The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a creative and engaging novel by gifted writer Michael Chabon, based on a strange scenario in which the nation of Israel was crushed a few months after its establishment, in the first Arab-Israeli War, and the Jewish refugees were relocated to an area around Sika, Alaska as their new 'promised land." The story is a detective tale in which the protagonist, Meyer Landsman, a rather down-and-out hard-boiled "yiddish cop" tries to find out who killed a mysterious young man who turns out to have interesting connections to local heavies. I can't go into the plot too deeply without spoiling the story. The book is warmly and humorously written, although the plot gets a bit convoluted in the last half of the book. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and some remarkable metaphors and imagery. Sub-plots revolving around Landsman's relationship with his ex-wife and his half-native American, half-Jewish partner give some depth. It takes some time to figure out the features of the parallel universe portrayed in the book, but this uncertainty does keep the reader interested.
For a review of the book from The Guardian, click here:http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/10/fiction.features3
For a review of the book from The Guardian, click here:http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/10/fiction.features3
