If the Dead Rise Not

Winner of the 2009 International Prize for Noir Fiction, awarded by RBA.

Berlin, 1934: The Nazis have secured the 1936 Olympics. Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, have connived to soft pedal Nazi anti Semitism and convince America to participate. Bernie Gunther, a house detective at an upscale Berlin hotel, is swept into this world of international corruption and dangerous double dealing.

Havana, 1954: the American Mafia is quickly gaining a stranglehold on the city's exploding gaming and prostitution industries. Bernie has now resurfaced in Cuba with a new life of relative peace. But he discovers that he truly cannot outrun the burden of his past: He soon collides with a vicious killer from his Berlin days, who is mysteriously murdered not long afterward, and an old lover, who may be the murderer. 

If the Dead Rise Not has twisted intrigue, tight plot, a hang by your thumbs ending.