The Good German - Softcover

Kanon, Joseph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312942109 ISBN 13: 9780312942106

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2006

Synopsis

The bestselling author of Los Alamos and Alibi returns to 1945. Hitler has been defeated, and Berlin is divided into zones of occupation. Jake Geismar, an American correspondent who spent time in the city before the war, has returned to write about the Allied triumph while pursuing a more personal quest: his search for Lena, the married woman he left behind. When an American soldier's body is found in the Russian zone during the Potsdam Conference, Jake stumbles on the lead to a murder mystery. The Good German is a story of espionage and love, an extraordinary re-creation of a city devastated by war, and a thriller that asks the most profound ethical questions in its exploration of the nature of justice, and what we mean by good and evil in times of peace and of war.

About this title

Review:

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

About the Author:

JOSEPH KANON is the author of four novels, including Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy, and Alibi. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0312942109
• ISBN 13: 9780312942106
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544