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The Good German |
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基本信息·出版社：Time Warner Paperbacks
·页码：528 页
·出版日期：2004年01月
·ISBN：0751534846
·条形码：9780751534849
·版本：New Ed
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
·外文书名：善良的德国人
内容简介 Jake Geismar cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in pre-war Berlin. When he returns in 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference he finds the city unrecognisable - streets have vanished beneath the rubble, familiar landmarks truncated by high explosive. But amongst the ruins Berliners survive, including some he knew and, miraculously, his lost love, Lena. But in the way she would not leave with him before the war, Lena won't join him now without finding her husband and Emil has disappeared from the safe care of the Americans who, turning a blind eye to his links with Hitler, want his expertise as a rocket designer for themselves. Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties. This is a novel of war, an action thriller, a tale of raw emotion and survival. Above all it is a tour de force of the triumph of humanity over man's depravity.
作者简介 Joe Kanon was a publisher for many years, but turned poacher by becoming a novelist with his first, bestselling thriller LOS ALAMOS, which was awarded the Edgar for the best first novel of 1997.
媒体推荐 'Magnificent' Minette Walters 'Kanon writes for grown-ups, not for day-dreamers. That's why he is so good.' Allan Massie, The Scotsman 'That rare thing - a thriller to stimulate heart and mind.' Mail 'A phenomenal third novel ... a fantastic read.'
编辑推荐 Amazon.com 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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Again taking one of the 20th century's most momentous periods as a backdrop, Kanon recreates Berlin in the months following WWII in this lavishly atmospheric thriller overburdened with political and romantic intrigue. Though driven by strong characters and rich historical detail, the book ultimately falters under the weight of a ponderous, edgeless plot. At the center of the drama is Jake Geismar, a journalist who arrives in Berlin ostensibly to cover the Potsdam Conference. In reality, he's consumed with finding his prewar lover, Lena, with whom he carried on a torrid affair unbeknownst to her husband. Before he finds her, however, Geismar becomes intrigued by the murder of an American soldier whose body washes ashore near the conference grounds. The military's reluctance to investigate or provide any details of the murder convinces Geismar that this could be his big story. Though he's warned not to meddle, Geismar can't resist the story's draw. His investigation leads him deeply into Berlin's agonizing struggle for survival its black market, its collective guilt and its citizens' feeble attempts to wash themselves clean of wartime atrocities. And, most importantly, Geismar learns of the Allies' frantic attempts to round up Nazi scientists, including Lena's husband, Emil, whose expertise with missiles made Germany such a fierce enemy. Kanon (Los Alamos; The Prodigal Spy) is at his strongest when giving voice to the hard choices and moral dilemmas of the times, yet he labors at bringing his plot to a close and blurs its core in the process. While his descriptive skills have never been sharper the writing is uniformly elegant Kanon's third thriller since leaving his job as a publising executive digs in when it should be attacking.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Publishing executive-turned-novelist Kanon here goes back to 1945 Berlin, where CBS correspondent Jake Geismar has gone to cover the U.S. occupation and look for his lost mistress. A murdered U.S. soldier complicates matters.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Set amidst the rubble of a just-vanquished Third Reich Berlin, this third thriller by the author of Los Alamos is made less than thrilling by weak plotting. Jake Geismar, a U.S. reporter assigned to cover the Potsdam Conference for Collier's magazine, stumbles upon a story that is intertwined with his own life. Though he has returned to Berlin primarily to reunite with his prewar lover, Geismar confronts a Germany he no longer recognizes. Further, he is compelled to solve the murder of an American soldier found with a money belt stuffed with black-market cash. The book's title is by turns ironic and laden with pathos. Unfortunately, the characters are stereotypes, in particular the Russians are we returning to the height of Cold War antagonism? Recommended only to meet demand, which may be considerable, given the book's heavy-duty marketing budget.
