'Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude'

The Final Solution

The Final Solution

Michael Chabon

A brilliant reworking of the detective story by the much-acclaimed Michael Chabon, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY.

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’, Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books, intertwining history, legend and storytelling verve. In ‘The Final Solution’ he has crafted a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic 19th-century detective story.

In deep retirement in the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, vaguely remembered by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with other people. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African grey 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 is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

Reviews of The Final Solution

    • ‘It takes a steady hand to appropriate the world’s most famous detective, but Chabon has chutzpah to spare.’ Independent
    • ‘Chabon gives the reader a tantalising taste of what he’s capable of.’ Andrew Roberts, New Statesman
    • ‘Chabon’s gift as a writer is the fatal facility to make anything pleasant in the telling, and “The Final Solution” is further evidence of that talent.’ Daily Telegraph
    • ‘His thoughtful, intricate prose pays handsome tribute to all those ‘tec stories and sleuth yarns…“The Final Solution” is an evocation of the addictive properties of detection and an elegy for its glory days.’ Word Magazine
    • ‘On par with the best, most tightly written sections of Chabon’s last novel, the marvelous “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”…exceptional.’ New York Times Book Review
    • ‘One of the best-written American novels published this fall… an experiment by a master.’ The New York Sun

More from Michael Chabon