March Violets by Philip Kerr

March Violets is Scottish writer Philip Kerr's first novel. It is a detective story set in Nazi Germany during the Olympic games of 1936. Much like Walter Mosley's detective stories, the setting is one of the main characters in this novel. Anti-Semitism is rampant and the SS and Gestapo are already the most feared groups in Germany. You can be sent to a concentration camp for being a Jew, a Gypsy, gay, or just about any other crime the National Socialist German Workers Party deemed you had committed, the only difference is Jews and Gypsy's never came back. Bernhard Gunther is a smart mouthed Private Detective, who is not a member of the Nazi party, but not above a little profiteering. Missing persons are his specialty and in Nazi Germany there are plenty of people disappearing, mostly Jews. While he has sympathy for his clients, he is walking a fine line between making money and being picked up by the SS. When gets hired by a rich industrialist to find out who killed his daughter and return some missing jewels, things get interesting.

March Violets is the name given to late comers in the Nazi party; people who joined after the passage of Hitler's Enabling Act (rendering him dictator) on March 23, 1933. In May, the Nazi Party froze membership. Kerr does a great job of painting a picture of life during this seriously tense time. He has clearly done his research from the Olympics to the street names to the officers ranks. He also has a rye style, with tension breaking wit and a good sense of mystery.