They find that out when they find him at his home, with both of his eyes shot out from close range. With the help of the local Munich RE representative and Lieutenant Leventis, an Athens cop with a grudge against Germans shared by most of his compatriots, they first find evidence the claimant isn’t being entirely truthful, and then that someone is out to kill him.
When one, belonging to Siegfried Witzel, a German living in Greece, catches fire and sinks off of Thessaloniki, Gunther is sent to Athens to investigate. While the Nazi years saw them insuring concentration camps and other infrastructure of death, by 1957 they’ve branched out, also covering vessels anchored off the Greek islands. He will use his investigative skills to uncover fraudulent insurance claims.Īccording to Gunther’s new boss, Munich RE is one of Germany’s largest insurance companies and is expanding through postwar western Europe.
Soon, however, he’s getting other offers: firstly from the undertaker to be a replacement pallbearer secondly from a corrupt ex-cop who manages to con Gunther into helping him commit extortion and finally from a lawyer who wants him to work for Munich RE Insurance as a claims adjuster. His years heading up homicide investigations have given him a stomach more than strong enough to cope with with dead bodies. He calls himself Christof Ganz and deals with the low pay, the poor hours and the freezing conditions in the hospital basement. It’s 1957, and Gunther is back in his adopted hometown of Munich, living under a new name and working as a mortuary attendant. Greeks Bearing Gifts is vintage Bernie Gunther, despite the ex-Kriminalpolizei detective’s name rarely appearing in the novel. The prospect of a new Bernie Gunther novel is something that gets readers around the world excited, and it is a true tragedy that after Greeks Bearing Gifts there will only be one more, Metropolis, due out next year. In between his Bernie Gunther novels, which he has written at a rate of roughly one a year for the past decade, Kerr has also written standalone novels, books for children, and works of nonfiction. Not just because he was still young, but also because he continued publishing great works right up to the end of his life. Written by Philip Kerr - Crime fiction lovers were shocked last month to hear of the death of Philip Kerr.
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