Bernie Gunther is a Berlin detective who spends his career trying to stay honest in a country that no longer values honesty. He is a former homicide cop, a private eye, a reluctant SS officer, a prisoner of war, and a man on the run, and across fourteen novels Philip Kerr uses him to walk readers through the darkest decades of German history.
The series is famous for its wisecracking, Chandler-style narration and its unflinching look at the Nazi years and their aftermath. It is also famous for jumping around in time, which makes the reading order more confusing than most. This guide covers the complete Bernie Gunther reading order in publication and chronological order, with a summary of every book, where to start, and everything we know about the new Berlin Noir TV series.
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Quick Series Facts
| Author | Philip Kerr |
| Number of Books | 14 novels |
| First Book | March Violets (1989) |
| Latest Book | Metropolis (2019) |
| Status | Complete |
| Setting | Berlin and beyond, 1928 to 1957 |
| Genre | Historical crime, noir thriller |
Bernie Gunther Books in Publication Order
The Berlin Noir Trilogy
The first three novels were written between 1989 and 1991 and are often collected in a single volume, Berlin Noir. Kerr then set Bernie aside for fifteen years before returning to him in 2006.
1. March Violets (1989)
Setting: Berlin, 1936
Berlin is dressing itself up for the Olympic Games, and Bernie Gunther, who left the police rather than serve the Nazis, is working as a private investigator specializing in missing persons. A wealthy industrialist hires him after his daughter and son-in-law are found dead in a burned-out house, and a valuable necklace goes missing.
The case drags Bernie into a web of corruption that reaches the top of the Nazi state. The title refers to the opportunists who joined the Nazi Party after it came to power in March 1933, and the novel is full of Kerr’s sharp eye for the hypocrisy of the time.
2. The Pale Criminal (1990)
Setting: Berlin, 1938
Reinhard Heydrich forces Bernie back into the criminal police to catch a serial killer who is murdering teenage girls, a case the Nazis want solved for their own political reasons. At the same time, Bernie is investigating a blackmail case involving a wealthy widow’s son.
Arthur Nebe and Heydrich, two of the most dangerous men in the regime, appear as characters. The book shows Bernie’s first steps into the compromises that will haunt him for the rest of the series.
3. A German Requiem (1991)
Setting: Berlin and Vienna, 1947
The war is over, and Bernie has come home from a Soviet prison camp to a city in ruins. When an old colleague is arrested in Vienna for the murder of an American officer, Bernie travels to the divided city to prove his innocence and walks into a world of black markets, spies, and former Nazis hiding in plain sight.
The atmosphere recalls The Third Man, and many readers consider it the best of the original trilogy.
Later Novels
4. The One from the Other (2006)
Setting: Munich and Vienna, 1949 (opening in 1937)
Fifteen years after the trilogy, Kerr brought Bernie back. He is now running a failing hotel near the former concentration camp at Dachau, and returns to detective work when a woman hires him to find out whether her husband, a wanted war criminal, is really dead.
The case leads into the world of the “ratlines” that helped Nazis escape justice. The book is darker and more complex than the original trilogy, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
5. A Quiet Flame (2008)
Setting: Buenos Aires, 1950, and Berlin, 1932
Bernie flees to Argentina, sailing on the same ship as the fugitive Adolf Eichmann. In Juan Perón’s Buenos Aires, he is pressed into service by the secret police to investigate the murder of a teenage girl, a crime that echoes a case he worked in Berlin in the last days of the Weimar Republic.
The alternating timelines show Bernie as a young policeman as Hitler takes power, and the novel is one of the most ambitious in the series.
6. If the Dead Rise Not (2009)
Setting: Berlin, 1934, and Havana, 1954
In 1934, Bernie is working as a house detective at Berlin’s Hotel Adlon while the Nazis prepare for the 1936 Olympics, and two deaths draw him into a scandal involving American gangsters and construction contracts. Twenty years later, in Batista’s Havana, the same people come back into his life.
If the Dead Rise Not won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger and the RBA Prize for Crime Writing, one of the world’s richest crime fiction awards.
