"For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage."
This one was excellent, a police procedural detective novel set in an alternative version of the US where the almost immediate destruction of Israel in 1948 forced the Jewish homeland to be created in Alaska. With the lease about to expire on their territory and all factions plotting to maneuver around the others, Chabon creates a murder mystery that brings in the key players in the region.
The alternative history is interesting, but by no means as big part of the story as in many other books. It reminds me of Fatherland by Robert Harris in that its a murder mystery where the changed post-war situation is almost incidental to the story until nearly the end.
Chabon is a master storyteller. and this is one of his finest. In building the world aroun Sitka and its competing groups and rundown society his book feels much older than it is. This isn't a divergent world where everything's better - it feels worn down. The best comparison I can make is to The Wire (and that's a great show to be compared to), in that this is a police force held together by a few obsessive personalities and very little else.
Whilst I loved Summerlands and liked Cavalier and Clay this is probably the easiest to get people reasing Chabon - it's a Raymond Chandler-esque mystery with Yiddish thrown in.
Also Try:
Michael Chabon, Summerlands
Robert Harris, Fatherland
Guy Saville, Afrika Reich
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