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A Man Without Breath

fast-paced historical thriller from a global bestselling author
Series: Bernie Gunther
4.18 goodreads logo

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( 6,642 ratings, 543 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr is set in the chilling backdrop of World War II, where Bernie Gunther, a savvy and resilient investigator, is called to the front lines. Tasked with uncovering Soviet war crimes in the Katyn Forest, he navigates a dangerous landscape filled with dark secrets and political tension. As he delves deeper into the investigation, he finds himself confronting the sinister realities of war and the murky moral choices it demands.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're intrigued by historical mysteries set against the backdrop of World War II. It skilfully blends crime investigation with rich historical details and a dark, atmospheric setting. Fans of intricate plots and engaging noir storytelling will appreciate the clever detective work and unexpected twists.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Set in the darkest days of World War II, A Man Without Breath pitches Bernie Gunther into the most politically sensitive case of his career.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Berlin, March 1943. The mood in Germany is bleak after their stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Private Investigator Bernie Gunther is at work in the German War Crimes Bureau — weary, cynical but well aware of the value of truth in a world where that's now a rarity.

When human remains are found deep in the Katyn Forest, Bernie is sent to investigate. Rumour has it that this mass grave is full of Polish officers murdered by the Russians. For Josef Goebbels, proof of Russian involvement is sure to destroy the Western Alliance, giving Germany a chance to reverse its devastating losses. But supposing the truth is far more damaging to the German cause?

It's Bernie Gunther's job to give Goebbels what he needs. But when there's nothing left for Gunther to lose, the compulsion to speak the truth becomes ever stronger...

Series: Bernie Gunther

View all
  • The Lady From Zagreb
    Summer 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favour to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke... One year later, resurfacing from the hell of the Eastern Front, a superior gives him another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Other Side of Silence
    The French Riviera, 1956. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working under a false name as a hotel concierge. His attempts to keep his nose clean go horribly awry when a wartime acquaintance sucks him into a blackmail plot involving one of the most famous British writers of the 20th century and the notorious Cambridge Spies. Bernie is missing his old...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Field Grey
    'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD 'A man doesn't work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.' So says Bernie Gunther. It is 1954 and Bernie is in Cuba. Tiring of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky, Bernie acquires a boat and a beautiful companion and quits the island. But the...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Prussian Blue
    The twelfth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carré and Charles Cumming. Lee Child calls Bernie Gunther 'one of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'. France, 1956. Bernie Gunther is on the run. If there's one thing he's learned, it's never to refuse a job from a high-ranking secret policeman....
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • A Quiet Flame
    ‘One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written’ LEE CHILD Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal, Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie's final case as...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Metropolis
    Berlin detective Bernie Gunther bows out at last in the 14th and final book of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series. With an introduction by Ian Rankin. 'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD 'One of the greatest master storytellers in English' ALAN FURST Metropolis is set in Berlin, 1928, at the height of the...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • If the Dead Rise Not
    ‘One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written’ LEE CHILD As Berlin prepares for the 1936 Olympic Games, Bernie is caught between violently opposing factions in a story that comes full circle in 1950s' Cuba. Berlin 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months, but already Germany has seen some frightening changes. As the city prepares to host...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Prague Fatale
    'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD Bernie Gunther returns to his desk on homicide from the horrors of the Eastern Front to find Berlin changed for the worse. He begins to investigate the death of a railway worker, but is obliged to drop everything when Reinhard Heydrich of the SD orders him to Prague to spend a...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
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  • A Man Without Breath
    Berlin, March 1943. The mood in Germany is bleak after their stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Private Investigator Bernie Gunther is at work in the German War Crimes Bureau — weary, cynical but well aware of the value of truth in a world where that's now a rarity. When human remains are found deep in the Katyn Forest, Bernie is sent...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The One From The Other
    'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' - LEE CHILD Bernie Gunther has learned the hard way 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—a lifesaving skill in the dangerous years of postwar Germany. Munich, 1949: Amid the...
    Paperback
    $2799
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    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Greeks Bearing Gifts
    Bernie Gunther returns in the thirteenth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris. 'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' — LEE CHILD 'Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature' — TOM HANKS 'One of the greatest master storytellers...
    Paperback
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr received praise from the Financial Times for being compelling and elegantly constructed. The Sunday Times commended it as richly layered and remarkable.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781780876276

