When British author Philip Kerr died suddenly earlier this year the world lost a giant of crime fiction. Kerr was not only prolific but his writing was consistently good, highlighted by the brilliant series of novels featuring ex-Berlin cop turned private detective Bernie Gunther. Greeks Bearing Gifts is the second last Gunther novel; the final novel, Metropolis, which Kerr was working on up to his death, is due out in 2019. The penultimate novel is set in the 1950s and sees Gunther pressured by a corrupt ex-cop into taking a job investigating claims for an insurance firm. Sent out to investigate a suspicious claim for a fire on a German-owned boat off the Greek islands, Gunther quickly finds there’s no escaping Germany’s dark wartime past. Read the CFL review here.