The Pale Criminal
First edition
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| Author | Philip Kerr |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Berlin Noir |
| Genre | Crime, Detective, Historical mystery |
| Publisher | Viking Press, London |
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Publication date
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1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 274 pp (Hardback edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 21653181 |
| 823/.914 20 | |
| LC Class | PR6061.E784 P3 1990 |
| Preceded by | March Violets |
| Followed by | A German Requiem |
The Pale Criminal is a historical detective novel and the second in the Berlin Noir trilogy of Bernhard Günther novels written by Philip Kerr.
Set in 1938, two years after the events of March Violets, Bernhard (Bernie) Günther has taken Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer, as his partner. The two are working on a case where a Frau Lange, owner of a large publishing house, is being blackmailed for the homosexual love letters her son Reinhardt sent to his psychotherapist Dr. Kindermann. Günther and Stahlecker discover the blackmailer to be Klaus Hering, a disgruntled employee of Kindermann. Bruno is killed during a stakeout at Hering's apartment, and shortly thereafter Hering is found hanging in the apartment. Around that time, Günther is summoned to the Gestapo offices by Arthur Nebe and there Reinhard Heydrich forces Günther to look for a serial sex murderer, who is killing blond and blue-eyed teenage girls in Berlin and making fools of the police. Günther has no choice but to accept the temporary post of Kriminalkommissar in Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of policemen working underneath him.
Günther and his team then follow a number of dead end leads: A Jewish man held on suspicion, Joseph Kahn, is determined to be too improbable a suspect by an expert on psychotherapy, and eventually let go; A violent sexual deviant, Gottfried Bautz, is captured but when an anonymous caller reveals the location of a fifth victim while he is in jail, he must also be let go.
Günther and a colleague then make a trip to Nuremberg, where they plan to investigate publisher and government administrator Julius Streicher, whom they suspect might be connected to the murders because of the similarity between the imagery depicted in his newspaper Der Stürmer and the murders. They have the well-known depravity of Streicher confirmed to them by the local police chief, but fail to formally connect him to the murders. While they are there, they also learn of the sixth murder and promptly return to Berlin.
Günther and his team then focus their investigation on the family of the latest victim, Emmeline Steiniger, who lived along with her stepmother Hildegard. In the meantime another girl, Lisa Ganz, disappears. About two weeks later, a second anonymous tip leads to the discovery of her body. When Günther interrogates the Ganz parents, they act strangely and eventually reveal they had hired a private detective, Rolf Vogelmann, to help them find their daughter. Vogelmann is known by name to Günther from his biweekly newspaper ads which, as Günther later finds out, are bankrolled by the Lange publishing house.
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