In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel âThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayâ, Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books, intertwining history, legend and storytelling verve. In âThe Final Solutionâ 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 â 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 â the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot â 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.
Michael Chabon is the author of two collections of short stories, âA Model Worldâ and âWerewolves in their Youthâ, the novels âThe Mysteries of Pittsburghâ, âWonder Boysâ, âThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayâ, âThe Yiddish Policemenâs Unionâ and âTelegraph Avenueâ, and the non-fiction books âMaps and Legends and Manhood for Amateursâ. âWonder Boysâ has been made into a film starring Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. and âThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayâ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire and Playboy. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and their four children.