Fast forward twenty years and Gunther is living quietly under an assumed name in Batista’s Cuba before the revolution. Who is that he sees in the local bookshop?

If The Dead Rise Not is superior crime fiction and makes for a highly entertaining read, but the brush strokes are that bit broader, the story a tad more predictable and the settings less convincingly real. Has the series settled into the formulaic? If we are in Cuba in the 50s does it have to be at Hemingway’s house? Does the detail owe more to a cultural memory of The Godfather Part 2 than to primary research?

Certainly Philip Kerr seems more determined to hold the audience’s hand, less inclined to make us work for our pleasures. For me there’s a little too much spoon-feeding exposition, more playing to the gallery, less confidence in the reader. Not something previously seen in earlier Bernie Gunther books but perhaps apparent in other Philip Kerrs.

The result is a curious half way house between an airport thriller and more psychological fare. A million miles better than a puerile Michael Dobbs, but falling short of the heights Kerr has already set with the same character. Perhaps this is simply an example of the ambivalence we feel when a private pleasure becomes public, because Bernie Gunther has certainly crossed over and Philip Kerr is not short of recognition for this achievement. I still love the series as a whole and hope this is a simple blipette rather than a more fundamental change in direction.