The Other Side of Silence by Philip Kerr

They were risky creatures, women, but that's what life was for -- to take risks.
--Philip Kerr, The Other Side of Silence (G.P. Putnam, 2016)

The spy novel has fallen on hard times since the fall of the Soviet Union and while some, such as John le Carre,, look for new villains others, such as Alan Furst, are writing historical spy novels, with an emphasis on WW II.  Kerr started out with The Berlin Noir Trilogy, with police official Bernie Gunther in Nazi Germany, and then has followed Bernie after the war.  The Other Side of Silence takes place mostly in Nice in 1956, with a few flashbacks to WWII and its aftermath.  Bernie is working as a hotel concierge and falls for a femme fatale, who of course betrays him.  I've always had something of a weakness for real people in novels and W. Somerset Maugham, who was living in Nice in 1956, plays an important role in Kerr's novel.  It adds considerably to one's enjoyment of Kerr's book if one has read Maugham's novels and the excellent recent biography by Selina Hastings, with its detailed discussion about Maugham's role as a spy. In Kerr's book there's also a great deal about British spies --Maclean, Philby, Burgess -- and the attempts of the East German Stasi and British intelligence to outwit each other.

The Other Side of Silence should have been better, however.  Gunther cracks wise too often and though his narration starts off with "yesterday I tried to kill myself" the air of melancholy soon dissipates in the excessively convoluted plot, including flashbacks to Nazi Germany and the death of Gunther's lover and their unborn child in the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945.  Kerr is steeped in knowledge of the periods and countries he writes about but the characters are not as vividly alive as I would like; perhaps they spend too much time playing bridge.