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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780007149834
ISBN number: 0007149832
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: May 01, 2008
Publishing house: Harper Perennial
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 1732
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a 'temporary' safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
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Rated by buyers 
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Imaginative premise, compelling characters, innovative prose. The only reason I didn't give it five stars (I'd have given it 4.5 if that were possible) is that I would have expected, especially from a Jewish author, a better understanding of his people's millennial yearnings of return to their ancestral country. There's an undercurrent of negative attitude to Zionism in this book, that reflects the superficial fads of the Sushi-Organic- Latte-Obama crowd, to which this Berkeley based author probably belongs. Hopefully he'll grow wiser on this subject when he matures.
Rated by buyers 
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This is a fun, fast paced, brilliantly imagined detective story set in a fanciful present. Might be particularly interesting for those with an affinity/awareness/interest in Jewish culture. As this is an audio book,the reading is as critical as the writing, and we are very impressed by the great job Peter Riegert does in moving this along without indulgence or conceit, and in giving the many characters their own voice -with subtle nuances of dialect and inflection. Bravo to author and reader!
Rated by buyers 
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I thought at the end there would be some great insightful, philosophical meaning to this book. I kept reading it even though it took five weeks because I don't speak Yiddish and there was no plot to follow. At the end, and this is a spoiler, all that happens is nothing. It was probably the worst book I have ever stubbornly stuck through. I really like this author, and you can tell he expended a ton of energy and time researching and writing this long novel, but in the end it was all wasted. It just isn't that good and is completely uninteresting. I wait anxiously for his subsequent book.
Rated by buyers 
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I though that I was familiar with the Yiddish vocabulary, but I could not understand any slang. I also couldn't care less. I didn't relate at all with the story and any of the characters. Actually I found everything very annoying. When I drop a book, it is because there is absolutely no way to proceed. I am very benevolent with books, but this one didn't have a chance. Congratulations to those that read it and enjoyed. I'll wait for the Cohen brothers movie.
Rated by buyers -
I had heard about this book and this author, and figured I would get around to reading it. What prompted me to actually buy it was the coupon from Borders I received for reviewing the very first four chapters.
These very first chapters were intriguing. I naturally thought the whole book was going to be like this - a unique combination of various genres. Being of Eastern European Jewish descent myself, I looked forward to a lot of the Jewish in-jokes other reviewers have mentioned.
Unfortunately, as others have also mentioned, the tone became as dreary as the weather, and there was virtually no payoff to plodding through to the end.
I will defintely read his other works. They all can't be winners.
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