LEAVING BERLIN: JOSEPH KANON

Another book set in Berlin, perhaps the 15th I have read set in Germany during the years 1933-1950. In this one, it's1948, the Russian blockaid of West Berlin is on, forcing the Allies to airlift supplies to West Berlin.  Alex Meier, a famous German novelist, who fled to the US early in the 1940's, only to become a victim of the Mc Carthy witch hunts, which precipitates an invitation from the Russians to come live in East Berlin.  To get permission to leave the US, however, he is forced to agree to act as an agent for the CIA, allowing him to eventually visit his eight year old son in the States.  The bulk of the story revolves around his initiation into the world of spies, one he ends up being particularly good at and his increasing disenchantment with what is happening in East Berlin, as it has become a Russian satellite, not a part of the new Germany.

He fits right in with other returning German intellectuals like Berthold Brecht but most importantly, he becomes reacquainted with his first love, Irene, a young woman he has never forgotten.  She is now living with a Russian official. She is a survivor, having lived through the Nazis, the Russian invasion, and now the Russian influence in Berlin. Alex uses her as a  unknown ally, learning about the Russians and there plans for East Germany.  Things become complicated when Irene's brother reappears, having been thought dead.  Actually, he was put to work as a slave laborer in a Russian mine.  Together, Irene and Alex figure out a  way to smuggle the brother out of East Germany, to the West, putting both at risk.  Alex comes up with a way to extricate himself from both the Russians and the Americans demands upon him, and sets up a means of escape for both him and Irene.  As they are about to board a plane, Irene refuses to leave, preferring the known, living in East Germany with another Russian official to the unknown, life in the West.  Alex finally realizes that she used him, too, and never loved him. And despite having been a prize winning novelist, he learns quickly how to survive, by killing, by lying, by out thinking both his enemies and supposed allies.  I think we may perhaps see him again in another novel.

This book reminds me of the  David Downing novels, all six set in Germany as well as Alan Furst novels, set just before WW II.