The Death of the Führer by Roland Puccetti

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The Death of the Führer (1972) by Roland Puccetti

If pure literary pulp essence could be distilled and ingested in book form, The Death of the Führer by Roland Puccetti might very well be the end result. An outlandish tale relayed in breathless first-person narrative, this book isn’t simply fast-paced, it hurtles relentlessly with reckless abandon from one set-piece to the next, never allowing its reader to dwell on the last preposterous development before throwing its protagonist into the next level of escalating danger. 

Our hero is Karl Gisevious, a doctor prior to WWII, who is now a reporter investigating a lead gleaned from a Russian doctor’s deathbed confession. The doctor claims to have been a participant in the autopsy of Adolf Hitler and was a witness to the fact that the body’s brain had been previously removed. This of course means that the Führer may still be alive, his brain now powering a different body. 

It becomes quickly apparent that our ostensible hero is not only continuously inept, lacking in any real sense of planning or forethought, but he is also the luckiest investigator in history—every single lead and assumption pays off every single time, which in turn provides an opportunity for him to bungle everything yet again. However, this only makes the whole affair all the more fun and endearing. 

It’s all so ludicrous that it begins to seem like Puccetti is playing some demented game in which he is constantly trying to one-up his last over the top situation. And then there’s “The Sex Scene.” This book is infamous for one of the most audaciously conceived sex scenes in the history of pulp fiction. I won’t spoil it here but you WILL know it when you reach it! 

Lest it appear I am calling this a bad book, that is not at all my intention; this book is a hoot, a classic example of “so bad it’s good!” As long as you approach it with an understanding of what it is, you can’t help but be lured in by its utter insanity. Recommended!

Review by Steve Carroll

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