A review by sonofachipwich
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Extremely stylish, compelling, funny hardboiled detective fare. At once a solid entry into the genre and a loving send-up of it. Basically just a long string of the main character going to different places, meeting different Types of Weird Guys, and getting the shit beat out of him along the way, but what a string of guys it is. Very light touch on the alternate history here, little offhand mentions of radically different events, and yet the world is pretty much the same in its nature. The biggest joke of this book is that the mind-blowing, almost unthinkable thing that comes to light at the end is not as boggling as what happened and continues to happen in real life in that particular respect.