His constant companion is an African grey parrot that keeps reeling off sequences of German numbers, piquing the interest of the locals. Now, in 1944, Holmes meets a nine-year-old Jewish boy called Linus Steinman, a refugee from Nazi Germany who has lost his family and never speaks. He is never named as Sherlock Holmes: we are left to note his magnifying glass ("around its bezel an affectionate inscription from the sole great friend of his life") and his memories of besting ingenious criminals in late 19th-century London. In the Sussex countryside a retired detective, 89 years old, keeps bees. At the same time, it is a tale of adventure, detective work and heroics, steeped in a fan's love of genre fiction.
This is a subtle, humane novella written to a high polish. With The Final Solution, Chabon returns to the adult novel, but he has not abandoned his enthusiastic eclecticism.
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