Name: The Good German
Rating: 3 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9780786236558

Joseph Kanon

At the end of World War II, former CBS Berlin correspondent Jake Geismer manages to wangle one of the coveted press slots for the Potsdam Conference. His assignment leads to a larger story of corruption and intrigue.

The Good German

Jake Geismar cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in pre-war Berlin. When he returns in 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference he finds the city unrecognisable - streets have vanished beneath the rubble, familiar landmarks truncated by high explosive. But amongst the ruins Berliners survive, including some he knew and, miraculously, his lost love, Lena. However, in the same way she refused to leave with him before the war, Lena won't join him now without finding her husband and Emil has disappeared from the safe care of the Americans who, turning a blind eye to his links with Hitler, want his expertise as a rocket designer for themselves. Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties. This superb novel from the author of Leaving Berlin is now rightly considered a modern classic.

Rohan Uddin

Good, Complex, and yet thrilling. Kanon's "The Good German" serves its purpose as a crime drama of the post-WWII Berlin. Although the novel may be more interesting to a person who knows a lot about Germany and knows German, it was still a Good Read.

American journalist Jake Geismar returns to occupied Berlin to write about the Allied victory while searching for a love he left behind.

Francine Corry

A dramatic saga of intrigue and love set against the tumultous backdrop of Berlin in 1945 follows Jake Geismar, a former Berlin correspondent for CBS assigned to do a series of articles on the American occupation of Berlin, as he tries to find Lena, the German mistress he left behind, and stumbles upon a murder, which hurls him into a dark underworld of corruption. Reissue. (A Warner Bros. film, directed by Steven Soderberg, releasing Fall 2006, starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, & Tobey Maguire) (Suspense)

The Good German

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