Crazy in Berlin is the first volume in the saga of Carlo Reinhart. As an army medic stationed in Allied-occupied Germany, Reinhart is a young man of large bulk (two hundred pounds, plus)--good-hearted, intelligent, and something of a fool. He pursues with anxiety and bewilderment his custodial role over a shattered and noxious civilization, accompanied by an assortment of influences: Nathan Schild, an American Communist acting as a U.S. intelligence office; the war waif Trudchen, an accommodating Heidi; Schatzi, a charter-member Nazi, now a Russian courier and black market virtuoso.
Crazy in Berlin is a lusty tale, full of irony and wit, of a stumbling American Odysseus.
Praise for Crazy In Berlin "Thomas Berger is a name to remember. . . . A novelist with a great career before him."
--Harvey Swados, The New Leader "One of the best war novels, and one of our best novels no matter what kind."
--W.G. Rogers, Associated Press "An ambitious mixture of high moral earnestness and knock-about farce."
--Pearl Bell, Commentary