Reviews: e-books and audiobooks: Philip Kerr, H. P. Lovecraft, Wesley Chu

Philip Kerr is one of crime fiction's most elegant literary talents. His long-running series featuring Bernie Gunther is one of the most intriguing around. Gunther began life as a pretty decent policeman in the Bohemian mood of Weimar Republic Berlin before being coerced into becoming an investigator for the Nazis. An exquisite "Berlin Noir" trilogy extended into a 10-part series of high if variable quality. Set in 1942, The Lady From Zagreb largely takes place in Zurich where Gunther has been sent by his evil boss, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. His quarry is Dalia Dresner, a young and seductive actress whose (unconsummated) conquests include an obsessed Goebbels and before long a doting but dangerous Gunther. He must persuade her to appear in one of his master's propaganda pieces, fully aware that she will have to lie on the most unpleasant of casting couches. The story stretches from Switzerland to the then Yugoslavia, from American spies to double-dealing actresses.

The Lady From Zagreb by Philip Kerr (read by Jeff Harding) Whole Story (audiobook)

Naxos has taken two of horror master H.P. Lovecraft's shorter works and paired them for a brief but spooky encounter. Written in 1931, the novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth is narrated by a student who ends up in Innsmouth. A "queer" abandoned port in New England, it has a dark mythological past: sub-oceanic monsters who have their wicked way with local residents. Before long he's being chased by the half-human-half-monster children of this union. The reason becomes clear in a final twist. Also written in 1931, The Whisperer in Darkness is shorter, but no less effective. Professor Albert Wilmarth leads an exploration to prove the existence of monsters, who are rumoured to live in Vermont's hills. He and his party end up in the sort of sticky situation that would launch a thousand redneck exploitation movies in the 1970s. William Roberts' reading is high on melodrama, but lends real atmosphere to the overwrought slithers of gothic.