishment}}: In 1944, Bernie's transfer to Konigsberg is supposed to be a ReassignedToAntarctica-style demotion, but Bernie likes the city and it's in better shape than Berlin at that point anyway.
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* {{Unishment}}: In 1944, Bernie's transfer to Konigsberg is was supposed to be a ReassignedToAntarctica-style demotion, but Bernie likes liked the city and it's city, in addition to which it was in better shape than Berlin at that point anyway.
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** Anne reads ''Literature/TheQuietAmerican'' by Creator/GrahamGreene.
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** Anne reads ''Literature/TheQuietAmerican'' by Creator/GrahamGreene.Creator/GrahamGreeneAuthor.
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* AndThisIsFor: When Bernie pulls the gun on Harold, he actually says "This is for" the nine thousand people who died on the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'', for his old CO Captain Frisch whom Harold destroyed, and for Irmela and her unborn child. Then he shoots and kills Harold.
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* ChekhovsGun: An actual gun! After Julia Rose confesses to the GunStruggle death of Antimo, Bernie takes the gun from her and promises to get rid of it. It's still in the coat that he takes from Anne's house at the end of the book, and he uses it to kill Harold Hennig.
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* SmartPeoplePlayChess: When spinning his fanciful tale of how Markus Wolf masterminded the whole operation, Bernie calls Wolf "the chess player" and says that he played chess with Wolf once.
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** Anne reads ''Literature/TheQuietAmerican'' by Creator/GrahamGreene.
** Somerset Maugham observes that the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, where Bernie worked as the house detective, was the inspiration for ''Film/GrandHotel''.
** Somerset Maugham observes that the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, where Bernie worked as the house detective, was the inspiration for ''Film/GrandHotel''.
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* CigaretteOfAnxiety:
** Robin Maugham has to light up a smoke before he can confess to Bernie about how he got tangled up with Harold Hennig.
** At their last meeting, when Anne breaks up with him, she smokes a cigarette in an agitated way and Bernie observes that she's in distress. She betrays him to [=MI6=] soon after.
** Robin Maugham has to light up a smoke before he can confess to Bernie about how he got tangled up with Harold Hennig.
** At their last meeting, when Anne breaks up with him, she smokes a cigarette in an agitated way and Bernie observes that she's in distress. She betrays him to [=MI6=] soon after.
* GunStruggle: How Bernie's bridge partner Antimo was killed, as it turns out. Julia Rose, part of the bridge foursome, was having an affair with Antimo and he broke it off. She pulled a gun to kill herself, Antimo tried to take it from her, and he was shot. Bernie believes her and helps to cover it up.
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* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg.
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* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg. The British spies who come to France after getting word from Maugham are historical domain characters, including Anthony Blunt, who a few years after this would be outed as a Russian mole.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Robin Maugham's casual comment about Bernie being a private detective leads Bernie to say "Who told you that?". Bernie catches out Robin as being in cahoots with Harold Hennig.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Robin Maugham's casual comment about Bernie being a private detective leads Bernie to say "Who told you that?". Bernie catches out Robin as being in cahoots with Harold Hennig.
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* LiteralMetaphor: When telling Julia to stay calm and not spill the beans about shooting Antimo, Bernie says If you keep your head about this, you can keep your head." (France still used the guillotine in the 1950s.)
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* {{Perfumigation}}: Robin Maugham, an unsympathetic character, wears a "cloying cologne" which irritates Bernie.
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* {{Blackmail}}: Harold Hennig is blackmailing Somerset Maugham with an incriminating photo. It turns out that the photo is just the ruse for a far more serious blackmail scheme, namely a threat to release a highly embarrassing recording of turncoat spy Guy Burgess.
* EveryoneLovesBlondes: When Bernie meets Irmela in 1944, he describes her as "blonde and buxom, just the way I like them."
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* GentlemanRankers: Somerset Maugham's nephew Robin, who joined the army as a common soldier despite being very rich, because he was "a bit of a bolshie" and did not like the class privileges of officers.
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* GentlemanRankers: GentlemenRankers: Somerset Maugham's nephew Robin, who joined the army as a common soldier despite being very rich, because he was "a bit of a bolshie" and did not like the class privileges of officers.
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* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the area.
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* LampshadeHanging: Maugham says that "men with flaws" make better heroes in fiction, and Bernie says "then it's a surprise I haven't been in a novel already."
* LoweredRecruitingStandards: In the 1944-45 section, Bernie talks about the "People's Storm", the militia of old men and boys that the Nazis have raised as things grow desperate near the end of the war. Bernie sarcastically refers to them as the "Father and Son Brigade".
* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in thearea.area.
* {{Unishment}}: In 1944, Bernie's transfer to Konigsberg is supposed to be a ReassignedToAntarctica-style demotion, but Bernie likes the city and it's in better shape than Berlin at that point anyway.
* LoweredRecruitingStandards: In the 1944-45 section, Bernie talks about the "People's Storm", the militia of old men and boys that the Nazis have raised as things grow desperate near the end of the war. Bernie sarcastically refers to them as the "Father and Son Brigade".
* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the
* {{Unishment}}: In 1944, Bernie's transfer to Konigsberg is supposed to be a ReassignedToAntarctica-style demotion, but Bernie likes the city and it's in better shape than Berlin at that point anyway.
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* CallForward: Bernie remembers "Eichmann and Mengele" as "people who got away with the most appalling crimes." In the end Eichmann didn't get away with it, as he was kidnapped by an Israeli special ops squad, taken to Israel, tried, and executed.
