Michael Chabon is Awesome.

I just breezed through The Final Solution, by Michael Chabon. He is a wonderful writer... sometimes succinct and humorous, sometimes wordy but beautifully descriptive, always evocative. It was about an elderly detective (retired) and his investigation of a theft of a parrot and a murder, which were connected. The parrot was the friend and companion of a young mute Jewish German boy and had a connection to the British WWII intelligence effort... the "final solution" refers to the deportation and murder of jews throughout Europe, and although it inspired the title of the book it was tangential to the plot of the story. That is something I love about Chabon though -- his ability to connect tangents in a wonderful web. I have another of his novels on my bedside table and I'm going to hit that next; he doesn't disappoint.