Robin's Rapid Reviews: Redrum Delight

So, a couple of reviews for you today.

The first is the Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Here's how I might've written the jacket copy.

In each generation there is born a Tzaddik Ha-Dor, one with the potential to become the Messiah if the world is ready. Mendel Shpilman is just such a person. As a child, he was celebrated for his intelligence and charisma. As a man, he is mourned after being found with heroin in his blood and a bullet in his brain. Obviously, the world isn't ready yet. The Jews of Sitka, Alaska have been living in a temporary refugee territory for sixty years since the end of World War II and with the area reverting to Alaskan control, all their futures are uncertain. All but Meyer Landsman. Landsman knows he doesn't have one. He used to be a star detective. He used to have a beautiful wife and child. When the child dies, so does the marriage. Adding insult to injury, his ex is now interim chief and foists on him the impossible task of "effective resolution"- solving every open case on the books in just a few months before American authorities take over. With nothing left to live for but a job he'll likely lose at the end of the year, Landsman throws himself into the Shpilman case ready to take on the most powerful people in his society, including Shpilman's own father, a cross between Rabbi and Mafioso Godfather, and who might be the least threatening of his opposition. When these forces conspire to have Landsman suspended from the force, he continues his investigation anyway with his only authority coming from a tattered membership card to the Yiddish Policemen's Union.

My thoughts: Basically speaking I picked this up because I enjoy the sound of yiddish. Book's even got a glossary of the terms it uses in the back although it never comes across quite as natural and flowing as the slang in a Clockwork orange, but hey. The story itself is very much an old school Bogartesque hard-boiled routine. Like most mysteries it often tells a little too much and doesn't show enough. The plot is also heavily fueled by convenient coincidence. And the world is impossibly small. Landsman's partner "on the beat" is his cousin, the only relative he has left after his sister died a year ago and SPOILER: she was murdered and it matters to the central plot. There are also things that just don't really add up. Like why, if everyone loved Mendel Shpilman so much, why do people not only not help in the investigation but routinely stonewall Landsman? And why did it take so long to identify him if just ten years earlir he was on the front page of every newspaper because he may have been performing miracles? But all of these are pretty much complaints with how mysteries are. They all suffer like that. This one at least has the unusual and exotic setting of some kind of alternate universe Alaska focusing on the sprawling City of Jews. Is that enough of a gimmick to be worthwhile if you don't normally read a lot of mysteries? Well, I read it. I don't regret it. My most obvious point of comparison would be Tony Hillerman's books. I think I probably enjoyed them more back in the day because they were lighter reads. Yiddish Policemen's Union has a style that it takes a long time to get into. Once you're in, it gets quite good but between the places, people, fictional city and yiddish terminology etc. it takes a while to pick up on everything. And while most books beat you over the head with the info they want you to know, this one leaves you to figure it out yourself. Which is better by the end, but so many times along the way I said "Blackhats? Verbover? Smikha? What?" And unlike so many mysteries, it isn't a series. You can't walk in with previous knowledge or expect to carry over your hard won understanding of this place or these people to a sequel. So, if you like literary work, could use a mystery but don't want to read many of them, here's a book for you. It was good for me, certainly. Otherwise, I dunno. I mean, I did put this book on hold twice to read other things because, as much as I enjoyed it, it had to be digested very slowly.

Well, that wasn't very rapid at all. So here's a quick one: Fungus of the Heart by Jeremy C Shipp. I can't give you a plot breakdown because it's a short story collection. And for that matter, the stories are so damn weird I don't know how I'd explain them to you anyway. It's a very controlled sort of chaos mashing together multiple genres and coming out with this very fast moving, sort of absurdist pieces. The first story for instance is sort of an Orwellian piece. Almost. Here's the short version: he owns a servant (presumably more like sex slave) who he likes. She gets murdered. He investigates, briefly flies through issues of morality and duty and the social structure and ends with revenge for the slave, but with the cunning plan in mind for the main that for his revenge he'll basically be brainwashed into complacency again and he won't have to think about how most powerful people abuse their slaves anymore.It's less than twenty pages. Most of dialogue. It flies. You're just starting to get a grip when it ends. And that's the whole book is. And that opening story ("The Sun Never Rises in the Big City") is about the most straightforward of them all. That said, I tore through this book in a few hours and two sittings. So obviously I enjoyed it. It's definitely a love it or hate it proposition. If you like commercial fiction- say mysteries and thrillers where everything is spelled out and clear and it's details up the butt as if they're being paid by the word, stay away. This is slim, quick, wispy. It moves like lightning and it counts on you to fill in the blanks as needed. And you know, I sort of take that as a compliment, Mr. Shipp. My only problem is the trim size on the fucker. It's both tall and wide for a trade paperback and it's totally not necessary because it's a thin book, and with several blank pages at the end (for printing reasons I won't discuss here). Meanwhile, on his twitter account, Schipp seems to frequently offer people who buy his books as kindle editions a gift if they "DM" (Dungeon master?) him. So do that. Hell, you could get 3, maybe four of them for the price of one of the print editions that way. If I had a Kindle, I'd have done it. Now I've got this awesome book that doesn't fit on one bookcase where I keep my paperbacks and gets lost and cruched between ginormous books on another.