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 October 2013

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Quercus Publishing

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 37.0mm

Width: 126.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 366g

Pages: 528

About the Author

Philip Kerr is the author of ten internationally bestselling Bernie Gunther novels. If the Dead Rise Not won the CWA Ellis Peters Award for Best Historical Novel. His other books include several stand-alone thrillers and acclaimed series for children. He lives in south-west London.

Also by Philip Kerr

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  • March Violets
    The first in the iconic Berlin Noir series. Bernhard Gunther is a private eye, specialising in missing persons. And in Hitler's Berlin, he's never short of work. Winter 1936. A man and his wife have been shot dead in their bed. The woman's father, a millionaire industrialist, wants justice - and the priceless diamonds that disappeared along with her life....
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Field Grey
    'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD 'A man doesn't work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.' So says Bernie Gunther. It is 1954 and Bernie is in Cuba. Tiring of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky, Bernie acquires a boat and a beautiful companion and quits the island. But the...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Berlin Noir
    A reissue with a brand new cover of the thriller classic – the first three Bernie Gunther novels in one volume. Ex-policeman Bernie Gunther thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930's Berlin. But then he went freelance, and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi sub-culture. And even after the war, amidst...
    Paperback
    $3400
    Elsewhere:
    $3700
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Lady From Zagreb
    Summer 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favour to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke... One year later, resurfacing from the hell of the Eastern Front, a superior gives him another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Other Side of Silence
    The French Riviera, 1956. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working under a false name as a hotel concierge. His attempts to keep his nose clean go horribly awry when a wartime acquaintance sucks him into a blackmail plot involving one of the most famous British writers of the 20th century and the notorious Cambridge Spies. Bernie is missing his old...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • A Quiet Flame
    ‘One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written’ LEE CHILD Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal, Bernie Gunther arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie's final case as...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Shot
    Riveting... as shocking as it is brilliant Daily Mail A cleverly contrived reworking of the Kennedy assassination myth The Times A really terrific read Literary Review Darkly imaginative alternative history thriller from the global bestseller and author of the Bernie Gunther thrillers. America, 1960. In Washington, DC, John F Kennedy has just been elected President. In Havana, Fidel Castro has...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Prussian Blue
    The twelfth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carré and Charles Cumming. Lee Child calls Bernie Gunther 'one of the greatest anti-heroes ever written'. France, 1956. Bernie Gunther is on the run. If there's one thing he's learned, it's never to refuse a job from a high-ranking secret policeman....
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • If the Dead Rise Not
    ‘One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written’ LEE CHILD As Berlin prepares for the 1936 Olympic Games, Bernie is caught between violently opposing factions in a story that comes full circle in 1950s' Cuba. Berlin 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months, but already Germany has seen some frightening changes. As the city prepares to host...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Metropolis
    Berlin detective Bernie Gunther bows out at last in the 14th and final book of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series. With an introduction by Ian Rankin. 'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD 'One of the greatest master storytellers in English' ALAN FURST Metropolis is set in Berlin, 1928, at the height of the...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Prayer
    Set in the USA, a chilling modern horror story from the bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther series of historical thrillers. Special Agent Gil Martins investigates domestic terrorism for the Houston FBI. Once a religious man, now his job makes him question the existence of a God who could allow the violence he sees every day. Gil is asked to...
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  • Research
    Set in the South of France, this fiendishly clever thriller delves into the back-stabbing literary world, brought to you by Philip Kerr, the bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther series of prize-winning historical novels. Imagine Robert Harris's The Ghost merging with Patricia Highsmith's intricate plots. If you want to write a murder mystery, you have to do some research, or...
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