Reading order
Berlin Noir trilogy reading order
1
2
3- 3 volumes
- Volumes
- 1989–1991
- Published
- about 15 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
Quick answer
Publication order
3 volumes1989–1991Completed
- Philip Kerr’s three crime novels about Bernie Gunther, a former Berlin police detective turned private investigator, cynical, funny and compromised, trying to keep some decency in Nazi Germany.
- March Violets is set in 1936 around the Olympic Games, The Pale Criminal in 1938, when Heydrich forces Bernie back into the police to catch a killer, and A German Requiem in the ruins of Berlin and Vienna in 1947.
- Chandler-style wisecracks against real historical darkness.
- Kerr returned to Bernie fifteen years later for many more books.
- Read in order.
A plan for the whole series
3 volumes, 824 pages, about 15 hours. At 45 min a day that is 20 days.
Stages
This series fits in one stage. You finish around November 18, 2026.
- Stage 115 h20 daysby November 18, 2026
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
No volume in this series has enough ratings to enter a ranking yet, so the list carries no scores — the order and the volumes are still complete.
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Which Berlin Noir trilogy book is the longest?
“A German Requiem” is the longest at 306 pages; the shortest is “March Violets” with 245 pages.
What should I read after Berlin Noir trilogy?
Other series by Philip Kerr: Children of the Lamp.
