Product Description
An uncannily convincing thriller of alternate history in the tradition of Fatherland

Drawing on the rich historical knowledge he brought to his Berlin Noir trilogy, Philip Kerr constructs his most ambitious novel to date. In 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Tehran to plot the endgame of the war and set the terms of a German surrender. But what if Hitler was canny enough to realize that he could no longer win the war and was putting out peace feelers? And what if his offer threatened to destroy the alliance against him? With its time bomb of a plot and magisterial command of atmosphere, Hitler’s Peace takes the historical thriller into new territory.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 28 reviews)

Kerr-ing Favor

This was the first Philip Kerr novel I've read and based on other reviews, if it does not live up to the Berlin Noir series, I am excited to read them. I thought Hitler's Peace was a more than a decent WW II novel with very effective use of events both "here" and "there". The alternate version of who was looking for what amongst the Big Three was plausable as well, in my opinion. Lastly, I am always impressed when an author can pull off first and third person naratives in the same book; I thought it was very effective.
November 29, 2008

One for the Stuffed Owl

Once upon a time, D.B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee compiled "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse." While bad verse is everywhere so abundant that a collection of it may seem de trop, this is not just any bad verse. It is bad verse by good poets, and that of course is the point. "Hitler's Peace" is a bad book by an excellent writer; so bad that it's difficult to believe Philip Kerr wrote it. The style, the subtleties, and the context that informs "The One from the Other" and his superlative Bernie Gunther books is nowhere in evidence. In fact, he makes so many contextual mistakes that one suspects a malevolent ghost writer. His protagonist is fictional, so Kerr was free to draw him however he chose. But the historical characters upon whom the plot depends are real people; men about whom far too much is known to excuse the major mistakes in evidence here. Philip Kerr is an extraordinary writer. He's far too good for something like this. Read his good ones. Pretend this one never crossed your path.
October 15, 2008

entertaining and well done

Hitler's Peace is not one of Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, but a free-standing novel set in World War II, specifically around the time of the Big Three conference in Teheran, in occupied Iran, in 1943. Kerr uses a wide cast of real characters as well as a few fictional characters to tell a what-if story built around Schellenberg's and Himmler's peace feelers to the Allies of around that time.

Kerr's strength in all his books is character development as well as a stickler's attention to historical and atmospherical detail, and this book is no exception. He fleshes out the characters of his protagonist and (partially) first person narrator Willard Mayer, philosopher with an ambiguous past attached to FDR's retinue; Schellenberg, Himmler and Canaris; FDR, Churchill, Stalin and Hitler; as well as countless minor real or fictional characters along the way, and the trip takes us from Washington to London to the trip across the Atlantic on the Iowa with FDR, spending time in Tunis, Cairo, and of course Teheran. One can quibble with some of the characterizations of one or the other person, but on the whole I think Kerr gets all of this right. It is, after all, fiction.

Kerr's plot is based on the various motivations of all the key players, and they are, shall we say, many and multifarious. Murders follow Willard Mayer from Washington across the Atlantic, until the final climactic conference; Kerr weaves a complicated mess of a tale. If I have a problem with the book, it's that the ending is more than a little of a copout.

But on the whole, Hitler's Peace is not meant to be literature, and remains a very entertaining page-turner of a World War II novel. Kerr's powers as a writer lift it well above the average for that type of work.

October 06, 2008

Riveting, to a point

I was hooked almost immediately and planned to give it 5 stars. The absurd plot shift near the end, however, led me to shave off 2 stars. Still, it was an exciting, well written novel, and I look forward to reading "Berlin Noir."
July 11, 2008

Hitler's Peace

Hitler's Peace by Philip Kerr ***

Interesting enough to keep you reading, but the problem lies in motivating yourself to actually pick up the book and get going. This wanna-be espionage story is not worthy of Kerrs name. Where his previous work, such as the Berlin trilogy was exciting and well detailed that all seems lost here.

The premise of the book is interesting enough, in fact it's more than that and is actually one of the more original ideas in WWII fiction genre. As Hitler realizes he has no shot at winning the war he is cunning enough to formulate a plot to turn the allies against each other which would in turn take heat of him and open up holes the the fuhrer. Sounds fascinating, huh? not quite.

The plot at times becomes lost and loses focus more than a few times. The idea not being that far fetched that it could have really happened. Thought the authors slight exaggerations some of the real life characters' real relations with each other make the whole thing seem highly implausible.

Kerrs writing at times seems childish and not thought out. The lack of detail leaves the reader scratching their head in wonder rather than amazement as with his earlier work. Though as said before the story is interesting enough to keep the reader interested even though the book never really delivers.
July 11, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

The One from the Other
by Philip Kerr

Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem
by Philip Kerr

The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel
by Alan Furst

Dark Matter: The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton: A Novel
by Philip Kerr

The Pale Criminal
by Philip Kerr