The Yiddish Policeman's Union
By Michael Chabon

Man makes plans and God laughs.

This was a marvelous read and a book I found very hard to put down. Not only beautifully written but very witty, with a great dead-pan humour throughout. I actually found myself laughing aloud occasionally in fact.

I don't read police "procedurals" generally, although the recent Maigret read probably counts. Chabon's novel is decidedly different however. A murder mystery set among the diaspora Jews of Sitka, Alaska, in a world where Israel was snuffed out soon after its formation. So it is actually an alternate history novel and some subtle differences to our world are hinted at occasionally. The USA offered the Jews their new chilly far north home but the catch is that it is a temporary arrangement and that "reversion" to the US is about to take place after a fifty year run. Once again, the Jews have homelessness to look forward to.

With a hard-boiled, slovenly but dogged and capable detective protagonist, an ex-wife also in the police force and a half native Tlingit partner, the book shares many features common to the genre. However, suffused with Yiddish and Eastern European Jewishness, it is a very refreshing take on the hard-bitten crime story. I've learned a few Yiddish words here and, luckily, there was a Yiddish glossary in the back of my paperback edition. I now have a few other Chabon novels on my shelf to read sometime and this book is also one for a future re-read as well.