Books: The Pale Criminal By Philip Kerr

 (Drivebycuriosity) - The serial killer genre is huge and still growing. There are more and more books & movies about these creepy persons. The British writer Philip Kerr offers in his novel "The Pale Criminal" his own version (amazon ). 

The plot is set in Berlin in the late 1930s, short before WWII begins. A private investigator returns to his job as a police officer and investigates the cases of a row of under aged girls who have been abducted, raped, tortured and murdered. 

The story is spiced with grizzly details, but also humorous musings about Berlin, her residents and politics. Kerr especially made fun of Hitler, the Gestapo, SS, SA and other bad parts of Germany`s dark history. It seems the author was more interested in the bleak history than in the serial killer aspect. The book, part of a series, got onto my radar because I enjoyed once Kerr´s "Philosophical Investigation", a very different and much better book.