Rating: 
Summary: Guilty
Review: This is one of those politico-detective type thrillers, such as things we've read by Frederick Forsythe, Robert Ludlum or Jack Higgins. As far as it goes, it's not too bad; the pages drift by painlessly and one has at least a mild interest in what the outcome is going to be. Along with this we get a pretty intense examination of the actions of human beings in times of crisis, and also those who sit in judgment of them when the crisis ends, and to me, this is what is most compelling. The plot has to do with an American correspondent in post-war Berlin, and by post-war, I mean immediately after the war has ended: May and June of 1945. This correspondent had had an affair with a married female Berliner prior to the war, and now that he has returned has hopes of finding her amid the rubble. In the meantime, a fellow American has been found shot to death, and when nobody seems too interested in finding out who did it, he begins his own investigation. This is the whodunit aspect of the novel. As I mentioned, it is at least mildly interesting, as he ends up uncovering various plots and subterfuges involving German scientists and the American and Russian forces who are attempting to get them out and keep them away from each other. Our hero's girlfriend's husband, it turns out, is one of these scientists, so he has a personal involvement as well. The centerpiece of the novel, and the event which truly stirred me, is the trial of a Jewish German woman, accused of being a "greifer,": one who turned in her own, in her case, to save both herself and her mother from the camps. The anguish of this woman is almost palpable. She knows she is a monster, she knows what she did was horrible, yet we can still empathize with her: if she did not work for the Nazis, her ailing mother would have been sent to the camps to die. Her accuser, a policeman, comes under some interrogation of his own. He was a police sergeant, which means he himself worked for the Nazi regime. No, he only arrested criminals, but, yes, criminals were sent to camps also. No, he had no say in where they went. Yes, he continued to work for them after they arrested and killed his wife. He had no choice. Nobody had a choice. Except . . . everybody had a choice. This of course emerges as the theme. Who was a "good" German? Simply being alive and German at the end of the war could be construed as a sign of guilt to some degree. Yet, somehow, the valuable scientists that both the Americans and the Russians coveted were able to escape such close scrutiny. So, alas, even those sitting in judgment are shown, predictably, to act in their own self-interest. Interesting, thought-provoking work, and inevitably, very, very sad.
Rating: 
Summary: The Good German
Review: The Good German is a great mystery/thriller. The action takes place in Berlin immediately after the end of WWII, at the time of the Potsdam conference between Russia, the US and Great Britain. The main character is drawn by a mysterious murder that nobody seems interested in solving. Along the way he finds his long lost love, who happens to be married to a German scientist. The mystery is engrossing. What is more valuable in the book, however, is the moral discussion of how normal people get involved in a monstrocity as the Third Reich and how these normal people deal with the guilt they feel afterwards. This is not an easy task, and the reason I give the book 5 stars is because I think Kannon is amazing at balancing both aspects of the book. He is not preaching to anybody while conveying a pretty complicated message-- everyone has their own share of guilt but the winners of the war, despite feeling morally superior and justified, were sometimes more immoral than the people they were trying to judge.
Rating:
Summary: Profound, Insightful, Intriguing
Review: Deeply profound, yet shattering in its illumination of the dark days following the defeat of Germany in 1945. Though at times the story seems to plod, it reflects the reality. Kanon has achieved a similar psychological impact for the reader as befell those living in the times--overwhelming disbelief, scorched ruins, suspended anticipation, denial, relentless stamina, indifference, horror, cut-throat opportunism, contradicting moralities, ugly truths, hidden motives, sacrificial dedication, culpable acts, limitless egos, universal guilt, mazes within mazes of intrigue--and yet infinite hope runs parallel to Jake Geismar's quest to find, first, his lost love, and then to solve the mystery of who killed the American soldier dragged out of the waters in the Russian zone during the Potsdam Conference. How quickly the Holocaust was forgotten in the race to be first in space and to get rich on the spoils of war! A cowardly yet greedy human condition, as sad as that is, that still goes on and existed before the Holocaust began and went on while the Holocaust occurred. Kanon takes the stark truth and creates characters to reflect it--not in paper-thin stereotypes but in real examples, and if they seem to stretch credibility for some readers, it is because they did not experience it and can judge with rosy hindsight. A literary triumph that deserves five stars!