7. Field Grey (2010)
Setting: Cuba, the United States, and Germany, 1954, with flashbacks from 1931 to 1946
Picked up by the Americans off the coast of Cuba, Bernie is interrogated about his past and forced to account for his war. His story takes him from street battles in 1931 Berlin to occupied France, the Eastern Front, and Soviet prison camps.
This is the book where Bernie’s war finally comes into focus, including his time with a police battalion in the East. It is often called the darkest novel in an already dark series.
8. Prague Fatale (2011)
Setting: Berlin and Prague, 1941
Bernie has returned from the Eastern Front to the Berlin Kripo. Heydrich, newly appointed Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, summons him to a weekend house party near Prague, and when one of Heydrich’s officers is found shot in a locked room, Bernie has to solve the case among a houseful of suspects who are all capable of murder.
It is a classic country-house mystery set in the most frightening possible company.
9. A Man Without Breath (2013)
Setting: Smolensk, Russia, 1943
Joseph Goebbels sends Bernie, now working for the German army’s War Crimes Bureau, to investigate mass graves discovered in the Katyn Forest. The Germans want proof that the Soviets murdered thousands of Polish officers, and Bernie is uncomfortably aware that the regime he serves is guilty of far worse.
The Katyn massacre was real, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, and Kerr uses it to explore the moral maze of investigating one atrocity on behalf of another.
10. The Lady from Zagreb (2015)
Setting: Berlin, Croatia, and Switzerland, 1942 to 1943, with a frame in 1956
Goebbels again uses Bernie, this time to find the estranged father of a glamorous film star, Dalia Dresner, whom the propaganda minister wants to please. The search takes Bernie to Croatia, where the Ustaše regime is committing atrocities that horrify even him.
The novel mixes a doomed love story with some of the most harrowing scenes in the series.
11. The Other Side of Silence (2016)
Setting: The French Riviera, 1956
Living under a false name, Bernie is working as a hotel concierge at Cap Ferrat. When the writer W. Somerset Maugham asks for his help with a blackmail threat, Bernie is pulled into a story involving British intelligence, the Cambridge spies, and a figure from his own past.
The book is a sharp, witty Cold War thriller, with Maugham as one of Kerr’s best historical portraits.
12. Prussian Blue (2017)
Setting: The French Riviera, 1956, and Berchtesgaden, 1939
Bernie is ordered by the Stasi’s Erich Mielke to carry out a murder, and goes on the run instead. As he flees across France and Germany, he remembers a case from 1939, when Heydrich sent him to investigate a murder at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, days before the Führer’s fiftieth birthday.
Prussian Blue is one of the most acclaimed books in the series and was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
13. Greeks Bearing Gifts (2018)
Setting: Munich and Greece, 1957
Bernie is now working as an insurance claims adjuster in Munich. A suspicious claim sends him to Athens, where a German sunken boat and a murder uncover the story of the deportation of the Jews of Thessaloniki during the war.
It was the last Bernie Gunther novel published in Kerr’s lifetime.
14. Metropolis (2019)
Setting: Berlin, 1928
The final novel goes back to the beginning. In the Berlin of the Weimar Republic, a young Bernie joins the murder commission of the criminal police and is assigned to a case involving the killings of prostitutes and disabled war veterans.
Kerr finished Metropolis shortly before his death in 2018, and it was published the following year. It is both a gripping mystery and a portrait of the city that shaped Bernie.
Upcoming Books
The series is complete. Philip Kerr died in March 2018, and Metropolis (2019) was his final Bernie Gunther novel. No continuation novels have been announced.
Chronological Order vs Publication Order
The Bernie Gunther series does not follow a straight timeline. Kerr moved backward and forward across three decades, and many books alternate between two time periods. Here is the order of the main stories by when they take place:
- Metropolis (1928)
- March Violets (1936)
- The Pale Criminal (1938)
- Prague Fatale (1941)
- A Man Without Breath (1943)
- The Lady from Zagreb (1942 to 1943, with a 1956 frame)
- A German Requiem (1947)
- The One from the Other (1949)
- A Quiet Flame (1950, with flashbacks to 1932)
- If the Dead Rise Not (1934 and 1954)
- Field Grey (1954, with flashbacks to 1931 to 1946)
- The Other Side of Silence (1956)
- Prussian Blue (1956, with flashbacks to 1939)
- Greeks Bearing Gifts (1957)
Because so many books use dual timelines, no chronological order is perfect.
