Crime fiction roundup

“Greeks Bearing Gifts” By Philip Kerr, Putnam, 528 pages, $27

With Philip Kerr’s recent death, spy fiction lost one of its prized authors — and, in intrepid investigator Bernie Gunther, one of its great characters. “Greeks Bearing Gifts,” the 13th book in the Gunther series (Kerr is said to have completed a 14th before his death), may not be the best place to start for newcomers. That would be the “Berlin Noir Trilogy,” set during the Nazi era. But it doesn’t take much to get swept into Gunther’s latest adventure or taken in by his darkly witty commentary.

The book opens in 1957 with Gunther, the onetime commissar of Berlin’s Murder Squad, living under an alias in Munich as a morgue attendant. Gunther is hired as a claims adjuster in Athens to investigate the sinking of a ship and becomes embroiled in a set of murders tied to the theft of valuables from Salonika Jews sent to Auschwitz. Even as Gunther is targeted by a dirty German cop from his past, threatened with jail time by a Greek policeman as an accessory to a killing and subjected to a pervasive hatred of Germans in Greece, he is at no loss for acid humor: “Sometimes the nicest folk do the most horrible things,” he says. “Especially in Germany. … People are always surprised that we also like Mozart and small children.” “Macbeth” by Jo Nesbo, Hogarth, 464 pages, $27

Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” has been moderndressed (and cussed-up) many times on stage and screen. But Nordic crime stalwart Jo Nesbo sets his novel’s version in 1970s drugged-up, industrial England. Written in hardboiled noir style, the book casts Macbeth, who was sexually abused in an orphanage and became hooked on speed as a teenager, as the respected head of the SWAT unit. His conniving wife, Lady, “who once supported myself on the oldest profession in the world,” owns the swanky Inverness Casino. Owing to what she sees as Macbeth’s central flaw, his “lack of evil,” she has her work cut out for her in spurring him to kill Duncan, the honorable chief of police. All hell breaks loose — think of Kurosawa — after Duncan is found with a dagger in his neck and Macbeth assumes his job.

These may be the grimmest 446 pages you’ve read in a while, but with characters like the drug king Hecate, who wears a mustard-yellow cashmere coat and flashes a Rolex, there’s never a dull moment. An enjoyable addition to Hogarth’s Shakespeare series — which has invited other notable authors to reinvent Shakespeare’s works — Nesbo’s “Macbeth” may well inspire you to reread and rethink the original. “Bluff” by Michael Kardos, Mysterious, 288 pages, $26

In the tantalizing new thriller “Bluff,” Michael Kardos reveals himself to be a master at dealing from the middle of the deck. More than once, you’re sure of the fate of Natalie, a 27-year-old magician. But then Kardos fools you with his smooth shell game.

Told from the point of view of the tough-edged but vulnerable Natalie, who is desperate for a change of venue after flicking a playing card into an uncooperative participant’s eyeball on the New Jersey magic circuit, “Bluff ” employs a shaky device to plant her in a high-stakes poker game. She gets herself an assignment to write a magazine story about a successful cheater.

Otherwise, “Bluff ” doesn’t miss a trick. Natalie is thrilled to find herself in the presence of the shadowy Ellen, a suburban substitute teacher by day and the greatest hustler Natalie has ever seen by night. After rebuffing Natalie’s pleas to teach her the stupendous “Greek deal,” Ellen talks her into becoming her partner in a scam that promises to net them millions. Never mind who the real Ellen is. Who’s the real Natalie? In this O. Henry tale for the 21st century, the questions are as good as the answers.

Lloyd Sachs, a freelancer, writes regularly about crime fiction for the Tribune.