Philip Kerr Biography

British novelist, born in Edinburgh, educated at the University of Birmingham, where he studied Law. His first novel, March Violets (1989), set in Germany during the 1930s, features the detective Bernie Gunther; two further novels in this sequence are The Pale Criminal (1990) and A German Requiem (1991). In A Philosophical Investigation (1992), set in a future dystopia, Kerr used the detective genre to explore ideas about the nature of reality, making ingenious use of references to the writings of Wittgenstein and T. S. Eliot. His next novel, Dead Meat (1993), a detective story set in post-Communist St Petersburg, was dramatized for television as Grushko. The Gridiron (1995), set in Los Angeles, is a chilling thriller about a new hi-tech building totally controlled by computers designed by the architechnologist protagonist, Ray Richardson; the novel explores the grim potential of new technology. Kerr has also edited The Penguin Book of Lies (1990) and The Penguin Book of Fights, Feuds and Heartfelt Hatreds (1992).