Aspects of History have announced their longlist for their Inaugural SpyMasters Book Prize.
Spy Hunter by HB Lyle
The Old Fox by Robert Perkins
Paying in Blood by Karen Haden
Committed by Chris Merritt
Second Skin by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
The King Street Affair by Jon Sealy
Shadow of Poison by Peter Tonkin
The Borodino Sacrifice by Paul Phillips
Out in the Cold by Steve Urszenyi
Soldier Spy by Rosemary Hayes
The Violin & the Candlestick by David Jarvis
Mr Campion’s Christmas by Mike Ripley
Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate
The Peacock and the Sparrow by IS Berry
Foxtrot Mike Lima by Cat Connor
Operation Nightfall by Karl Wegener
Death of a Princess by R.N.Morris
With Prejudice by Roger Price
Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne
Found by Will Erikson
Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd
The award is open to any spy novel, published in hardback or paperback, in 2024. They accepted both historical and modern spy thrillers
A cash prize of £500 will be awarded to the winning author. Aspects of HIstory will also interview the winner on the SpyMasters podcast. A shortlist of six titles will then be announced on 1st September 2025.
The winner will be announced at a special event in September, at which the longlist and special guests will be invited. Congratulations to all the nominated authors.
METROPOLIS
by the late PHILIP KERR, the last adventure of Bernie Gunther from Quercus
Publishing was published yesterday 4th of April 2019, and coming in
a couple of days to the US and Canada from PenguinRandomHouse North America
I have been
savouring it, reading it slowly, for it is a beautiful crime novel, one with writing
that is so thought-provoking it makes you gasp for breath. It is a rather Dark
Narrative as it details Gunther’s start with the Police, at Berlin’s Murder
Squad, in 1928. What appears as the serial murder of Prostitutes by a Madman,
soon morphs into an investigation of the slaying of WW 1 veterans, beggars – but
becomes something more, something troubling for Bernie Gunther.
I finished it last night, and had trouble sleeping for it is thought
provoking, as well as hugely entertaining.
Bleary-eyed, I penned my review this morning >
The
last of these remarkable historical crime thrillers is aptly set at the start
of Bernie Gunther’s police career
with Berlin’s Murder Squad, theKriminalpolizei.
It is an origin story, as well a mirror to be held up against the political
turmoil of our own contemporary times.
Above
all else, it is a melancholic narrative, a reflective work that provokes deep
thought in the reader as only a piece of high art can; because Philip Kerr’s
final novel is just that, narrative artistry.
Berlin 1928, the Nazi regime is gathering momentum and
power in a desperate nation, one humbled by that great war, the one that Bernie
Gunther survived where many died in the muddy trenches, and the clouds of gas
that the infantry men had to traverse.
Gunther is living in a rooming house that he shares with an
overbearing landlady and assorted misfits including an Englishman named Rankin.
Gunther’s detective skills have been noticed by his superiors in the Berlin
Police; and so, in consequence, he finds himself promoted from the Vice Squad,
to the Murder Squad.
As ever, the narrative is peppered with observations and
dialogue that could have been torn from the pages of Raymond Chandler, for Bernie Gunther shares the world-weary
cynicism of Philip Marlowe. There is
much wit within these pages, but that is matched by the oppressive darkness of
the story.
Gunther is assigned to track down a serial killer who is
hunting the scalps of prostitutes, many who are women trying to earn a little
money just to survive, in an economically ravaged city.High art rubs shoulder to shoulder with the
unspeakable cruelties inflicted upon the peoples of this city. There is
theatre, there is cinema, music hall as well as drinking, drug taking and
sexual depravity that attracts people to its dark streets, and eponymously
gives this novel its title.
It was launched on Monday 25th March at Daunt Books
on the Marylebone Rd, London by Philip Kerr’s Editor Jane Wood, his wife the
novelist Jane Thynne and Howard
Jacobson, with their welcome recoded HERE
and embedded below
If you’ve not read the Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr,
then this excellent link HERE
acts as a primer
For many, these novels are extraordinary, the research, the
characters, the backdrop(s), but most critically the writing in these thrillers
is just so good, so thought provoking - these novels suck the air out of your
lungs.
Though
Philip Kerr wrote over 30 novels in his career, spanning many
sub-genres, it will be the 14 novels that featured Bernie Gunther
that he will be remembered for, his legacy as a novelist.
Miss
this novel (and its 13 precursors) at your peril, for the work of Philip Kerr, and Bernie Gunther’s philosophical
investigations sit at the top table of the crime fiction genre.
Shots
Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Jane Wood and her colleagues at
Quercus Publishing, the novelist Jane Thynne
and Daunt Books for a most enjoyable if melancholic evening.
