The One from the Other
Chapters (50)
- Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Teaser chapter
Praise
Praise for Philip Kerr’s The One from the Other
“Philip Kerr is the contemporary master of the morally complex thriller. . . . [A German Requiem], set mainly in postwar Vienna, has an affinity with Graham Greene’s The Third Man but—dare I say it?—equals or surpasses Greene (and the Carol Reed film featuring Orson Welles), because it doesn’t shy away from the Nazi-saturated substratum of the Viennese milieu. And then I discovered—and devoured—Mr. Kerr’s new noir, The One from the Other. It crystallized my dissatisfaction with recent le Carré novels (clumsily didactic) and made me rethink my addiction to Alan Furst’s oeuvre (brilliant but a bit too thickly varnished with romantic glamour). . . . The achievement of Philip Kerr’s novels is that he takes his Chandler/Hammett-style detective, that lone figure in the (largely ahistorical) mean streets of the urban jungle, into the midst of a far more highly charged historical backdrop, a different, more profoundly mean—indeed, evil—sort of mean-street neighborhood, the crossroads of history and tragedy. Mr. Kerr has set his detective on an Inferno-like trajectory that takes us deep into the heart of darkness.”
—Ron Rosenbaum, New York Observer
“Several elements account for the excellence of the Gunther books. First, Kerr is a fine novelist; in terms of narrative, plot, pace, and characterizations, he’s in a league with John le Carré and Alan Furst. Moreover, he has done prodigious research into an era that ended well before he was born. The political, historical, military, and cultural details feel absolutely authentic. If you want a sense of what Nazi Germany was like, day to day, not many novels equal these. Finally, Kerr was truly inspired to place a detective-turned-private-eye at work in Nazi Germany. Private eyes investigate crimes, and where in human history can we find more cosmic crimes than those of the Hitler era? The question was whether Kerr would be equal to the challenge he set for himself. He has been. . . . One of the bright spots in this always readable, often troubling novel is the suggestion, near the end, that Kerr’s good German will return again.”
—Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
“Because he never had any illusions to begin with, Gunther is the ideal narrator for Kerr’s bleak tale of the dirty deals made by victors and vanquished alike. Having learned that there’s no way to distinguish ‘the one from the other,’ the cynical P.I. has the moral clarity to see through the deceit and hypocrisy of both friend and foe. He’s the right kind of hero for his time—and ours.”
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review