First in the Berlin Noir trilogy, a fascinating and when you scratch the surface - disturbing - portrait of 1936 Berlin before and during the Berlin Olympics. Bernie Gunther is a tough private detective, who used to be a policeman until the Nazis starting purging the ranks of people they didn't consider 'good' Germans. Now he can choose which cases to take, he doesn't do divorce work but ask him to find a missing U-boat (code for a German jew) or some diamonds or a hired killer and he's your man. He's not a thug but he can handle himself in a fight, lethally when necessary.
Steel magnate Herman Six's daughter and her husband have been brutally murdered, a diamond necklace went missing during the murder and Six wants it back. Gunther teams up with freelance reporter Inge to track the jewels and the killer or killers giving us a glimpse of the underbelly of Berlin in the process.
The group discussion was lively to put it mildly, but the consensus was Germany doesn't shy away from its horrific past. Their history lessons focus on the rise of the Nazis and Hitler and the atrocities that took place before and during WWII. You can point to any country in the world and in their past (or their present) are events that morally wrong. History is always going to be uncomfortable, learning from history leads to changes that make life better for everyone.
Here in the U.S a right wing element inside Congress is willfully burying the country's history - because they want to repeat it? we didn't agree on that but as an aside look up Operation Paperclip. Where do you think all those Nazi scientists went?
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