| The Pale Criminal | |
|---|---|
The cover of the Penguin Books edition of the novel |
|
| Author(s) | Philip Kerr |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Berlin Noir |
| Genre(s) | Crime, Detective, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Viking Press, London |
| Publication date | 1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 274 pp (Hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 067082433X |
| OCLC Number | 21653181 |
| Dewey Decimal | 823/.914 20 |
| LC Classification | PR6061.E784 P3 1990 |
| Preceded by | March Violets |
| Followed by | A German Requiem |
The Pale Criminal is a detective novel and the second in the Berlin Noir trilogy of Bernhard Gunther novels written by Philip Kerr.
Set in 1938, two years after the events of March Violets Bernhard (Bernie) Gunther has taken Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer, as his partner. The two have been working on a straightforward homosexual blackmail case when Stahlecker is killed on a stakeout and Bernie is tapped for a much bigger job. Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich forces Gunther to look for a serial sex murderer who is killing blonde Aryan teenage girls in Berlin and making fools of the police. Gunther has no choice but to accept the temporary post of Kriminalkommissar in Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him that he's not sure he can trust any more than his superiors. Gunther finds himself wading through the filthy underbelly of the Nazi hierarchy in search of the man or men who are not only killing young girls but also killed his partner.