Our recommendation: read in publication order. Kerr wrote each book with the earlier ones in mind, and he often reveals parts of Bernie’s past gradually, so publication order gives you the experience he intended. Chronological order is best saved for a reread.
Bernie Gunther’s Life: A Timeline
Because the books jump around, it helps to see Bernie’s life laid out in order. This timeline is assembled from across the series.
| Years | Bernie’s Life | Covered In |
|---|---|---|
| 1898 | Born in Berlin | Background |
| 1914 to 1918 | Serves in the First World War | Background |
| 1920s | Joins the Berlin police and rises to homicide detective | Metropolis |
| 1932 to 1933 | Works cases as the Weimar Republic collapses; leaves the Kripo after the Nazi takeover | A Quiet Flame |
| 1934 | House detective at the Hotel Adlon | If the Dead Rise Not |
| 1936 to 1938 | Private investigator; forced back into the Kripo by Heydrich | March Violets, The Pale Criminal |
| 1939 | Investigates a murder at Hitler’s mountain retreat | Prussian Blue |
| 1941 to 1943 | Eastern Front, then Kripo and the War Crimes Bureau | Field Grey, Prague Fatale, A Man Without Breath, The Lady from Zagreb |
| 1945 to 1946 | Soviet prisoner of war | Field Grey |
| 1947 to 1949 | Postwar Berlin, Vienna, and Munich | A German Requiem, The One from the Other |
| 1950 to 1954 | Exile in Argentina and Cuba | A Quiet Flame, If the Dead Rise Not, Field Grey |
| 1956 to 1957 | Living under false names in France and Germany | The Other Side of Silence, Prussian Blue, Greeks Bearing Gifts |
Companion Novels and Short Stories
There are no companion novels or short story collections. The fourteen novels are the complete series. The Berlin Noir omnibus collects the first three books in a single volume and is the best-value way to start.
Philip Kerr also wrote many standalone thrillers and, as P.B. Kerr, the Children of the Lamp series for younger readers. See our Philip Kerr author page for his full bibliography.
About the Bernie Gunther Series
Bernie Gunther was born in Berlin in 1898, served in the trenches in the First World War, and joined the Berlin police, rising to become a homicide detective at the Alex, the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz. When the Nazis took over, he left rather than join the party, but the regime keeps finding uses for a good detective, and Bernie keeps being forced back.
Kerr’s great achievement is a hero who is neither a Nazi nor a resistance fighter. Bernie is a cynical, funny, decent man who survives by making compromises, some of them terrible. The series asks what an ordinary, honest man could do in the Third Reich, and the answers are rarely comfortable.
What Makes Bernie Gunther Special
- Hardboiled narration. Bernie narrates in the first person with the wisecracks and similes of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, which makes even the darkest books readable.
- Real history at every turn. Heydrich, Goebbels, Nebe, Eichmann, Perón, Mielke, and Somerset Maugham all appear, and the plots are built around real events.
- A morally complicated hero. Bernie is compromised, and Kerr never lets him or the reader off the hook.
- Three decades of German history. From the Weimar Republic to the Cold War, the series covers the whole arc of Germany’s twentieth-century catastrophe.
- Global scope. The later books range from Buenos Aires and Havana to the Riviera, Croatia, Russia, and Greece.
- Excellent mysteries. Beneath the history, each book is a well-constructed crime novel with a real puzzle at its heart.
Where to Start
New Readers
Start with March Violets, or better, the Berlin Noir omnibus, which contains the first three books. The trilogy introduces Bernie, his voice, and his world, and it covers the prewar Nazi years and the war’s aftermath.
Can You Start Elsewhere?
Yes. Each book is a complete story, and many readers start with whatever title they find first. If you want to begin with the later, richer novels, If the Dead Rise Not and Prussian Blue both work well as entry points.
