ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN - "No case too small"

Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol

Rather than talking about a specific book, this blog is a bit different. It's part character profile, part personal experience. For me, there's no better place to start than with my first favorite fictional character, and the one that had a significant impact on my psyche - Encyclopedia Brown, boy detective.

Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown is ten years old, the son of the Chief of Police in Idaville, and is often described as "a complete library walking around in sneakers". When he's not helping his father solve cases at the dinner table, he runs his own detective agency out of the garage with his partner, Sally Kimball.

Brown owes a debt to both Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe (especially the latter) - he's brainy, distinctly non-physical, and, like Wolfe, he leans back and closes his eyes as he listens to the details of the case being presented to him. Sally fills, in part, the Archie Goodwin role, acting primarily as the detective's bodyguard, but also helping him solve the cases, at times. 

Recommended to me by my sister, Encyclopedia Brown was my introduction to mysteries. The series eventually led me to the aforementioned Holmes and Wolfe, as well as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, Kinsey Milhone, Matthew Scudder, Kenzie and Gennaro, Easy Rawlins, and many others. 

But the influence went beyond that. Obviously, part of what drew me to the books was identifying with the main character. As a quiet, smart kid who was bullied, I couldn't help it. I went through a fairly long phase of wanting to be a detective when I grew up (including calling an actual detective agency when I was about 11 to find out what qualifications were needed to become one). I learned critical thinking, careful observation, and making intuitive leaps from Encyclopedia Brown, as well. 

And, most telling, my best friends were often girls (and, later, women) who were generally more assertive than I was, at least as smart as I was, and (if necessary) could probably handle themselves better in a fight than I could. More often than not I nursed crushes that I kept to myself, while quietly disliking whomever they were interested in at the time.

More than any other fictional character, or single book, Encyclopedia Brown changed my life. Because of him, I grew up taking pride in my intelligence (maybe a bit too much, at times), thinking and talking my way out of problems, treating women like equals, and spending countless hours in libraries, bookstores and, well, books. All of that for far less than 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION - "Strange times to be a Jew..."

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage. - Amazon.com

This is the sixth novel by author Michael Chabon, and easily ranks as my favorite. Equal parts noir, alternate history, and fantasy, Chabon grounds both the fantastic elements, and the generally complex concept in a fully-realized world full of memorable characters. 

One of the most appealing aspects, for me, is the darkly humorous fatalistic streak that runs through all of the characters we meet. "Strange times to be a Jew." is the often repeated refrain, which punctuates what would otherwise be an unrelentingly grim crime novel. The protagonist, Meyer Landsman is a divorced homicide detective, living in a flophouse of a hotel, trying (and failing) to drink himself to death. Even the impending forced dismantling of the Jewish community that is the closest thing to a homeland that they have isn't enough to break through the self-loathing he feels. The murder of a his junkie neighbor (whom he barely even remembers) is just enough of an insult to the sensibilities of the man - the detective - that he used to be to prompt him to action. That action consists of little more than following the instincts, and hunches, that he stopped trusting a long time ago

The discovery that the victim was more than he seemed (and might have even been more than that), and the growing knowledge that powerful people want Landsman to stop only motivates him more. But, in fitting with the character, that motivation is at least partly influenced by that fatalistic - bordering on suicidal, at times - streak.

Surrounding Landsman are his boss, and ex-wife, Bina - equal parts no-nonsense bureaucrat and seeker of justice, his partner and cousin, Berko Shemets - a toweringly intimidating half-Jewish/half-Tlingit (native) family man, and an older generation of schemers and survivors who, as contemporaries of Landsman's long-dead father, loom large in both the history of the Sitka district, as well as in Landsman's personal history.

These characters all serve to both drive the story and ground it in a reality the reader can believe in. The way in which Chabon casually and matter-of-factly refers to things like a nuclear strike on Berlin to end WWII or the Cuban missile crisis seemingly turning that country into an alternate Vietnam never overwhelms, and only serves to enhance the story.

It's a compelling, engaging, funny, touching, and most importantly, entertaining novel that I can't recommend highly enough.