Book Review: The Final Solution

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

The Final Solution     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Michael Chabon
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Historical   Sherlock Holmes

This small novella is set in the British countryside in the early 1940's. London has been bombed extensively, and a wide variety of people have taken refuge in rural areas. Spies and code breakers disguise themselves as dairy researchers, fooling no one. An impoverished clergyman takes in boarders, getting more than he bargained for when his wife finds one of them attractive. A refugee organization places children orphaned children in rural homes. The most intriguing of these children is a young European boy, who has been struck mute by the horrors he has experienced. His constant companion is a personable African gray parrot, whose vocalizations include a repetitive recitation of numbers spoken in German.

Close by lives an elderly beekeeper never named by the author, whom all the locals recognize. Before long the reader does, too. The famous detective Sherlock Holmes has hopes of living out his life in relative obscurity.

However, one of the parson's boarders is murdered. The parrot has disappeared. Added to the intrigue of the meaning of the bird's recitation of numbers (the key to some code? numbers of abandoned bank accounts?) is the mystery of who took the bird and why.

There's quite a bit packed into a little less than 150 pages - the title, of course, hints at the Holocaust. Holmes struggles with the burdens of advanced age and painfully limited mobility. The reader is left to wonder as the book ends what eventually becomes of the boy. The parson wrestles with a crisis of faith and fidelity. And the British nation as a whole copes with the strain and violence of war.

Not exactly run of the mill suspense fiction, but recommended nevertheless!

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM