Munich in 1949 is a place where a private eye can find a lot of not-quite-reputable work. It fills Bernie Gunther with disgust - but it also fills his sorely depleted wallet. Then a woman seeks him out. Her husband has disappeared. She's not looking to get him back - he's a wanted man who ran one of the most vicious concentration camps in Poland. She just wants confirmation that he's dead.

Berlin, 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just 18 months but already Germany has seen some unpleasant changes. Forced to resign as a homicide detective, Bernie is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. The discovery of two bodies involves Bernie in the lives of two hotel guests. One is a beautiful journalist intent on persuading America to boycott the Berlin Olympiad; the other is a German-Jewish gangster who plans to use the Olympics to enrich himself.

It's 1954, and Bernie Gunther sails to Florida, where he's arrested, returned to Cuba, and imprisoned. There he meets Castro, and a French intelligence officer, Thibaud. Exhaustively questioned by Thibaud, Bernie is flown to Berlin with a proposition: work for the French or hang for murder. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him - in a way he could never have foreseen.

During a sweltering heat wave in the summer of 1938, the German people anxiously await the outcome of the Munich conference, wondering whether the Fuhrer will plunge Europe into another war. Meanwhile, private investigator Bernie Gunther is hired by a rich widow to find out who has been blackmailing her, as well as by the Berlin criminal police to track down a serial killer. Temporarily promoted to the rank of Kommissar, Gunther sets out to solve the dual mysteries amid the tensions of pre-war.

Bernie Gunther had his first brush with evil as a policeman in 1930s Berlin and came to know it intimately as a private eye under the Nazis, when each case drew him deeper into the enormities of the regime. Now the war is over and Gunther is in Vienna, trying to clear an old friend of the murder of an American officer. Amid decaying imperial splendour, he traces sprials of depravity that lead him to a former head of the Gestapo.

In 1942,there are worse places to be than Zurich, and detective Bernie Gunther has seen his fair share of them. So when a superior asks him to track down a glamorous German actress believed to be hiding in Zurich, he takes the job. The actress, it emerges, is the daughter of a fanatical Croatian fascist, the sadistic commandant of a notorious concentration camp, and Bernie finds himself involved in something much more sinister.

Ex-policeman Bernie Gunther thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin - until he turned freelance and he is sucked further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture. The year is 1936 and Berlin is preparing for the Olympic Games. Some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realise that they should have left while they could, and Bernie himself has been hired by a wealthy industrialist to investigate two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party.

Berlin, 1928, the dying days of the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. It was a period of decadence and excess as Berliners - after the terrible slaughter of WWI and the hardships that followed - are enjoying their own version of Babylon. Bernie is a young detective working in Vice when he gets a summons from Bernard Weiss, Chief of Berlin's Criminal Police. He invites Bernie to join KIA - Criminal Inspection A - the supervisory body for all homicide investigation in Kripo.

1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move sees him working for an insurance company. Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a ship that has sunk, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he’s convinced the sinking was no accident. Then the claimant is found dead. Bernie is strong-armed into helping the Greek police with their investigation. Who is behind the murder, and why?

Berlin, March 1943. The mood in Germany is bleak after their stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Private Investigator Bernie Gunther is at work in the German War Crimes Bureau - weary, cynical but well aware of the value of truth in a world where that's now a rarity. When human remains are found deep in the Katyn Forest, Bernie is sent to investigate. Rumour has it that this mass grave is full of Polish officers murdered by the Russians. For Josef Goebbels, proof of Russian involvement is sure to destroy the Western Alliance, giving Germany a chance to reverse its devastating losses.

It is 1956 on the French Riviera. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working as concierge at the Grand Hotel, living under a false name. Then his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service. Bernie never forgets a face, especially when it belongs to a mass murderer who, in 1945, was responsible for the deaths of thousands; among them a woman Bernie loved. Bernie has a score to settle with Hennig…

When Charlie Parker was still a boy, his father, a NYPD cop, killed a young couple, a boy and a girl barely older than his son, and then took his own life. There was no explanation for his actions. Now Parker is working on his most personal case yet: an investigation into his own origins and the circumstances surrounding the death of his father. The investigation will reveal a life haunted by lies, by secrets kept and loyalties compromised.

Europe, 1990. As the US begins to pull out its troops in a tide of isolationism, Britain is torn between its loyalties to the USA and its continental neighbours. In America, a space shuttle crashes on landing, killing all but one of the crew on-board: a British man named Mike Dreyfuss, who will become vilified by the US press and protesters. Halfway across the world, Martin Hepton, an English ground control technician watches as they lose contact with the most advanced satellite in Europe.

Nat, a 47-year-old veteran of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.  

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Sword Saint by C.F. Iggulden. Conn Iggulden is back with the spellbinding third instalment in the Empire of Salt trilogy.