Friday, May 15, 2009

Book #27: The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Title: The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Author: Michael Chabon

What if Berlin were destroyed by an atomic bomb at the end of WWII? What if the establishment of Israel failed? What if the world's Jews congregated in Sitka, Alaska, where the American government gave them a place to live for fifty years? What would happen when those fifty years were up?

This is the world the characters in Michael Chabon's novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union inhabit. Meyer Landsman, a detective with the homicide unit in Sitka, is ostensibly trying to solve a few murders before turning the department over to US control, but he's really trying to redeem himself before it's too late. The book reminds me of classic film noir-- Sunset Boulevard or something like that, with a little bit of The Wire thrown in, all set to the tune of the Hava Nagila.

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