The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

Lonely, alcoholic detectives are the bread and butter of hardboiled crime fiction. International religious conspiracies, always good for a suspenseful plot twist or two, are certainly nothing new. But to work those well-worn tropes into an alternate-universe Alaskan setting where everyone speaks Yiddish—that takes chutzpah. In many ways, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a chimeric masterpiece. Michael Chabon seamlessly combines brilliant world-building with the deft characterizations and whirlwind plotting devices of your standard-issue crime thriller, creating an energetic whodunit that bristles not only with narrative tension but with the joyful, redolent cadences of the mother tongue. Our protagonist is a hard case, sure, but he's also a little sad-eyed, a little loveable, steering an honorable course through his teetering family relationships and the lurking menace of the corrupt Orthodox Jews who control his town. After a few pages, the sights, sounds and smells of the frigid little town of Sitka begin to beckon you into a Yiddish dream world that is at once fantastical and starkly realistic. Much has been made of Chabon's fascinating take on an alternate Jewish history, but the truth is that you don't have to know much about what did or didn't really happen to enjoy this book for what it essentially is—a damn good mystery.