- David Dodd, Marin Cty. Free Lib., San Rafael, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist *Starred Review* What Carol Reed's film
The Third Man did for Vienna immediately after World War II, Kanon's superb thriller does for Berlin during the same period. Jake Geismar, CBS Berlin correspondent before the war, jumps at the chance to return to the German capital to cover the Potsdam Conference. His real motive isn't postwar politics, though; it's finding the German girl, Lena, he left behind. What he finds first, however, is the dead body of an American soldier washed ashore near the conference grounds. Despite the efforts of the American brass to sweep the G.I.'s death under the bureaucratic rug, Jake smells a story, and the trail leads him to Lena. As he displayed in the Edgar-winning
Los Alamos (1997), Kanon is a master at surrounding a legendary historical moment with a labyrinthine thriller plot and an involving love story. Here that historical moment--Berlin at its most post-apocalyptic--drives both the thriller, which involves American and Russian attempts to snatch German rocket scientists (one of whom is Jake's girl's husband), and the love story, which must rise phoenix-like from the rubble of bombed-out buildings and ruined lives. Hovering over it all is the legacy of the Holocaust--on the postwar world, on Germany, and on individual men and women, whose ability to feel has been deadened by the nearness of evil. Kanon hits every note just right, from the wide-angle descriptions of Berlin's pockmarked moonscape to the tellingly detailed portraits of the city's shellshocked survivors. Superb popular fiction, combining propulsive narrative drive with a subtle grasp of character and a fine sense of moral ambiguity.
Bill OttCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review 'Magnificent' Minette Walters 'Kanon writes for grown-ups, not for day-dreamers. That's why he is so good.' Allan Massie, The Scotsman 'That rare thing - a thriller to stimulate heart and mind.' Mail 'A phenomenal third novel ... a fantastic read.'
This novel by Joseph Kanon, author of the award-winning novel Los Alamos, interweaves a compelling murder mystery with a moving love story and a momentous historical event. The scene is war-ravaged Berlin in 1945, and the action begins with a group of correspondents on a military flight. They are returning to the shell of the city to cover a conference at Potsdam between Truman, Churchill and Stalin. The fate of Berlin and its shattered population rests with these three leaders. Jake Geismar is one of the journalists, an American who's officially on the lookout for one last story; his priority, however, is to find his German lover, Lena Brandt, whom he last saw when he was ordered out of Berlin four years ago. When Jake left, Lena was still married to Emil, a brilliant scientist who was helping the Nazis. While attending the conference, Jake sees Russian soldiers pull the body of an American soldier from the lake. He recognizes the man from the flight into Berlin, but nobody seems to know anything about him or why he has come to the city. The American military government is so evasive about the case that Jake scents the story of a lifetime and starts investigating. He uncovers a web of lies, threats and corruption, as well as a mass of paperwork. The two strands of his search become intricately entwined when his discoveries link the dead man with Emil Brandt, who is thought to be in Berlin and who is wanted by both the Russians and the Allies for his missile-making expertise. In a climate of intrigue and corruption, Jake tries to sift out the truth. He enlists the help of a former German policeman, one of the good Germans of the title who are going to help the American military government rebuild postwar Germany. As Jake inches towards the solution, he risks his life and that of his lover, and finds that loyalties have shifted so much since the war that he can trust no-one. This historical thriller brilliantly conjures up the guilty and secretive post-Holocaust atmosphere of Berlin at the end of World War ll, and the final denouement is taut and gripping. (Kirkus UK)
Review “[Kanon] is fast approaching the complexity and relevance not just of le Carré and Greene but even of Orwell: provocative, fully realized fiction that explores, as only fiction can, the reality of history as it is lived by individual men and women.” —
The New York Times Book Review “As he did in
Los Alamos, Kanon demonstrates an eerie mastery of the evocative historical detail....You can feel the shattered glass crunching beneath your feet as you read. You can smell the smoke-scorched broken bricks.... Kanon is as ambitious a novelist as he is a gifted one.” —
The Washington Post“A terrific book...Kanon is the heir apparent to Graham Greene and early-and mid-passage le Carré, for he writes of moral quandaries that are real and not created to drive a plot....The multilayered story is beautifully told.” —
The Boston Globe“Gripping...Kanon has written a tale about the untenable choices war entails, and about the moral dangers of demonization. For American readers, the book cuts to the bone, coming at a time when we have become the demonized and are doing our best to avoid becoming
the demonizers.” —
Newsday --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
