I am going to say this right out in front - I do not think that I have enough general knowledge of Jewish religion and culture (particularly Yiddish culture) to have gotten full meaning and value out of this book. But I did enjoy it anyway!
The novel is set on an alternate Earth, where after WW2, the new Israeli state failed. The US set aside a part of Alaska for a new Jewish homeland for some sixty years. When the story begins, the sixty years are nearly up, and the millions of Jewish people who live around Sitka are living in fear over what the future holds for them, and their future as part of the state of Alaska rather than the Federal District of Sitka.
A divorced police detective named Meyer Landsman has a lot of problems - especially since his new boss in homicide is the only love of his life - his ex-wife, whom he feels he let down in the worst possible way. His beloved sister died in an accident. He is working on drinking himself to death. He really doesn't want to investigate the murder of a bum living at the same seedy hotel as himself.
But the investigation starts to get interesting when he discovers that the murdered man just may have been that generation's messiah; that the victim had ties to the most important and corrupt people in Sitka; that there might have been an international conspiracy centered around him; that there might even be ties to his sister's death...
Now if only Landsman can survive performing the investigation...
A really interesting genre bender!
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