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* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg.
to:
* {{Flashback}}: One chapter takes the action back to 1938, and establishes why Bernie hates Harold: Harold was part of a blackmail plot that involved the torture and beating of Bernie's old CO from World War I, a Captain Frisch. A second, longer flashback section set in 1944-45 finds Bernie in Konigsberg as the Russians bear down on the city. Bernie falls in love with a woman named Irmela, she gets pregnant...and thanks to Harold Hennig, Irmela winds up on the SS ''Wilhelm Gustloff'', which is torpedoed and sunk by the Russians, killing some nine thousand people, including Irmela.
* GentlemanRankers: Somerset Maugham's nephew Robin, who joined the army as a common soldier despite being very rich, because he was "a bit of a bolshie" and did not like the class privileges of officers.
* TheGreatestHistoryNeverTold: Namely, the biggest maritime disaster in history, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff#Operation_Hannibal_–_evacuation sinking]] of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' on January 30, 1945, killing over nine thousand people (six times the loss of life on the ''Titanic''). Lampshaded when a flabbergasted Somerset Maugham hears this story and says he's never even heard of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff''.
* HighClassGlass: Maugham puts a monocle on, apparently with the intention of looking high-class to Bernie, when they first meet.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters ofKonigsberg.Konigsberg.
* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the area.
* GentlemanRankers: Somerset Maugham's nephew Robin, who joined the army as a common soldier despite being very rich, because he was "a bit of a bolshie" and did not like the class privileges of officers.
* TheGreatestHistoryNeverTold: Namely, the biggest maritime disaster in history, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff#Operation_Hannibal_–_evacuation sinking]] of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' on January 30, 1945, killing over nine thousand people (six times the loss of life on the ''Titanic''). Lampshaded when a flabbergasted Somerset Maugham hears this story and says he's never even heard of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff''.
* HighClassGlass: Maugham puts a monocle on, apparently with the intention of looking high-class to Bernie, when they first meet.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of
* ShoutOut: Many. Bernie enjoyed ''Film/ToCatchAThief'', which was filmed in the area.
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More to come
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''The Other Side of Silence'' is a 2016 novel by Philip Kerr.
It is the 11th novel in Kerr's series following the eventful career of detective Literature/BernieGunther. The story opens in 1956 with Bernie, unjustly accused of being a war criminal and wanted by law enforcement agencies all over the world, laying low as a concierge at a hotel at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on the French Riviera. He whiles away his time by playing bridge, but as it happens, time is weighing too heavily on the world-weary private eye, who has gone through several lifetime's worth of pain and suffering. In fact, he just tried to kill himself, by means of car exhaust in a closed garage--but the car stalled.
Bernie the bridge player is brought to the attention of none other than Creator/WSomersetMaugham, the famous writer, who also is skilled at bridge. It turns out, however, that Maugham didn't really summon Bernie to play cards. No, Maugham is being blackmailed. It turns out that Maugham is both gay and a former [=MI6=] spy, and there is an embarrassing photo out there of Maugham at a naked pool party with several other homosexuals, including Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean--two British spies who turned traitor and have recently defected to the Soviet Union. The blackmailer is Harold Hennig, an ex-Nazi and once a captain in the SD. Bernie and Hennig have an unpleasant history that goes back many years.
As per tradition in a Bernie Gunther novel, things get progressively more complicated. Tangentially involved is one Anne French, an aspiring writer who hopes to write a biography of Maugham and asks Bernie for his help. Anne and Bernie fall in love.
----
!!Tropes:
* DownerBeginning: The first sentence is "Yesterday I tried to kill myself." Bernie is alone and profoundly depressed after his wife Elisabeth left him.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg.
It is the 11th novel in Kerr's series following the eventful career of detective Literature/BernieGunther. The story opens in 1956 with Bernie, unjustly accused of being a war criminal and wanted by law enforcement agencies all over the world, laying low as a concierge at a hotel at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on the French Riviera. He whiles away his time by playing bridge, but as it happens, time is weighing too heavily on the world-weary private eye, who has gone through several lifetime's worth of pain and suffering. In fact, he just tried to kill himself, by means of car exhaust in a closed garage--but the car stalled.
Bernie the bridge player is brought to the attention of none other than Creator/WSomersetMaugham, the famous writer, who also is skilled at bridge. It turns out, however, that Maugham didn't really summon Bernie to play cards. No, Maugham is being blackmailed. It turns out that Maugham is both gay and a former [=MI6=] spy, and there is an embarrassing photo out there of Maugham at a naked pool party with several other homosexuals, including Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean--two British spies who turned traitor and have recently defected to the Soviet Union. The blackmailer is Harold Hennig, an ex-Nazi and once a captain in the SD. Bernie and Hennig have an unpleasant history that goes back many years.
As per tradition in a Bernie Gunther novel, things get progressively more complicated. Tangentially involved is one Anne French, an aspiring writer who hopes to write a biography of Maugham and asks Bernie for his help. Anne and Bernie fall in love.
----
!!Tropes:
* DownerBeginning: The first sentence is "Yesterday I tried to kill myself." Bernie is alone and profoundly depressed after his wife Elisabeth left him.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. W. Somerset Maugham is a main character. During the lengthy 1944-45 flashback, Bernie meets Erich Koch, the Gauleiters of Konigsberg.
