March Violets

For the goth rock band of the 1980s, see The March Violets.

March Violets
The cover of the Penguin Books edition of the novel
Author(s)	Philip Kerr
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Berlin Noir
Genre(s)	Crime, Detective, Mystery novel
Publisher	Viking Press, London
Publication date	1989
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	466 pp (Hardback edition)
ISBN	978-0670824311
OCLC Number	20427383
Dewey Decimal	823/.914 20
LC Classification	PR6061.E784 M37 1989
Followed by	The Pale Criminal

March Violets is a detective novel and the first written by Philip Kerr featuring detective Bernhard Gunther. Gunther investigates the murder of the daughter of a wealthy industrialist in Berlin as the 1936 Summer Olympics play out in the city. The major themes of the novel include the every-day violence and anti-Semitism of the regime and the inability or unwillingness of ordinary Germans to act in the face of the coming war. (“March violets” were late-comers to the Nazi Party after the passage of Hitler's Enabling Act (rendering him dictator) on March 23, 1933. In May, the Nazi Party froze membership.)