Rating: 
Summary: Sehr Gut!
Review: "The Good German" takes you through a maze of intrigue and tension, eventually delivering a satisfying tale. A war correspondent investigates a murder in post-war Berlin. In the process he rediscovers his true love while sinking deeper into the first battles of the Cold War. Author Kanon does a superb job on the setting where you see, feel and smell the devastation of this bombed-out city. He achieves realistic complexity in his characters - war survivors attempting to rationalize their role while trying to build a new life. This novel's only challenge is that the intial snale's pace cloaks the later excitement and intrigue. I listened to the audio version and thoroughly enjoyed Stanley Tucci's wonderful accents. Therefore, I recommend "The Good German" -- especially the audio tape. It's good drama mixed with some interesting history. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Who is the "Good German ?"
Review: In this fictional romance detective (mystery/thriller) novel Joseph Kanon works with real historical facts (Allied occupation of Berlin in the summer of 1945) and places (Berlin and environs of Potsdam and Grunewald) to create a MORALLY INTROSPECTIVE plot. Historical facts are presented to show the evils done not only by the Nazis, but also the Russian soldiers, and the American GIs.As some of the other reviewers mentioned, this novel is not great for it's detective story. Our action-hero, Jake/Jacob Geismar, is a war-correspondent for the US Army and seems to survive many incredulous circumstances. The complexity of the novel is much more than untangling a web of mystery in the underground world of post-WWII Berlin. At the heart of the novel is the MORAL EXPLORATION of what we mean by good and evil, and of the nature of justice in times of war and relative peace. As such, the title "The Good German" is a key to understanding the moral intricacies of the characters presented in this novel. This title is echoed in only four places (as far as I could notice). So what does it mean to be a "good German?" According to Joseph Kanon:
a) "Not a Nazi." (pg. 72)
b) De-nazified German scientists. (pg. 265)
c) Gunther, a German policeman during the war and detective-for-hire under occupied Berlin who was also an Iron Cross veteran (1917) during the Great World War. (pg. 464)
d) Americanzined Germans (German scientists and German population who is willing to forget the past and get with the new program: the new war, the Cold War).
Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced detective story explores German guilt
Review: The novel takes place at ground zero of the end of the European war-the gutted Reichstag building, Hitler's bunker and the Brandenburg Gate. This Berlin is a rubble-strewn wasteland riddled with drunken Russian and American occupations troops, many scavenging for souvenirs and female companionship. More destitute refugees pour in everyday. In the middle of this maelstrom, an American reporter for Collier's Magazine--Jewish--arrives. He lived (and loved) in Berlin before the war, leaving the city when he still could, and leaving behind the woman he loved. He returns determined to see if she has still survived. It is next to impossible to find anything sensible written about what Germans could have done once they learned about the Nazis' campaign to rid Europe of all Jews. Most authors on this subject have sharp ideological axes to grind, and hector the reader on how heroic they would have been in similar circumstances-failing only to mention that they would also be dead. Kanon takes many stabs at this volatile subject from the point of view of a number of the German and a few Jewish survivors. Unlike lofty modern moralists, the narratives of the inhabitants describe their individual situations which are as varied as their fallible characters. One wonder of this nuanced work is that-just as in real life-only one of Kanon's characters can make a solidly convincing case for innocence or guilt--an attractive Jewish Greifer ("nabber") who was forced by the Nazis to seek out and turn in Jews still hiding in the City. In this soot-laden atmosphere of besotted soldiers still firing randomly into skulking civilians, and where death from starvation is an ongoing routine, the reporter stumbles on a puzzling murder of an American corporal. It is a rare moment when the sins of the past surface too explicitly to prevent this fast-paced detective story from seizing the reader's imagination, and running with it to an imaginative and satisfying climax. As someone who lived in Berlin in 1945-46, the scenes of devastation, of the human misery and the brutal arrogance of the Soviet occupation ring as true as anything I've seen or read. The story is filled with a cast of interesting and some hateful characters, many well-developed. The story is never plot-dictated, although the cleverness and daring of the hero occasionally verges on the unlikely. Nevertheless, a rousing tale with a complicated but finally deeply satisfying love story.
Rating:
Summary: Sehr Gut!
Review: "The Good German" takes you through a maze of intrigue and tension, eventually delivering a satisfying tale. A war correspondent investigates a murder in post-war Berlin. In the process he rediscovers his true love while sinking deeper into the first battles of the Cold War. Author Kanon does a superb job on the setting where you see, feel and smell the devastation of this bombed-out city. He achieves realistic complexity in his characters - war survivors attempting to rationalize their role while trying to build a new life. This novel's only challenge is that the intial snale's pace cloaks the later excitement and intrigue. I listened to the audio version and thoroughly enjoyed Stanley Tucci's wonderful accents. Therefore, I recommend "The Good German" -- especially the audio tape. It's good drama mixed with some interesting history. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: great book!!!!
Review: I have recommended this book so many times. My mother was born in Germany and was smuggled out before the war. Not a perfect non-fiction but a novel. Very compelling. I wish it had been longer.
