Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Good German
Joseph Kanon
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Good German
Joseph Kanon
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Good German, by Joseph Kanon, is the story of Jake, a journalist for Colliers who finds a dead body and wants to know who did it, why, and where. The WWII is over, but it’s not really over. People are still being killed. Tully, an American soldier, has been shot and found at Potsdam with thousands of Russian bills on him.
Jake gets involved in the plan to take German scientists to America, such as Von Braun, and finds that his lover’s husband, Emil, is one of the scientists. He has done horrible things as a German that Lena, now in love with Jake, doesn’t want to see. But she can’t leave him to the Russians as he’s family. Jake’s life is in danger, but he needs this story for Colliers. The American GIs are excited when the Japanese also surrender. They shoot their guns in a crowded area. A friend/co-worker of Jake's is killed by a stray bullet and another journalist is put on trial for turning Jews in to the SS. She is a Jewess herself. The complications never end. This is Kanon at his top form against the background of a destroyed Berlin. Kanon seems to know that city well.
Who is the good German of the title? Find out in the fiction room under Kanon’s name at your Mendocino Community Library. …or be left wondering. Kanon is a book publishing executive and lives in New York City.
Jake gets involved in the plan to take German scientists to America, such as Von Braun, and finds that his lover’s husband, Emil, is one of the scientists. He has done horrible things as a German that Lena, now in love with Jake, doesn’t want to see. But she can’t leave him to the Russians as he’s family. Jake’s life is in danger, but he needs this story for Colliers. The American GIs are excited when the Japanese also surrender. They shoot their guns in a crowded area. A friend/co-worker of Jake's is killed by a stray bullet and another journalist is put on trial for turning Jews in to the SS. She is a Jewess herself. The complications never end. This is Kanon at his top form against the background of a destroyed Berlin. Kanon seems to know that city well.
Who is the good German of the title? Find out in the fiction room under Kanon’s name at your Mendocino Community Library. …or be left wondering. Kanon is a book publishing executive and lives in New York City.