Rating: 
Summary: The Boring German
Review: Four hundred and eighty one pages but The Good German seems much, much longer. Flat, unconvincing characters talk and talk and talk page after page, spouting dialogue as unconvincing as it is lengthy. This is movie of the week material. Berlin is NOT brought to life convincingly at all and in fact I grew tired of yet another description of the piles of brick which made up the city there in mid-1945. One problem I had is that the characters are so poorly rendered it was impossible to muster much enthusiasm for their travails. The Americans are indistinguishable from one another and Jake Geismar (the 'hero') himself is far too sketchily drawn (no small feat when he appears on each of the 481 pages) to be of any interest at all. Save your money (and save a big hunk of time) and buy the Alan Furst books. Infinitely better reads.
Rating:
Summary: requires some patience, but worth it!
Review: This book was hard to get into - lots of war-time political banter in the beginning. But after the first few chapters the plot takes form and the story takes off and hooks you...
Rating:
Summary: best of the Kanon series
Review: Of the three novels Kanon has written, this is by far the best. He keeps getting better with every novel. The characters have depth, the settings are vivid, the dialogue is great, so natural. Mystery story aside, the real meat of the book lies in its who-to-blame frustration, its search for a moral code that makes sense. It would have been easy to make me either agree or disagree with the "Supposed Nazis", but I felt sorry for them at times. Knowing they had done horrible things to their fellow human beings, but pitying them at the same time, because they were forced to do as much. Or were they? Could they have made a choice? What would I have done in their situation? Wow, a hard thing to pull off but Kanon managed it well. if you like a good mystery and love the WWII genre, most definitely read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth it
Review: I found this book impossible to read. Rather than tell a story, Kanon fills page after page with dialog -- not particularly great dialog -- and leaves it to you to wade through and find meaning. I found myself desparately scanning ahead, looking for a paragraph that would advance the plot or illuminate the characters. Alas, there weren't many.
Rating:
Summary: Not really worth it.
Review: This is a book in which the main character, Jake Geissmar, is so unsympathetic that one wishes he would get killed. There is a great sense of time and place -- the only worthwhile part of the book -- but you can get this from any good history book. The characters are wooden and unappealing, and the actions of Jake are really not believable. The drama is created by the time and the place, not the plot which is weak and drawn out excessively. This is more the stuff for a short story but I doubt if Kannon could write a good short story. Give this one a miss.
Rating: 
Summary: Failed to move or convince this reader
Review: Yes, this novel has its moments, and Kanon's sense of place and time is impressive. Unfortunately, his handling of character and story is made for TV. I never came to believe in our too-faithful-to-be-true American hero obsessed with recovering his love from before the war. The missing Lena turns up much too quickly and coincidentally, becoming a heavy piece of lost luggage that Jake drags with him from one plot point to the next. Kanon has a thing for lifeless characters who never stop chattering, as if pages of picayune dialogue punctuated by one coincidence after another could subsitute for meaningful action. The closing paragraphs suggest a much more powerful novel which might have been written, if Kanon had chosen really to follow up on his research: the conspiracy/cover-up that led to thousands of ex-Nazi scientists being spirited to America to serve in the CIA and on the boards of pharmaceutical companies which were set up after the war with the "re-structuring" of I.G. Farben. The author avoids following that potentially explosive trail, which might have made his book worth reading. Instead, he mimics the well-worn theme of American innocents abroad on a quick tour of Armageddon. "Isn't it shocking what those Germans did? God bless America for saving the world." It's neither credible nor particularly moving, but it points in a direction that might be explored by a braver writer. No, Joseph Kanon is not the next LeCarre, Greene or Orwell -- he's yet another Hollywood mind unravelling the Holocaust.
Rating:
Summary: A good book for German-o-philes
Review: I enjoyed this book alot. But I would warn a potential reader that I believe you must have a good working knowledge of German history especially concerning WWII and the Nazis. While the author does a good job of describing Berlin immediately after the end of the war, much of that description assumes the reader is aware of various streets, hotels and other landmarks in Berlin (e.g. the significance of the Hotel Adlon). With that warning, I recommend it - as both a good history, love story, and murder mystery with intentionally added moral dilemmas.
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