The German Woman By Paul Griner
Paul Griner ´ 5 Free read
I spent entirely too much time on this book. The holiday busy-ness didn't help, but besides that, it's like I kept waiting for SOMETHING to happen. I am a big consumer of WWII historical fiction, and this is actually both Wars, but it was way too murky. Was he a spy? Was she a spy? What happened to her first husband? Was his name Charles or Claus? Did the writer get tired and just throw it all away on the last page? There were a few things that I started getting interested in (a former D.W. Griffith film crew member making propaganda films in England; medics on the front lines in Prussia), but those story-lines just faded away never to be revisited. And I still want to know, why is it called The German Woman. She was not. Hardcover In his credits, the author thanks his editor. I can’t quote what he says, the book’s gone back to the library, but the idea seemed to be that good editing was what turned a messy ms into a real book. I think more work was needed. The editing seams show. Sections, and even sometimes sentences, jump around in a disconcerting manner. You know, the kind of thing that happens when you move chunks of text around in a word-processing program.
Add to that a plot that is confusing in and of itself and it makes for a confusing trip. I was doing fine until Part I left the English nurse and her husband abruptly and we were dumped again about 20 years for Part II, and an entirely new protagonist, a supposed film writer, entered the scene. I was soon lost, and remained so until the end of the book. Despite Protagonist I being introduced into the life of Protagonist II, I saw little connection between the two parts of the book. In particular, the relationship between the two did not seem real or likely to me.
Despite its having started out with real promise, I have to give this one only 2 stars.
Hardcover Ooof. So heavy. I've read a lot of war novels, but rarely do they have the depth of cynicism as the circumstances and characters in this story. The beginning chapters were set in post-WW I Eastern Europe while the bulk of the book contains two ex-pats with sad histories and conflicted loyalties in London. Not happy times, but so dark and dreary.
SPOILER ALERT: The book is well-written (hence the two stars) and so while I forced myself through the first part (we know Kate is to be widowed from the plot summary, so it was somewhat painful to wait for the axe to fall on poor, nobel Horst, if you'll forgive the metaphor), I found the middle section really picked up. But there were flaws in the set-up. Having seen Kate's history, did we really think she'd end up a spy? Then the ending: depressing and unrealistic to boot. . .the British espionage agency is especially effective in a way that only a fictional plot device can be. Despite their dourness, I'd built up some affection for Kate and Claus and felt entirely manipulated. What's the message here? War is miserable? Conflicted people die? Hardcover I am drawn to nonfiction and fiction about the first half of the twentieth century for some reason, and in particular World War II. The German Woman is a well-written haunting novel centered on an English nurse (Kate) married to a German doctor who finds herself in a ragtag hospital in eastern Germany during World War I. She and her husband are accused of being spies for the Russians, so the only choice is to try to get to safety. Some of the most horrific descriptions of warfare and utter cruelty almost had me stop reading at times. As the story moves beyond the escape from the horror to Kate settling in London, it takes a different turn. It is the time of World War II. Kate gradually becomes friends with Claus, a filmmaker and an American with Irish and German roots, who is fascinated by her. Their lives, and their relationship, amidst the Nazi bombings of London, are complex and troubling. Griner places you right inside this world so effectively that for the first time I could imagine the horror felt by Londoners as air raid sirens blasted and the Nazis attacked from the skies. I loved this book, and could not put it down. In fact, I will re-read The German Woman in a few years (knowing, the second time, that it is ok to gloss over some of the scenes of gut-wrenching cruelty). I will definitely read more of Griner's works, though not at night right before I go to sleep. Just saying. Hardcover As an American I always find what the British went through in World War II a bit fantastical. This book reminded me of that. In fact the best part of the book was making those years in Britain come alive. There was constant terror, anticipation of loss...both loss of your own life or your loved ones, the importance of food, of a warm bath. And worst of all, perhaps, not knowing who to trust. Who was loyal to the UK and who wasn't? Even doubting your own motives at times. Trying to do the best thing, act on your higher impulses as things seemed or WERE falling down around you. There were the odd kindnesses, great and small, from strangers, scenes of beauty and hope intermixed with the dismal and hopeless. The swings of emotion alone would be debilitating. Yet in order to survive you had to act. Griner brings together characters that are, perhaps even more than the majority of World War II Brits, isolated and alone, countryless. Just when I had the sensation I was getting a clear sense of who Kate Zweig and Claus Murphy were and what their motivations were the ground would shift again. In the end they seemed only to be staving off hopelessness, barely staying ahead of it. When beauty made an appearance it only served to make the day to day hardships more stark; blood, death, privations, hunger, isolation and the seduction of letting go of hope. Hardcover

I'm giving this book three stars because it is a well-written, if not totally original, example of its genre - the historical thriller. Kate Zweig and Claus (Charles) Murphy meet up in 1944 London, where Kate is a nurse (and possible spy) and Claus (Charles) is a film maker and air raid warden (and possible spy). The two meet and fall in love (and possibly spy). There's a back story of Kate, who was English born and raised and met a German doctor pre-WW1 in London. They were both forced to emigrate to Germany when Horst (the doctor husband) was kicked out of England in 1914. She returned to England after Horst's death, to live in her birthplace (and possibly spy). Claus (Charles) also has a back story of the son of a German mother and Irish father, who grew up in the US and experienced bigotry in 1917. So, both (possible spies) end up living and meeting in London.
