Rating: 
Summary: Lugubrious....
Review: A very unsatisfying book with a very interesting setting. The portrait of the immediate aftermath of WW2 in Berlin is excellent but the story is drawn out much longer than necessary. The writing is OK but the characters are unappealing, especially the main character, whose joylessness is monotonic in the extreme. You don't expect a story set in war-devastated Berlin to be a boffo laff riot but you can expect some spirit, some elan and energy.
Rating: 
Summary: Moral Ambiguity
Review: This ironically titled novel will disappoint those suspense readers attracted to Ludlum and the like. This is not a hold-your-breath suspense novel; it's an exploration of character, motivation and history. The author, through the reporter Jake Geismar, explores how Germans came to do the things they did during the war. Not content with that, he also looks at American complicity before and after the war -- particularly in protecting Nazi scientists in order to advance our atomic research for our post-war confrontations with Russia. Ostensibly, The Good German is a murder mystery. Jake finds a murdered American soldier and when the official version doesn't fit the facts, he decides to solve the murder. Someone reading merely for the mystery will be frustrated by the twists and turns and meandering path to an anti-climactic solution. However, the anti-climax of the solution is very much to the point - Geismar realizes that all are tainted by the war. There is no outrage for the murder - only his own willingness to use his knowledge for his own purposes -- the solution to the mystery an exemplar of what he has learned about our own complicity in protecting Nazis, about the Germans he has known in the past participating in the war and the Holocaust and the entire moral morass that war inevitably becomes. Only two characters survive untainted by compromise and corruption - an American Jew who is gathering war crimes evidence for the Army and the father of one of the Nazi scientists. Everyone else, from his lover, his colleagues, the Russians, the Americans and the Germans he had known before the war and most of all, Jake, himself are tainted.
Rating:
Summary: Stanley Tucci Rules!!
Review: I've always loved Mr. Tucci as a reader but his range and characterizations are jawdropping on this audiobook. Never mind that Mr. Kanon provides a little-known or explored time and space in history with an eerie cast of international players. Good set up, strong plotline and the finish is a wowzer. Not many hero's or heroine's here. Post war Berlin is an ugly place in an ugly time with ugly people roaming around and motivations for anything are suspect and disingenuous. I was scripting the movie as I listened. Good audiobook stuff.
Rating:
Summary: disappointed
Review: having read the fine review in the ny times, i HAD to read this book..the portrait of berlin after ww 2..was very good, but the author took too long to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion..lots of characters who mattered little to this reader..the main characters evoked some sympathy, but the story of the dead man added little to the drama..
Rating: 
Summary: DISAPPOINTED
Review: AFTER READING THE NY TIMES REVIEW, I HAD TO READ THIS BOOK..AND I FOUND IT TO BE LESS EXCITING THAN I EXPECTED..THE COVERAGE OF THE POST-WAR SCENE IN BERLIN WAS GOOD ,BUT THE AUTHOR CIRCLED AROUND THE STORY FOR SUCH A LONG TIME THAT IT BECAME BORING.TOO MANY CHARACTERS THAT I DIDNT CARE FOR AND HAD LITTLE INTEREST IN..LENA AND JAKE WERE SYMPATHETIC CHARACTERS, BUT AS A PREVIOUS REVIEWER SAID, ONE COULD NOT CARE VERY MUCH FOR THE DEAD MAN PRESENTED IN THE START OF THE BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: Multi-level Mystery Novel of Berlin, 1945.
Review: "The Good German" by Joseph Kanon, Audio Tape read by Stanley Tucci.
Simon & Schuster, New York, NY 2001. Although billed as murder mystery/thriller, this book is really an attempt at in-depth analysis of the actions of the United States at the end of the Second World War, when the seeds of Cold War were planted. Were Americans truly so set on reaping the dollars (marks) that they ignored the implications of a Communistic Russia? Set in the hot weather of the Potsdam Conference, July/August 1945, author J. Kanon uses his skills to develop a word picture of a bombed-out, destroyed Berlin. Kanon portrays the scenes as "you are there!" descriptions of the ruined capital city of the Third Reich, as the gun fights and car chases carry the chief character, Jake Geismar, in and out of harm's way.
Jake Geismar is a realistic portrayal of the jaded correspondent, who came to Berlin during Hitler's Olympic Games. Geismar had stayed on to report the historical events, fell in love with Lena Brandt, and all this serves as the foundation for his return to a conquered Germany and the events of 1945. An over-riding theme is Geismar's continued attempt to understand how an educated and cultured Germany could have tolerated, no, more than tolerated, ...how the Germans could have joined in the crimes of the Nazis. This guilt-seeking theme slows the book, but is necessary for the final resolution when the murderer of Lt. Tully, the American Army officer, is identified. There are some logistical questions, such as how a person (Geismar) can operate an old-fashioned manual typewriter, when his arm is in a cast, and how the little German boy, Erik, (three years old) is able to understand not only his native German, but also English ... so much so that the boy is taken out of the hospital room to avoid hearing details. The reader of the audio version, Mr. Stanley Tucci, does a fine job with what we usually consider German accents, and he has fine characterization of both female and male personages, so you think you are really hearing dialogue between actors. I enjoyed this audio book as I drove Interstate 495 around Boston, in my daily commute.
Rating:
Summary: Hot war to cold war
Review: "The Good German" is set in Berlin in the weeks between V-E and V-J day and is very accurate as to the chaos in Germany as this veteran recalls. The author does not alter historical facts, he simply uses his imagination to weave a story around events. Dr. Wernher von Braun is not a character in the novel but the story line is his attempt to locate and destroy the SS records that implicate him and his rocket team in war crimes. I won't give the story away but will say that Kamon has done excellent research for the book.
Rating:
Summary: Strong theme
Review: What is interesting here is the author's crafting of a number of characters who are not simple Nazi bad guys, but like many Germans, were caught up in the system as National Socialism took hold over everyday life. While the author is no apologist for Nazism, this intelligent angle forces us to think about how we (and people we know) might react in similar circumstances (and feel after the event). The plot, which involves the usual murder scenario, isn't too interesting in itself, but it does provide a way for the author to focus on the motivation of his characters, although we learn much less about the main character - the American reporter - than we do about the Germans. The research evident here is always interesting but never intrusive.
Rating:
Summary: Great Improvement over "The Prodigal Spy"
Review: I picked this up with some trepidation after reading "The Prodigal Spy" this summer. Mr. Kanon's new book is much more believable, much less contrived and broader in scope than his previous book. If one has seen pictures of post WWII Berlin, you can see that the author paints a truly believable landscape. The charactors are wondefully drawn out and as colorful as can be. Perhaps a little long winded but I suggest it.
Rating: 
Summary: About Time and Place
Review: The Good German is not so much a mystery as a novel evoking a time and place - Berlin in the summer of 1945 after the collapse of Germany. This book does an incredible job of conveying Berelin physically at that time, as well as the ambiguous moral climate that existed then. If everyone was doing what they were compelled to do, then was no one to blame? Should the German's be punished for their atrocities or enlisted to fight the next war against the Russians? These are the two key moral questions explored in this book. The murder and it's solution I thought were incidental to the "bigger" themes. Mr. Kanon writes well and does an excellent job of putting you in Berlin at the time of the novel. It's not a page turner, but well worth your time. I'd really like to give it 4 1/2 stars.
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