Some readers like to start with Metropolis, which is the earliest story chronologically. It works as an introduction, but it was written as a farewell, and it lands best when you already know who Bernie becomes.
Tips for Reading Bernie Gunther
- Expect time jumps. Keep an eye on the chapter headings, which often switch between two different years.
- Read Field Grey in sequence. It fills in many gaps in Bernie’s war and makes more sense after the earlier books.
- Take breaks. The subject matter is heavy, and many readers space out the books.
About the Author
Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh in 1956 and studied law at the University of Birmingham before working in advertising. He published March Violets in 1989, and its success allowed him to write full-time.
After the original trilogy, Kerr wrote standalone thrillers, science fiction, and a successful children’s series, before returning to Bernie in 2006 with The One from the Other. The later novels won him a new generation of readers and major awards, including the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger for If the Dead Rise Not.
Kerr died of cancer in London in March 2018, at the age of 62. For his complete bibliography, see our Philip Kerr author page.
The Real People in the Bernie Gunther Novels
One of the pleasures of the series is how many real figures Bernie meets. Here are some of the most important.
- Reinhard Heydrich. Head of the Nazi security services and one of the architects of the Holocaust. He appears in The Pale Criminal, Prague Fatale, and Prussian Blue, and is Bernie’s most frightening patron.
- Arthur Nebe. Head of the Kripo, Bernie’s former colleague, and later commander of an Einsatzgruppe on the Eastern Front. His career shows how ordinary policemen became mass murderers.
- Joseph Goebbels. Hitler’s propaganda minister, who uses Bernie for his own purposes in A Man Without Breath and The Lady from Zagreb.
- Adolf Eichmann. The organizer of the Holocaust’s deportations, who travels with Bernie to Argentina in A Quiet Flame.
- Juan Perón. Argentina’s president, whose government welcomed former Nazis after the war.
- Erich Mielke. A senior officer in East Germany’s Stasi, and later its long-serving head, tries to force Bernie into service in Prussian Blue.
- W. Somerset Maugham. The British novelist and former intelligence agent, whose blackmail problem drives The Other Side of Silence.
- Bernhard Weiss. The Jewish deputy police president of Weimar Berlin, a real opponent of the Nazis, who appears in Metropolis.
Historical Context
The Bernie Gunther series spans one of the most turbulent periods in any nation’s history. It opens in the Weimar Republic, the democratic Germany born after the First World War, whose capital, Berlin, was famous for its nightlife, its art, and its political violence. The Great Depression and the rise of the Nazi Party ended that world, and Hitler became the chancellor in January 1933.
The novels set in the 1930s show the Nazi takeover of the police and the justice system. The criminal police, or Kripo, where Bernie worked, was absorbed into Heinrich Himmler’s security apparatus, and officers like Arthur Nebe, who led the Kripo, later commanded mass killings in the East. Kerr uses these real figures to show how ordinary institutions became instruments of terror.
The wartime and postwar books cover the war on the Eastern Front, the Katyn massacre, the Holocaust, the division of Germany, and the escape routes that allowed many Nazis to rebuild their lives in South America. The 1950s novels add the Cold War, with the Stasi, the CIA, and British intelligence all competing for Bernie’s services.
Accuracy note: Kerr was a meticulous researcher, and the historical figures and events in the series are generally portrayed accurately. Bernie himself and his cases are fictional, and Kerr takes some liberties by placing his hero at the center of real events, but the background of each novel is well-grounded in history.
Similar Series You’ll Love
Volker Kutscher’s Gereon Rath series. A police detective in late Weimar Berlin, beginning with Babylon Berlin. It inspired the hit TV series of the same name and is the closest in setting to Metropolis and March Violets.
David Downing’s Station series. Six novels following a British-American journalist in Berlin from 1939 to 1945, beginning with Zoo Station. Less cynical than Kerr, but with a similar focus on ordinary people in Nazi Germany.
Robert Harris‘s Fatherland. A detective in an alternate 1964 where Germany won the war. A standalone, but a perfect pairing for Bernie Gunther fans.
