#37: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Excellent genre-bender from Michael Chabon (whose The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay remains one of my modern-era faves), about a washed-up cop who takes umbrage at a junkie's murder in the very flophouse he resides in. With his reluctant partner, and his ex-wife/commanding officer breathing down his neck, he unearths a wider conspiracy.

Against this background, with its noir conventions tracing a direct line back to Raymond Chandler, is an alternate future based on a real WWII-era plan to create a Jewish homeland in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon does some intricate and compelling world-building that again recalls a great writer in Philip K. Dick and his The Man in the High Castle.

I listened to an excellent audiobook version read by Peter Riegert. Although Jim Dale's Harry Potter readings are without peer, I would put Riegert's reading in my top five audiobook recordings I have encountered (with Paul Giamatti's presentation of Dick's A Scanner Darkly right there as well). This audiobook was given to me by a friend, and I plan on donating it to the Farmland Public Library.

Highly recommended.

#36: Zero Cool by John Lange

A doctor at a European conference is forced to perform a mysterious autopsy, then spends the rest of his trip outrunning a bevy of bloodthirsty pursuers in John Lange's Zero Cool.


I may be the last person to know this was actually written by Michael Crichton back in his peanut-butter days of the late 60s. Zero Cool is a suprising departure, not nearly as dense or intense as his later, more well-known work. Our physician protagonist is as quippy as any PI of the time, is accompanied by several mysterious women and a strange, colorful supporting cast of baddies, and jetsets around several exotic locales. The combination reminds me of the James Bond movies of the era more than any sort of medical thriller. A pretty fun read overall.


I found this one in a library book sale for a shiny quarter, with a silver, 70s-style cover. It is more recently seen as part of the great Hard Case Crime series with a more appropriately retro look.

#35: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage

The classic tale of Sir Gawain of King Arthur's court, and the knight's face-off with a mysterious, seemingly immortal foe, gets a muscular new translation from poet Simon Armitage.

I am a fan of Seamus Heaney's landmark translation of Beowulf and thought this one followed in its footsteps, from the hard-bitten prose (mirrored on facing pages with the original language) right on down to the clunky, rusty armor on the cover. But it will be hard to beat Heaney's idea of changing the traditional storytelling opening of "Once Upon A Time..." to "So..."

Still, Armitage's translation stands on its own merits. He has created a clean and easy read, and the storytelling is highly interesting for its various subtexts and nuances; overall an offbeat tale in the Camelot pantheon of stories.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.