To live in London in 1944 is to live with the ever-present danger of being hit by doodle-bugs, those innocent-sounding but deeply dangerous bombs launched by the Germans in a new blitz-bomb mode. Claus (Charles) may be giving the Germans coordinates of populated areas to aim the bombs at so as to produce the most damage.
The book is a fairly good look at life in 1944 England. The story is complicated, but, in the end, I was not sufficiently interested in the characters to care much what happened to them. It's not a bad read, it's just not a great read.
The other thing I did not like about the book as marketing line in the book that describes Kate Zweig as beautiful Kate Zweig, the English widow... It's really irritating to see the main female character described as beautiful, as if she'd be not worth writing about (and reading about) if she was not beautiful? Are we average-looking women worth less than a beautiful one? Do readers only want to read about a beautiful woman? Just a pet irritant with me. Hardcover I liked this book. It was different from most WWI/WWII books I've read in that it spans the two wars. In addition, it captures two people caught between allegiance to both sides. I have a difficult time with spy novels; I always find them confusing. The German Woman is more accessible than most. Very interesting book. Not the ending I expected, but a very believable one. Hardcover I saw this on the shelf at the library and picked it up on a whim. I love stories with Germans and WWII. From the book jacket, I expected a war time romance involving spies and mystery.
Part I was great. I was introduced to Kate, a British nurse during WWI and Horst, her German doctor husband. They were running a field hospital in France when they were suspected of being spies and nearly executed. With the help of a former patient, they are saved. Back in Germany, life is very hard and Kate lives a desperate existence with Horst, who is now blind, Horst’s mother, and a crippled niece.
Part II opens up in England during WWII. Here is where the book falls apart for me. Horst and his mother have died and the niece has married. Kate is living single. We are introduced to Claus/Charles who is not only mysterious in terms of the story but also to the reader. Is he American? German? Irish? Is he a spy? A filmmaker? A patrol officer? This section was so confusing. I had a glimmer of hope when the romance started but there just wasn’t enough. I gave it a good try and I made it halfway through the book until I started skimming. So many characters and double (triple?) lives, dropping in and out of the story.
I think if I buckled down and really read this book closely, it might be a good mystery. How did Claus die? Was Kate really a spy? Were they both spies? I guess I will never know. Hardcover To label this a spy novel would be a disservice. The author's descriptions of post-WWI Germany as well as the 1944 V1 bombings of London bring history to the level of the individuals who struggled through those times. It's a rather dark story of a woman who experienced both sides of both wars. The ending is predictable. Hardcover Lofty ambition but it jumps around too much. They fall in love too quickly. It takes too long to discover his history- not till page 100 or so and it all seemed completely fabricated. I know it is fiction but it seemed implausible, like a bad movie script. Disappointing as so much potential and he has a vivid way of describing war zones, feelings of those affected by war, indirectly and directly, but not very satisfying in the end. And shocking to end it so- lame almost. As if he could not be bothered to construct a more satisfying ending, giving Bertram the upper hand and allowing these 2 characters who persevered through such adversity to just dissolve in the end. If that were his objective from the beginning, why not fabricate an entirely different sort of novel. Hardcover
Years after she is mistaken for a spy and forced to flee a World War I field hospital, Kate, the English widow of a German surgeon, sparks the curiosity and attraction of Claus, a propaganda filmmaker and World War II British spy who finds himself questioning his loyalties. The German Woman