This compelling thriller is both a touching love story and a masterful portrayal of the struggle for geopolitical control of postwar Germany. Network correspondent Jake Geismar, who covered Berlin before the war, has returned to the devastated city, ostensibly to cover the Potsdam Conference but actually to find the woman he loves. Miraculously, Lena Brandt, Jake's wartime mistress, has survived. However, her mathematician husband is missing, and both the American and Russian intelligence services are hunting him. When the bullet-ridden body of an American soldier washes up on the shores of Potsdam in front of Jake's eyes just as Truman, Churchill, and Stalin convene the first postwar conference, Jake is plunged into a maelstrom of intrigue, corruption, and betrayal.

A brilliantly evoked portrait of a unique moment in history (the end of one war and the beginning of another), The Good German amply fulfills the promise shown by Joseph Kanon in his two earlier novels, Los Alamos and The Prodigal Spy. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Again taking one of the 20th century's most momentous periods as a backdrop, Kanon recreates Berlin in the months following WWII in this lavishly atmospheric thriller overburdened with political and romantic intrigue. Though driven by strong characters and rich historical detail, the book ultimately falters under the weight of a ponderous, edgeless plot. At the center of the drama is Jake Geismar, a journalist who arrives in Berlin ostensibly to cover the Potsdam Conference. In reality, he's consumed with finding his prewar lover, Lena, with whom he carried on a torrid affair unbeknownst to her husband. Before he finds her, however, Geismar becomes intrigued by the murder of an American soldier whose body washes ashore near the conference grounds. The military's reluctance to investigate or provide any details of the murder convinces Geismar that this could be his big story. Though he's warned not to meddle, Geismar can't resist the story's draw. His investigation leads him deeply into Berlin's agonizing struggle for survival its black market, its collective guilt and its citizens' feeble attempts to wash themselves clean of wartime atrocities. And, most importantly, Geismar learns of the Allies' frantic attempts to round up Nazi scientists, including Lena's husband, Emil, whose expertise with missiles made Germany such a fierce enemy. Kanon (Los Alamos; The Prodigal Spy) is at his strongest when giving voice to the hard choices and moral dilemmas of the times, yet he labors at bringing his plot to a close and blurs its core in the process. While his descriptive skills have never been sharper the writing is uniformly elegant Kanon's third thriller since leaving his job as a publising executive digs in when it should be attacking. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Publishing executive-turned-novelist Kanon here goes back to 1945 Berlin, where CBS correspondent Jake Geismar has gone to cover the U.S. occupation and look for his lost mistress. A murdered U.S. soldier complicates matters. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Set amidst the rubble of a just-vanquished Third Reich Berlin, this third thriller by the author of Los Alamos is made less than thrilling by weak plotting. Jake Geismar, a U.S. reporter assigned to cover the Potsdam Conference for Collier's magazine, stumbles upon a story that is intertwined with his own life. Though he has returned to Berlin primarily to reunite with his prewar lover, Geismar confronts a Germany he no longer recognizes. Further, he is compelled to solve the murder of an American soldier found with a money belt stuffed with black-market cash. The book's title is by turns ironic and laden with pathos. Unfortunately, the characters are stereotypes, in particular the Russians are we returning to the height of Cold War antagonism? Recommended only to meet demand, which may be considerable, given the book's heavy-duty marketing budget.- David Dodd, Marin Cty. Free Lib., San Rafael, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
At the very beginning of Kanon's novel, Michael Kramer makes an unfortunate choice that will plague his entire performance. It is not a mistake of skill so much as proportion. The novel, based in post-war Germany, concerns the morally ambiguous competition between the United States and the Soviet Union--emerging Cold War foes--for the brain-power of the German scientists who, until recently, served the Third Reich. From the start, Kramer elects a delivery rooted in noir sensibilities, one well-suited to a Raymond Chandler novel but somewhat off the mark here. By investing such disdain and cynicism in say, the machinations of an American congressman trying to wring political benefits from the tragedy of the war, Kramer leaves himself little room when Kanon turns to crimes of truly monstrous dimensions, namely the Holocaust itself. He oversells early, which limits him the rest of the way. M.O. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* What Carol Reed's film The Third Man did for Vienna immediately after World War II, Kanon's superb thriller does for Berlin during the same period. Jake Geismar, CBS Berlin correspondent before the war, jumps at the chance to return to the German capital to cover the Potsdam Conference. His real motive isn't postwar politics, though; it's finding the German girl, Lena, he left behind. What he finds first, however, is the dead body of an American soldier washed ashore near the conference grounds. Despite the efforts of the American brass to sweep the G.I.'s death under the bureaucratic rug, Jake smells a story, and the trail leads him to Lena. As he displayed in the Edgar-winning Los Alamos (1997), Kanon is a master at surrounding a legendary historical moment with a labyrinthine thriller plot and an involving love story. Here that historical moment--Berlin at its most post-apocalyptic--drives both the thriller, which involves American and Russian attempts to snatch German rocket scientists (one of whom is Jake's girl's husband), and the love story, which must rise phoenix-like from the rubble of bombed-out buildings and ruined lives. Hovering over it all is the legacy of the Holocaust--on the postwar world, on Germany, and on individual men and women, whose ability to feel has been deadened by the nearness of evil. Kanon hits every note just right, from the wide-angle descriptions of Berlin's pockmarked moonscape to the tellingly detailed portraits of the city's shellshocked survivors. Superb popular fiction, combining propulsive narrative drive with a subtle grasp of character and a fine sense of moral ambiguity. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