Rating: 
Summary: Bulletproof Hero
Review: "The Good German" is set in post-World War II Berlin, a place of espionage, dirty tricks, black market activities and human suffering. A murder takes place in 1945 as the Allied leaders are gathering for their Potsdam conference (an American officer's body is discovered floating in a lake in the Russian occupation zone, his pockets full of money.) But more than just a murder mystery, there are larger themes in the book, such as collective guilt, a society that succumbed to genocide, and the justice of the victors. The book's main character is an American who is involved in a love triangle, a situation somewhat reminiscent of "Casablanca." Although I found the book to be a moving portrait of a city down on its heels and its luck, where corruption and violence are commonplace and where even the innocent may be compromised, overall it unravels. Conveniently, the hero always seems to be in the right place at the right time as well as bulletproof. And the car chase absolutely defies belief!
Rating: 
Summary: Dreadful
Review: I usually complain that too many books are "told" rather than dramatized in scenes and that far too few authors make good use of dialogue. To its credit, "The Good German" is dramatized in scenes but, if anything, dialogue is overused. (Some people might think there is no pleasing me, but that isn't the case.) "The Good German" is set entirely in Berlin at the very close of WWII. I found this setting to be intriguing and, even though I was born post-WWII, I have visited Berlin and Kanon's evocation felt so "right" to me. I feel he must have researched post-WWII Berlin very thoroughly and the book might be worth reading for its setting alone. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I didn't find the plot convoluted or labyrinthine. I found it trite, hackneyed and a little silly. Even though it's simplistic, it's also somewhat confusing. Kanon is not one of those rare authors who's good at managing a large cast of characters. In fact, he's terribe at it. For the first half of the book, it was difficult remembering "who was who" and this is especially true of the peripheral "members of the press" characters. The dialogue and characterization in "The Good German" are simply awful. Some of the dialogue was so bad it actually made me wince. Characters say things no one would ever dream of saying and they're all stock, cardboard cutouts with no personality or life of their own. After reading 500 pages of the book, I didn't feel I knew the protagonist, Jake Geismar, at all. As another reviewer has already pointed out, this was quite a feat of (bad) writing since Jake appears on every single page. The "love story" (I hesitate to call it that) was totally unbelievable. Both characters, and Jake in particular, were so incredibly selfish and self-centered I found myself thinking that love really had very little to do with their relationship. And I'm another reader who couldn't buy the woman's "quick recovery." Finally, "The Good German" is simply too long. I enjoy long books as long as they have something to say, but this book contained so many unnecessary, extraneous scenes that the flow of the story was often interrupted. I was going to award this book one star only. I hated it that much. But, on reflection, there are a lot of books out there that are worse and some that are truly unreadable. In the end, I decided to give "The Good German" two stars for its superb use of setting. I can't really recommend this book to anyone, but if you do decide to read it, please don't think it takes its theme (What, exactly, made one a "good" German during WWII) seriously. It doesn't. This is definitely beach or airplane reading and not even good beach or airplane reading at that. If you'd like to read a book that takes a very intelligent look at the German thought process, read Bloch's "The Sleepwalkers" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Not sure about this one
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. The setting, with all its complex moral dilemmas, really drew me in, and I found the plot well-paced and not that difficult to follow. However, now that I have finished it and taken it all in, I am a bit less impressed. It is surprising that, in a book exploring the nuances of morality, almost every major character is either black or white. The greifer is the one notable exception, but otherwise the moral of the story seems to be that those who do truly evil things are evil people (just look at the scientist, or the congressman, or any given russian) while good people (like the love interest, or the doctor) are good and pure. I really don't think that this was what the author intended: after all, there is the greifer, and some of the minor characters seem a bit more morally ambiguous. Perhaps it's just that he wanted to keep the main characters true and pure, and so he had to demonize all their enemies. I feel like that weakens the book. Oh, and I was really jarred by the sex scene, since it demonstrated such an implausibly quick recovery from rape. With simultaneous orgasms, too. But I guess I was supposed to chalk it up to true love.
Rating:
Summary: CLUMSY & CLICHED
Review: This could have been a great novel. The setting is interesting and fresh. The execution, however, is so heavy-handed and cliched. All of the characters are stock, one-dimensional stereotypes. The dialog is particularly tedious, with every character sounding the same, speaking in tired old chestnuts and chattering about the plot. As well, much of the dialog is repetitive, with the characters saying the same thing multiple times. The book really begins to fall apart in the second half. Many of the scenes are nothing more than characters recapping the increasingly convoluted plot. And just to make sure you don't miss the point, the hypocrisy of certain characters is driven home over and over again. By the end of the book, the uninteresting plot has become so twisted and convoluted that the central character has to recap the twists and turns for another character in the penultimate chapter. The only interesting element of this book is "the greifer" subplot. That, however, seems almost entirely distilled from Peter Wyden's excellent biography "Stella," about a real greifer, so that it's hardly original or noteworthy. Some of the "catcher" scenes in Kanon's novel come straight out of Wyden's book.
Rating:
Summary: The Good German
Review: This is a wonderful novel that takes place in post World War II. The author does a wonderful job of maipulating many different plots into one excellent story. From the finding of an American soldier's body in Potsdam, to the romantic relationship between an American journalist with a married German women, the novel jumps from plot to plot and finally comes together in the end. The novel also does a marvelous job of describing the very troubled city of post war Berlin. The city has been carved up among the allied powers and there is friction between them. Women and children are raped by Russians and are forced to sell everything they have or trade cigerettes in order to just survive. Overall I was very pleased with this novel which kep me captivated and also taught me alot at the same time.
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