Hailed by Salman Rushdie as a brilliantly innovative thriller-writer, Philip Kerr is the creator of taut, gripping, noir-tinged mysteries that are nothing short of spellbinding. In this second book of the Berlin Noir trilogy, "The Pale Criminal" brings back Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who thought hed seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlinuntil he turned freelance and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture. Hard-hitting, fast-paced, and richly detailed, "The Pale Criminal" is noir writing at its blackest and best.