Prague fatale. Philip Kerr. 2011.

Autumn 1941: Bernie Gunther is back from the carnage of the eastern front, still wrapped in his Berliner cynicism but now carrying a burden of nightmares and guilt. He is back working homicide at Krio. But this is the Krio taken hostage by the Nazis and, by 1941, it answers to Reinhard Heydrich. And so Bernie Gunther is now unhappily reunited with a man he both fears and hates.

Newly appointed Reichsprotector of what was, until 1938 Czechoslovakia. Heydrich believes he is the target of of an assassination plot orchestrated within the top echelons of the Reich, and he orders Gunther to Prague tomwatch his back.

To celebrate his new position, Heydrich has invited a carefully chosen assortment of high-ranking Party members for a weekend gathering. It soon becomes clear these men loathe one another.  Each has the personal backing of of a member of Hitler’s High Command, themselves a jealous and fractious bunch. Each carries his own baggage, best left buried. With such an odious collection of egos clustered in one place, it will be the weekend from hell.

Before the first night ends, a murder does occur - the victim found dead in his room, the door and windows bolted shut from inside  - and Heydrich hands it over to Gunther to solve.