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The Final Solution

A Story Of Detection

By Michael Chabon

(33)

| Hardcover | 9780060763404

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Book Description

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books -- intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspensefulContinue

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books -- intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.

In deep retirement in the English country-side, an eighty-nine-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out -- a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case -- the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot -- beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?

Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage, which won the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction, is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

Critics

  • 'The Final Solution' by Michael Chabon

    When someone is killed and the parrot is nowhere to be found, a once famous but now elderly police detective comes out of retirement to help track him down. Has the bird been stolen by a money-hungry bird trader? Or an analyst seeking to decipher the ... (read full critics)

    readingmatters published on Mon, 27 Sep 2010

  • Lost in the broken world

    The Final Solution by Michael Chabon 127pp, Fourth Estate, £10 Since winning the Pulitzer prize in 2001 with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a magnificent epic novel about the golden age of superhero comics, Michael Chabon has tackled a ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

4 Reviews

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  • why bother to exhume sherlock holmes? very disappoining, there is no real holmes nor mistery in it, just a masturbatory exercise from a pulitzer winning author - and american, too.

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    Elsastella said on Mar 12, 2009 | Add your feedback

  • The ending was quite clever. The rest, not as much. I proceded slowly through the book, never really curious to know what would be coming next. It probably helps if you are a Sherlock Holmes fan. Which I'm not.
    All in all, not awful, but definitely not a page-tuner, either.

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    Ficie said on Mar 4, 2009 | Add your feedback

  • My thoughts

    This was a quiet, contemplative mystery regarding a missing parrot who may know some secret information. While the mystery itself was not that engaging, I did enjoy reading about Sherlock Holmes in his retirement years and how taking care of bees became a solace to him after years of detection.

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    krin5292 said on Apr 17, 2008 | Add your feedback

Book Details

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ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9780060763404 Hardcover $16.95 $13.56 bn.com
$16.95 $12.21 The Book Depository
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