Rating: 
Summary: A well-written page turner!
Review: Lev combines issues of death, loss, failed relationships, and forgotten dreams with mystery, intrigue, and the Holocaust. This would seem to be a very strange combination, but it works marvelously! Even though the subject matter is very sobering, one cannot help but chuckle and sometimes laugh out loud at the clever quips and the wonderful descriptions.
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Summary: All in the Family
Review: Lev Raphael has written short stories and novels dealing with Jewish, Holocaust and crime, and "The German Money" can be seen as a distillation of all of them. He lets the story unfold slowly, giving the reader time to become acquainted with the characters before reaching deep into the emotional undertow and bring to the surface the tensions that bind and divide a family.Paul's journey into his past doesn't reveal everything, and Raphael resists tidying all the loose ends, giving "The German Money" a necessary messiness that reminds us that ties of blood and kinship are not keys into the realm of perfect knowledge. Sometimes, we simply have to go on as best we can, and let the secrets be.
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Summary: Smart and suspenseful
Review: Lev Raphael knows how to write true suspense - a page turner where you care deeply about the outcome of the characters and where the character have heart and deal with their emotions. From page one, this one had me hooked. The German Money is not a book you've read before but Raphael is a novelist you will want to read again. Can't wait for the next one!!
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Summary: insightful, clever, witty and gripping
Review: Lev Raphael's latest book, The German Money, is as wonderful as it is complex. The main character, Paul, is an intelligent individual who slowly uncovers layers of intrigue involving a dark family secret. When his mother dies, Paul is surprised to learn that she has left him a large sum of money. His troubled relationship with his mother leads him to question her motives, but the more he explores, the greater the mystery. As Paul searches for answers, he is forced to confront certain truths about his parents, his siblings and even about himself. And while the heart of the book is overflowing with substance, nothing could prepare me for the heart-stopping ending! Lev Raphael has crafted a story that is brimming with wisdom, wit and honest, raw human emotion. I could not put this book down!
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Summary: A book that captured me on many levels.
Review: My sister insisted that I had to read this book! I had read some of Lev's "comic academic mysteries" and I will admit that I had no idea of what to expect and how much I was going to enjoy this book. It turns out to be one of the best books I have read this year and might be in my all time top ten. I have said (no doubt along with many others) that the only thing that was worse than living through "The Depression" is to be a child of parents that lived through the depression. After reading this I see that I need to read "Dancing on Tisha B'Av". To see the effects of the Holocaust on the children of the Holocaust victims in such an arresting story had me dreading the end of the book. I wanted to finish it but at the same time wanted to make it last, the what do I do when it is over syndrome. I am not sure where to put it, it isn't really a mystery, but it is, it has, at least for me, suspense and thriller elements and I feel it is romantic rather than erotic. The mystery of Paul's mother. The suspense and the conflicts between Paul and his brother and sister. And the romance. Who can read this and not wonder about some past love, what might have been and what might be. Let me see, where is that old phone number? In short, sorry Gwen, you don't get this back until Bimbi and Rachel read it!
Rating:
Summary: Magnificient!
Review: Only an incredibly gifted writer could portray the introspective angst of the emotional legacy often felt by adult children when a parent dies. Lev portrays this illuminating journey with, belive it or not, more than a fine glimpse of hidden secrets, but with wit, warmth and a poignancy that captured me so completely I was wonderfully surprised by the twists and turns of the mystery. THE GERMAN MONEY is a marvelous story worthy of a place of honor on your bookshelf and reading once a year.
Rating: 
Summary: THE GERMAN MONEY
Review: Paul had gone to an isloated area of Michigan for a restful vacation away from phones, answering machines, etc.Therfore,he didn't know his mother had died until after her funeral. Additionally,just before leaving for his trip he'd received a cryptic phone message from his mother--an event that puzzled him since they hadn't spoken in years. Paul, his brother Simon and their sister Dina all had emotional scars from their childhood with this very cold, distant, disapproving woman and a father who did little to imporve their lot. The mother was a concentration camp survivor, who never discussed her war years; who left a room if the war or halocaust came up in converstation, and who at first refused to apply to the German government for reparations. She finally gave in to her husband's urging; when the money arrived she invested it but refused to spend a penny of it. As the least favorite son, imagine Paul's surprise and dismay when he discovers that he has been left this "German money", which was now almost a million dollars. In an effort to discover why he recived this money, and what caused his healthy mother to die, he revisits his earlier life. In the process of searching throuh her things to see if there were any explanation for the legacy he and his siblings begin to communicate and draw closer. He comes to understand why they all became such troubled, sad people who were unable to have any sort of lasting relationship. As Paul digs through the past he uncovers facts that lead him to an a very dramtatic, unexpected explanation for his legacy and a knock your socks off ending. I found the story very satisfying and the resolution was a total surprise!It is really novel of suspense. I was sorry to leave the charactersbehind as I would've liked to see whether, after losing the ties that bound them to this difficult woman, they were able to improve the quality of their lives; it they continued to improve their relationships with one another. The story is well written and the characters quite believable.
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Summary: Raphael's newest--another hit!
Review: Readers already familiar with Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman mysteries and short stories (for example, those in DANCING ON TISHA B'AV) as well as his other writing told from the vantage point of an adult child of Holocaust survivors, have good reason to welcome this new novel. It too is a mystery--of the kind that all of us strive to uncover in our own families, whether we are survivors or children of survivors--or not. The three siblings are vividly characterized as they seek the secret of their mother's death and final bequest. Not surprisingly, it is a good read, told with the wit, sensitivity, and style we have come to eagerly await from Lev Raphael.
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Summary: Don't waste your time on that one...
Review: Reading the praising reviews for The German Money, I wonder if I really read the same book. Dina, Simon, and Paul are portrayed (more by the reviews than actually in the book) as powerless, incapable victims as children of Holocaust survivors who are doomed to living unstable and sorrowful lives. For example, Paul, after living for 15 years in `solitude' as a mature adult, doesn't seem to have learned anything about himself and seems to have stagnated at the physical and emotional level of a teenaged boy. As a reader, I can only feel sorry for him, not because he is a child of a Holocaust survivor, but because he hasn't even tried to understand why he is in this world. (This statement being equally true for his sister and to some extent for his brother...) No, I am not Jewish, and I'm not a child of a Holocaust survivor and don't want to downplay the devastating influences their parents' emotional states had on the three children. Yet, I think there is a great danger in a deterministic attitude that serves as an excuse for immature and self-distractive behavior. It could be endlessly argued why Paul's, Simon's, and Dina's lives turned out the way they did (and that's really all what the book is about); I'm just grateful that Val is in the book to show that there are constructive ways of dealing with a difficult past. Although, on a technical level, the writing style made me turn the pages quickly, I was glad when I could leave the characters and the book behind.
Rating:
Summary: TGM hits close to home
Review: The transparency of Paul's emotions allowed me to really identify with many of the issues he struggled with. Living in Ann Arbor and vacationing on the Leelanau Peninsula annually, it was easy for me to visualize those places included in the story. Having never visited New York however, the descriptions left me with an excellent, tangible, and intimate sense of the city. It is the same feeling that Pete Hamill achieved for me in "forever". Oh yeah, the twist at the end was pretty good too.
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