Len Deighton‘s SS-GB and Bernard Samson novels. A Scotland Yard detective in Nazi-occupied Britain, and a Cold War spy series set largely in Berlin. Both share Kerr’s cynical, knowing tone.
Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers novels. Atmospheric spy novels set in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, full of the same moral grey areas as the Gunther books.
Luke McCallin’s Gregor Reinhardt series. A German military intelligence officer investigating crimes in wartime Yugoslavia, beginning with The Man from Berlin. It is one of the closest successors to Kerr’s later novels.
Adaptations
A television adaptation called Berlin Noir is in production for Apple TV. Jack Lowden stars as Bernie Gunther, with Colin Firth in a leading role. The series is written by Peter Straughan, who wrote the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel‘s Wolf Hall, and filming began in Berlin in early 2026.
No release date has been announced yet. We will update this page when Apple confirms the series’ premiere date.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Bernie Gunther books are there?
There are 14 Bernie Gunther novels, from March Violets (1989) to Metropolis (2019). The first three are also available together in the omnibus Berlin Noir.
What order should I read the Bernie Gunther books in?
Read them in publication order: March Violets, The Pale Criminal, A German Requiem, The One from the Other, A Quiet Flame, If the Dead Rise Not, Field Grey, Prague Fatale, A Man Without Breath, The Lady from Zagreb, The Other Side of Silence, Prussian Blue, Greeks Bearing Gifts, and Metropolis.
Should I read Bernie Gunther in chronological order?
Publication order is recommended for a first read. The books jump between different years, and many use two timelines, so chronological order is complicated. Kerr also gradually reveals Bernie’s past, which works best in the order he wrote the books.
What is the first Bernie Gunther book?
The first book is March Violets (1989), set in Berlin in 1936 on the eve of the Olympic Games.
What is the last Bernie Gunther book?
The last is Metropolis (2019), published after Philip Kerr’s death. It is set in 1928 and shows Bernie as a young detective in Weimar Berlin.
What is Berlin Noir?
Berlin Noir is the omnibus edition of the first three Bernie Gunther novels: March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem. It is also the title of the Apple TV adaptation starring Jack Lowden.
Is there a Bernie Gunther TV series?
Yes. Berlin Noir, an Apple TV series starring Jack Lowden as Bernie Gunther, began filming in 2026. A release date has not yet been announced.
Is Bernie Gunther a Nazi?
No. Bernie despises the Nazis and leaves the police when they take over, but he is repeatedly forced to work for the regime and later serves in the SS and the army. The series is honest about the compromises he makes.
Was Bernie Gunther a real person?
No. Bernie Gunther is fictional, but many of the people he meets, including Reinhard Heydrich, Arthur Nebe, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann, and Somerset Maugham, are real historical figures.
How historically accurate are the Bernie Gunther books?
Very accurate in their background. Kerr researched each period closely, and real events such as the 1936 Olympics, the Katyn massacre, and the Nazi ratlines to South America are portrayed carefully. The cases themselves are fictional.
Are the Bernie Gunther books suitable for teenagers?
They are best suited to adults. The series contains graphic violence, sexual content, strong language, and scenes of wartime atrocities.
Do I need to read the Bernie Gunther books in order?
Not strictly. Each novel has a complete mystery. However, Bernie’s personal history builds across the series, so reading in order gives a much richer experience.
Are the Bernie Gunther books available as audiobooks?
Yes. All fourteen novels are available as ebooks and audiobooks, and the Berlin Noir omnibus is also available on audio.
What should I read after Bernie Gunther?
Try Volker Kutscher’s Gereon Rath series for Weimar Berlin, David Downing’s Station series for wartime Berlin, or Robert Harris’s Fatherland for an alternate history detective story.
Conclusion
The Bernie Gunther series is one of the great achievements of historical crime fiction. Through one wisecracking, compromised, stubbornly decent detective, Philip Kerr tells the story of Germany from the Weimar Republic to the Cold War, and he never makes it easy for his hero or his readers.
Start with March Violets or the Berlin Noir omnibus, read on in publication order, and save Metropolis for last. With the Apple TV series on its way, there has never been a better time to meet Bernie.
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