The Yiddish Policemen's Union

⚖The case for it

An alternate history where Jewish refugees settled in Alaska after WWII; the settlement is about to be dissolved. Detective Meyer Landsman investigates a murder in a flophouse while the world ends around him. Chabon gave the noir form maximum literary ambition, channeling Hammett and Chandler through postmodern historical imagination. Won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Edgar shortlist.

— the canon

✕The case against

Chabon cannot let a noun pass without a simile escorting it, and after two hundred pages the Chandler pastiche reads like a man doing a voice he can't stop. The plot's back half swerves into a messianic conspiracy (red heifer included) that arrives both convoluted and rushed. Also, you will need to care about chess problems. Landsman is a fine sad detective stuck in machinery that groans.

— the honest librarian