George McDonald Fraser's Flashman vs Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther

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Now that PK's Bernie G has hit the 12-novel mark at which George McDonald's Flashgun will never leave, which writer/character do you prefer and why?

Essentially both characters are borrowed (Flashy from Tom Browne's Schooldays and Bernie from Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe) and both writers lean heavily on actual historic events in their plots.

For me, GMF and Flashy just shade it for the sheer audacity with which the pair pillage history (with sources all exhaustively footnoted, too!). That said, the new Bernie G novel, Prussian Blue is not to be missed.

[Jimbo]

I'll go with Flashman for the gut laughs I get with the history, though Bernie does have some great one liners. Flashman for Freedom might be my favorite from that series where he rescues the most obnoxious and uppity slave ever and cares not a whit when he throws him off the riverboat. And his meet-up with Lincoln - and Lincoln see right through him - is hilarious. March Violets tops out for my favorite Bernie Gunther book. How he needs to hold himself back from giving the Nazi salute because it has become so ubiquitous, itiis hard not to do it. I may have to reread, or do my Flashman books anew audio style.

Have you read any of the Hap and Leonard books by Joe R. Lansdale? Funny and hard boiled.

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Yes, the other thing that I love about Flashman is how the era in which they are set gives GMF total freedom to offend pretty much anyone he pleases.

As have not read a Flashy book for about 15 years, I really should dust them off and submerge myself in them all again. Audio books would be a great way to go. That said, not sure who reads (or I would like to hear read) them.

Cannot fathom why no enterprising TV production company hasn't done Flashmam as a series a la Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe novels. Maybe the dismal box office failure of Richard Lester's 1975 film of the first book with Malcolm McDowell as Flashy (perfect casting or what?) put them off.

[Jimbo]

The audio book readers are usually very good. The do pull off the different voices male, female, children so that I don't mind. And there are usually British actors reading the British stories. The Bernie Gunther guy does the German words well, too.

[copehead]

Never heard of the other guy so Flashman.
One the greatest bits of historical novel writing ever because the protagonist was so well chosen and the accounts so "honest".

The man really is a piece of shit but you cannot help liking him and rooting for him.

I am sad that GMF died before he could flesh out his American Civil War novel, we get right up to the point where war will break out but it stops there.

The Zulu wars were never fully fleshed out either

My favourite is Flashman and the Redskins which follows on from Flash for Freedom and then skips ahead to the consequences years later as Flashy makes his last stand alongside Custer.
His Indian name?
He who rides so fast he breaks the wind - Windbreaker

Quite appropriate after his actions that lead to the charge of the Light Brigade.

That is another brilliant book that fully investigates the cordial hatred of Raglan and Cardigan.

Then there is the Indian Mutiny novel which is brilliant.

[Jimbo]

Never heard of the other guy.

Dude … The character Bernie Gunther is a cop with the regular German police as the Nazis are coming to power. Read March Violets.

[copehead]

Never heard of the other guy.

Dude … The character Bernie Gunther is a cop with the regular German police as the Nazis are coming to power. Read March Violets.

Thanks I will give them a go

What is the first in the series and who is the author again

[Jimbo]

Never heard of the other guy.

Dude … The character Bernie Gunther is a cop with the regular German police as the Nazis are coming to power. Read March Violets.

Thanks I will give them a go

What is the first in the series and who is the author again

Phillip Kerr and March Violets is the first.

[copehead]

Dude … The character Bernie Gunther is a cop with the regular German police as the Nazis are coming to power. Read March Violets.

Thanks I will give them a go

What is the first in the series and who is the author again

Phillip Kerr and March Violets is the first.

Done Thanks
Arigato gas I mas

[...]

This one has got the first three volumes and at just under UK£15 is probably much better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlin-Noir-Vi ... hilip+Kerr

[copehead]

This one has got the first three volumes and at just under UK£15 is probably much better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlin-Noir-Vi ... hilip+Kerr

Kindle version 99p!!

[Jimbo]

This one has got the first three volumes and at just under UK£15 is probably much better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlin-Noir-Vi ... hilip+Kerr

Kindle version 99p!!

Send me an old iPod and I'll load it up with audio books and send it back to you.

[copehead]

This one has got the first three volumes and at just under UK£15 is probably much better value

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlin-Noir-Vi ... hilip+Kerr

Kindle version 99p!!

Send me an old iPod and I'll load it up with audio books and send it back to you.

meet me at Fukuoka airport next Wednesday at 9am, Korean Air check in

[KeithPratt]

I've only read Kerr and I thought they were good books, but I probably don't need to read any more than the first 3.

I'll probably give GMD a go at some point.

[Fonz]

Dude … The character Bernie Gunther is a cop with the regular German police as the Nazis are coming to power. Read March Violets.

Thanks I will give them a go

What is the first in the series and who is the author again

Phillip Kerr and March Violets is the first.

I'm reading this at the moment.
It's ok, but I am finding some of the 'humour' and the metaphors a bit trying, like it really really wants to be Marlowe. I gather Kerr tones down some of these contrivances in later books, which can only be a good thing, because I need a new 'serial' to get into.
It's certainly making me think about pre-war Germany though, which is a good thing at the moment...

[KeithPratt]

Kerr's hero is just a bit too obvious for me - a pragmatic cop in Nazi germany who's not a Nazi. I mean, it's pretty obvious and it makes it readable from the outset because the moral geography of the story is outlined right from the start and never really wavers, at least in the books I've read. Does this change at all?

[Jimbo]

Kerr's hero is just a bit too obvious for me - a pragmatic cop in Nazi germany who's not a Nazi. I mean, it's pretty obvious and it makes it readable from the outset because the moral geography of the story is outlined right from the start and never really wavers, at least in the books I've read. Does this change at all?

No but it does follow a historical chronology. It gets into the cold war later on.

[...]

Kerr's hero is just a bit too obvious for me - a pragmatic cop in Nazi germany who's not a Nazi. I mean, it's pretty obvious and it makes it readable from the outset because the moral geography of the story is outlined right from the start and never really wavers, at least in the books I've read. Does this change at all?

In the latter novels, PK opens up the 'Bernieverse' with his getting recruited to do various dirty jobs by Reinhard Heydrich and even becoming an unwilling participant in/witness of events like the Katyn Massacre (A Man Without Breath).

PK also expands the scope of the books to cover war criminals on the run after the end of WW2. The two most recent books, for example, open in the French Riviera in the 1950s and then double back in time.

Useful resource for fans of BG (including a chronological list of what happens in the books rather than the order in which PK wrote them) here

http://berniegunther.com

[Jimbo]

Just released in audio, book 12 in the series. My next listen!