Joseph Kanon, who won an Edgar for Los Alamos, has written a noir thriller about an CBS radio reporter, the Potsdam Conference, and the corpse of a solitary American soldier. When government authorities move to cover-up the dead G.I., reporter Jake Geismar smells a story. Waiting in the wings are Russian and American plots and counterplots, one beautiful woman, and a story as stylish as it is exciting.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"With World War II finally coming to an ending, Jake Geismar, former Berlin correspondent for CBS, has wangled one of the coveted press slots for the Potsdam Conference. His assignment: a series of articles on the Allied occupation. His personal agenda: to find Lena, the German mistress he left behind at the outbreak of the war. When he stumbles onto a murder - an American soldier has washed up on a lakeshore on the conference grounds - he thinks he has found the key that will unlock his Berlin story." "What Jake finds instead is a larger story of corruption and intrigue reaching deep into the heart of the occupation. After twelve years of Nazi rule, six years of war, and months of brutal treatment by the Russians, Berlin has finally arrived at zero hour, a city not only physically but morally devastated. Children scavenge for food in the rubble, sex can be had for a cigarette, and heirlooms are traded for cans of PX rations. American GIs, flush with black market money, live in requisitioned villas and fraternize in underground jazz clubs; meanwhile, the air remains thick with mortar dust, and corpses still float in the canals. Berlin in July 1945 is like nowhere else - a tragedy, and a feverish party after the end of the world." And nothing is simple. As Jake searches the ruins for Lena, he discovers that years of war have led to unimaginable displacement and degradation. As he hunts for the soldier's killer, he learns that Berlin has become a city of secrets, a lunar landscape that seethes with social and political tension. When the two searches become entangled, Jake comes to understand that the American Military Government is already fighting a new enemy in the east, busily identifying the "good Germans" who can help with the next war. And hanging over everything is the larger crime, a crime so huge that it seems - the worst irony - beyond punishment.

FROM THE CRITICS

Ken Ringle - Los Angeles Times

Scores of Cold War thrillers have set out to walk the same teleological territory, but few have done so as compellingly and as searchingly as The Good German. Kanon demonstrates an eerie mastery of the evocative historical detail. His Berlin is both a tree-shaded prewar memory and a bomb-blasted postwar hellscape where mile upon mile of burned-out buildings gape skyward like decayed teeth. You can feel the shattered glass crunching beneath your feet as you read.

New York Times Book Review

The Good German is thoroughly captivating, a novel that brings to life the ambiguities at the heart of our country's moral legacy. It also offers the promise of a writer who is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of Le Carré and Greene but even of Orwell: provocative, fully realized fiction that explores, as only fiction can, the reality of history as it is lived by individual men and women.

Booklist

What Carol Reed's film "The Third Man" did for Vienna immediately after World War II, Kanon's superb thriller does for Berlin during the same period. Jake Geismar, CBS Berlin correspondent before the war, jumps at the chance to return to the German capital to cover the Potsdam Conference. His real motive isn't postwar politics, though; it's finding the German girl, Lena, he left behind. What he finds first, however, is the dead body of an American soldier washed ashore near the conference grounds. Despite the efforts of the American brass to sweep the G.I.'s death under the bureaucratic rug, Jake smells a story, and the trail leads him to Lena. As he displayed in the Edgar-winning Los Alamos (1997), Kanon is a master at surrounding a legendary historical moment with a labyrinth thriller plot and an involving love story. Here that historical moment -- Berlin at its most post-apocalyptic -- drives both the thriller, which involves American and Russian attempts to snatch German rocket scientists (one of whom is Jake's girl's husband), and the love story, which must rise phoenix-like from the rubble of bombed-out buildings and ruined lives. Hovering over it all is the legacy of the Holocaust -- on the postwar world, on Germany, and on individual men and women, whose ability to feel has been deadened by the nearness of evil. Kanon hits every note just right, from the wide-angle descriptions of Berlin's pockmarked moonscape to the tellingly detailed portraits of the city's shellshocked survivors. Superb popular fiction, combining propulsive narrative drive with a subtle grasp of character and a fine sense of moral ambiguity.

Publishers Weekly

Again taking one of the 20th century's most momentous periods as a backdrop, Kanon recreates Berlin in the months following WWII in this lavishly atmospheric thriller overburdened with political and romantic intrigue. Though driven by strong characters and rich historical detail, the book ultimately falters under the weight of a ponderous, edgeless plot. At the center of the drama is Jake Geismar, a journalist who arrives in Berlin ostensibly to cover the Potsdam Conference. In reality, he's consumed with finding his prewar lover, Lena, with whom he carried on a torrid affair unbeknownst to her husband. Before he finds her, however, Geismar becomes intrigued by the murder of an American soldier whose body washes ashore near the conference grounds. The military's reluctance to investigate or provide any details of the murder convinces Geismar that this could be his big story. Though he's warned not to meddle, Geismar can't resist the story's draw. His investigation leads him deeply into Berlin's agonizing struggle for survival its black market, its collective guilt and its citizens' feeble attempts to wash themselves clean of wartime atrocities. And, most importantly, Geismar learns of the Allies' frantic attempts to round up Nazi scientists, including Lena's husband, Emil, whose expertise with missiles made Germany such a fierce enemy. Kanon (Los Alamos; The Prodigal Spy) is at his strongest when giving voice to the hard choices and moral dilemmas of the times, yet he labors at bringing his plot to a close and blurs its core in the process. While his descriptive skills have never been sharper the writing is uniformly elegant Kanon's third thriller since leaving his job as a publisingexecutive digs in when it should be attacking. BOMC featured selection; $150,000 marketing campaign; movie rights optioned by Warner Bros.; 12-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal