Leaving Berlin

February 9, 2015
In his new novel, Kanon (Istanbul Passage) stays firmly in his traditional milieuâintrigue in post-World War II Europeâwith this solid story about a German emigre, Alex Meier, returning to the divided city of East Berlin in 1949. It's not an entirely voluntary return for Meier, a successful novelist who had been working in Hollywood: a refusal to testify about Communists before Congress results in the forced repatriation; if he wants to return to the States, he must become a spy. The book is full of real-life historical figures, mostly writers like Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Zweig, and Ruth Berlau who are, like the fictional Meier, warmly welcomed home by the Communists. Meier's assignment is to spy on the cultural apparatus of East Germany and, in particular, to investigate a state security bigwig, Major General Maltsev, the consort of Elspeth von Bernuth, one of his childhood friends. There's a fair amount of action, including a shootout in a dark street that results in a shocking act of violence, but the appeal of the book is how it conjures the atmosphere of post-War Europe, in the vein of Alan Furst and David Downing. There's too much backstory and the period details sometimes bog down the narrative, but once all the pieces are in place the story hits its stride. Kanon likes to wrestle with the moral dimensions of spying (a la le Carré)âand what's more, he's very good at it. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners.

January 1, 2015
Set in 1949, a few years after Kanon's The Good German (2001), this novel explores the grave moral complexities of life in Soviet-controlled East Berlin through the tense encounters of Alex Meier, a young Jewish novelist of some renown working for the CIA.A native of Berlin, Alex fled the Nazis for America before World War II. When his leftist politics got him in trouble in the U.S., costing him his marriage, he struck a deal to go back to Germany as an undercover spy with the promise that he could return to America with his record cleared. His cover story is that he missed his homeland, like other returning intellectuals including Bertolt Brecht (a minor character in the book). In fact, he has greatly missed Irene, the woman he left behind, whose romantic involvement with a Russian makes her one of his targets. Like everything else in the wreckage of the blockaded city, where going for a walk through the park attracts suspicion, his reunion with her is fraught with danger-especially after her ailing brother shows up, having escaped a Russian labor camp. The novel has its share of abductions and killings, one of which leaves Alex in the classic role of odd man out. Following his action-charged Istanbul Passage (2012), Kanon relies almost exclusively on dialogue to tell his story, which sometimes leaves the reader feeling as hemmed in as the Berliners. But the atmosphere is so rich, the characters so well-drawn and the subject so fascinating that that is a minor complaint. Another compelling, intellectually charged period piece by Kanon, who works in the shadows of fear as well as anyone now writing.

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January 1, 2015
Setting his latest novel in the postwar Berlin he portrayed so effectively in The Good German (2001), Kanon again focuses on a returnee to the now-divided city who is searching for a lost lover. German Jew Alex Meier, a celebrated novelist in America, has opted to live in East Berlin after having defied Joe McCarthy and his witch-hunters. German communists treat Meier's arrival as a publicity coup, unaware that the writer's motivation is purely personal. Hoping to have his name cleared in the U.S., he has agreed to spy on the East Germans, not knowing that his first assignment will involve extracting information from the woman he loves. For a writerly type, Meier picks up his spycraft quickly, and, soon enough, double agents and dead bodies are swirling about him like moths to the flame. Kanon, like Alan Furst, has found a landscape and made it his own. In fact, the two writers make outstanding bookends in any collection of WWII fiction, Furst bringing Paris just before and during the war to vivid life, and Kanon doing the same for Berlin in its aftermath. A quibble or two, maybe, with the slightly overwrought ending, but there's far too much to like in this fine mix of espionage and history to worry over it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Istanbul Passage (2012) boosted Kanon onto several best-seller lists, giving his publisher plenty of reason to give his latest a hefty shove in the same direction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from January 1, 2015

In his seventh thriller, Kanon (Istanbul Passage) turns to postwar Berlin and in particular to the Soviet sector during the difficult months of the blockade (1948-49). Noted author Alex Meier fled Germany for the United States when the Nazis began persecuting Jews. Now, he has been invited back, along with other renowned authors, as culture becomes part of the cold war between East and West. But Alex's situation is precarious. He was actually forced to leave America (and his young son) owing to his intransigence when facing the congressional witch hunt for communists. Recruited as a spy with the promise of exoneration, Alex soon finds himself dealing with issues of trust and his own survival as the East German secret police force him to become an informer. Kanon's evocation of Berlin in ruins is masterly, but his most striking trait is his depiction of characters under stress, not only Alex but all those he must entangle, including family members who survived the war. VERDICT A pleasure from start to finish, blending literary finesse with action, this atmospheric historical thriller will appeal not only to Kanon's many fans but to those who enjoy Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and other masters of wartime and postwar espionage fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 9/8/14.]--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015

The bleakness of postwar Berlin serves as the setting for Kanon's evocative novel about Jewish author Alex Meier, who flees the Nazis but in America faces persecution from the McCarthy witch hunts. He agrees to spy on behalf of the CIA in Berlin to ensure his return to the States and his family. (LJ 1/1/15)

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2014

Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer who fled the Nazis for America before the war, runs afoul of McCarthyites and can forestall his deportation only by agreeing to return to Berlin as an agent for the CIA. Then he discovers that his real task is to spy on the woman he loved and left behind. From the Edgar Award winner.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2015

In his seventh thriller, Kanon (Istanbul Passage) turns to postwar Berlin and in particular to the Soviet sector during the difficult months of the blockade (1948-49). Noted author Alex Meier fled Germany for the United States when the Nazis began persecuting Jews. Now, he has been invited back, along with other renowned authors, as culture becomes part of the cold war between East and West. But Alex's situation is precarious. He was actually forced to leave America (and his young son) owing to his intransigence when facing the congressional witch hunt for communists. Recruited as a spy with the promise of exoneration, Alex soon finds himself dealing with issues of trust and his own survival as the East German secret police force him to become an informer. Kanon's evocation of Berlin in ruins is masterly, but his most striking trait is his depiction of characters under stress, not only Alex but all those he must entangle, including family members who survived the war. VERDICT A pleasure from start to finish, blending literary finesse with action, this atmospheric historical thriller will appeal not only to Kanon's many fans but to those who enjoy Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and other masters of wartime and postwar espionage fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 9/8/14.]--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.