Books: The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

Highbrow whodunit

By John Ziebell

Somehow I never developed a deep, abiding admiration for the work of Michael Chabon, at least not to the degree that seems his literary due. I think that Wonder Boys made a pretty good movie, and liked as much of Kavalier and Clay as I got through, but that's it. Still, maybe this confession will bolster my praise for his latest publication, The Final Solution: A Story of Detection.

A first version of this slender book originally appeared as a novella in The Paris Review, a pedigree that pretty much speaks for its literary props. I'll say from the start that I think the form contributes to its success. In a work of this length, Chabon has to stay focused on sustaining the arc of the story at hand, and that's not a bad thing. Without the requisite room to pursue any and every opportunity for narrative meandering, he concentrates on showing off, in figurative terms, which he's really good at; there are moments when his language nearly sings in homage to the 19th century conventions that it echoes.

The story opens with the seemingly chance encounter between a boy with a parrot and the old beekeeper whose home they are walking past. It's a strange, surreal juxtaposition of characters; the decrepit and surly old curmudgeon, the silent boy, the parrot spouting strings of numbers in German. The setting is Sussex, the year is 1944. The boy is Linus Steinman, a mute 9-year-old refugee from Hitler's Germany. He and his companion, the African gray parrot named Bruno, have been relocated by aid workers at a local boarding house run by the Panickers--a less than competent black Anglican vicar, his frustrated wife and their boorish, sullen son.

The story is populated with an interesting cast, and early on Chabon offers a drawing-room vignette that puts a fresh spin on the kind of social dysfunction that seems so peculiarly British. But events soon take their strange series of menacing turns. One of the boarding house tenants is murdered--Mr. Shane, a man with a murky past and a concealed pistol--and Bruno is missing. The case seems too complicated for the abilities of the local constables, but consider this bit of serendipity: The old beekeeper we met on the first page just happens to be Sherlock Holmes, who vows to return the missing parrot to its owner.

There is plenty to consider for the legendary sleuth, now 89, whose famous name is in fact never mentioned in the story. His skills have grown a bit rusty over the years and miles that separate him from the moody, gaslit streets of Victorian London. And our hero is far from the arrogant and omnipotent protagonist that readers remember. These days he is consumed not with the minutiae of the criminal world but more pedestrian concerns: the aching of aged joints, disruptions in the rhythm of his pulse, an awareness that an era has passed him by. Even for the likes of Holmes, there is no enemy as relentless as Time.

The mystery itself is constructed with the same kind of artifice that Conan Doyle's own were, with the kinds of gaps readers can't fill on their own. The crime appears simple, but we know better. Just who is Linus, the exiled doctor's child? What plans did the Panickers' son have for Bruno? How is all this connected to certain shady characters in London, and why has it has caught the interest of military intelligence? The parrot can sing opera, but what's of more interest to everyone involved are the strings of numbers it repeats. What are they--the numbers of Swiss bank accounts? Keys to Nazi ciphers? Neither, of course. And in the end, while the answer presumes to be greater than the mystery itself, and the story's final resolution perhaps too facile to feel wholly earned, Chabon does give us a brilliantly crafted entertainment.