JUNE 2015 - AudioFile
Listeners can sense the urgency in narrator Corey Brill’s voice as he literally commands them to concentrate on Kanon’s fascinating and fanciful audiobook. Set in post-WWII Berlin, the plot centers on Alex Meier, a Jewish writer who fled Nazi Germany only to be branded a Communist in America. To prove his loyalty, Meier makes a deal with the CIA to infiltrate Nazi Germany, where, of course, his assignment goes awry. Brill seems to recognize when the story drags or suspends credibility. At such moments, his change in pace, coupled with a more intense tone, signals listeners that they’re experiencing one of the book’s significant moments. While uneven, this is an entertaining historical thriller. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
02/09/2015
In his new novel, Kanon (Istanbul Passage) stays firmly in his traditional milieu—intrigue in post-World War II Europe—with 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)—and what's more, he's very good at it. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. (Mar.)
Sunday Express
“Kanon brings the hardships and moral decay of post-war Berlin to lifein glorious detail, ratcheting up the suspense as Meier tries to escape the netclosing in on all sides. Absorbing.”
The Times Kate Saunders
“An unforgettable picture of a city wrecked by defeat and riddled withbetrayal. Brilliant."
the Scotsman Allan Massie
“Galloping and compulsive…I can’t imagine anyone putting it down…. Admirably atmospheric, the picture of the ravaged Berlin excellently done… An enjoyable thriller,high-class entertainment.”
Alexander McCall Smith
INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR LEAVING BERLIN:
“If you are looking for a combination of le Carre and Graham Greene, Leaving Berlin will do the trick perfectly. . . . One of the most exciting books I have read for years.”
Washington Independent Review of Books
“Story, suspense, substance, and style are inextricably linked in a work that masterfully exploits and exquisitely transcends spy-genre possibilities.”
Booklist
“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.”
Buffalo News
“Not for nothing has Kanon – whose previous books include The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, has been compared to the suspense masters Graham Greene and John LeCarre. He’s certainly in the ballpark.”
New York Daily News
"Kanon, who writes his novels at the New York Public Library, conjures from there a Berlin of authentic menace and such hairpin turns that Leaving Berlin evokes comparisons to John LeCarre and Alan Furst. Such good company."
Ft. Worth Star Telegram
“The old-fashioned spy craft, the many plot twists and the moral ambiguities that exist in all of the characters make Leaving Berlin an intriguing, page-turning thriller.There’s also a star-crossed love story — and an airport farewell — that might remind some readers of Bogie and Bergman. But it’s the author’s attention to historical detail — his ability to convey the sights, sounds and feel of a beaten-down Berlin — that makes this book so compelling.”
Wall Street Journal
“Joseph Kanon’s thought-provoking, pulse-pounding historical espionage thriller [is] stuffed with incident and surprise. . . . Mr. Kanon, author now of seven top-notch novels of period political intrigue, conveys the bleak, oppressive, and creepy atmosphere of occupied Berlin in a detailed, impressive manner. . . . Leaving Berlin is a mix of tense action sequences, sepia-tinged reminiscence, convincing discourse and Berliner wit.”
The New York Times Book Review
“Engaging. . . . deftly captures the ambience of a city that’s still a wasteland almost four years after the Nazis’ defeat. . . . Kanon keeps the story humming along, enriching the main narrative with vignettes that heighten the atmosphere of duplicity and distrust.”
Library Journal
★ 01/01/2015
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
JUNE 2015 - AudioFile
Listeners can sense the urgency in narrator Corey Brill’s voice as he literally commands them to concentrate on Kanon’s fascinating and fanciful audiobook. Set in post-WWII Berlin, the plot centers on Alex Meier, a Jewish writer who fled Nazi Germany only to be branded a Communist in America. To prove his loyalty, Meier makes a deal with the CIA to infiltrate Nazi Germany, where, of course, his assignment goes awry. Brill seems to recognize when the story drags or suspends credibility. At such moments, his change in pace, coupled with a more intense tone, signals listeners that they’re experiencing one of the book’s significant moments. While uneven, this is an entertaining historical thriller. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-12-22
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.
