Leaving Berlin: A Novel

"If you haven’t already, read The Good German, Joseph Kanon’s first Berlin novel (and, for good measure, see the movie starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett). However, you needn’t do so to enjoy Leaving Berlin, a stand-alone set in the very, very cold winter of 1948, when the divided capital was in physical ruins and crisscrossed by agents playing mental games at the highest levels of espionage. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer who escaped to America before the war, finds that his communist past puts him afoul of the swaggering U.S. authorities. They offer him a legal way back to America: spying in exchange for a passport. Unfortunately, they want him to spy on the love of his life."