The Pale Criminal.

PHILIP KERR

Publication: Viking, 1990, London

First edition. 8vo. Second book in the original three-book trilogy and a difficult title to locate. Page edges beginning to uniformly tan, else fine in price-clipped dust jacket. September 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering if the Fuhrer will plunge Europe into another war. PI Bernhard Gunther is hired by a rich widow to find out who is blackmailing her, an investigation in which he finds himself exploring the crankier side of modern German medicine and psychotherapy. Meanwhile, a brutal serial killer stalks the streets of Berlin, and KRIPO, embarrassed at having been caught framing an innocent Jew for the murders, is not above using a little blackmail to obtain Gunther's racially unbiased services to catch the real culprit. Boldly asking for the temporary rank of Kommissar, Gunther finds that a murder hunt for a perverted criminal soon escalates beyond all his predictions. A most difficult title.

Inventory Number: 49638