THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN S UNION

The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning ''The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay''What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed, Alaska - and not Israel - had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II? In Michael Chabon''s Yiddish-speaking ''Alyeska'', Orthodox gangs in side-curls and knee breeches roam the streets of Sitka, where Detective Meyer Landsman discovers the corpse of a heroin-addled chess prodigy in the flophouse Meyer calls home. Marionette strings stretch back to the hands of charismatic Rebbe Gold, leader of a sect that seems to have drawn its mission statement from the Cosa Nostra - but behind Rebbe looms an even larger shadow... Despite sensible protests from Berko, his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner, Meyer is determined to unsnarl the meaning behind the murder. Even if that means surrendering his badge and his dignity to the chief of Sitka''s homicide unit - also known as his fearsome ex-wife, Bina.The Yiddish Policemen''s Union interweaves an homage to the stylish menace of 1940s noir with a bittersweet fable of identity, home and faith. It is a novel of colossal ambition and heart from one of the most important and beloved writers working today.