Adventures of Max Spitzkopf - by Jonas Kreppel (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Max Spitzkopf, the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, " heads the famous Viennese detective bureau Blitz . . . He's bold as a lion and takes the wildest risks." Meet Max Spitzkopf: legendary private eye, undefeated foe of villains, and passionate defender of the Jewish people. No matter how hopeless or dangerous the case, when " the investigatory profession's greatest artist" is summoned, justice is assured. Aided by his trusty assistant, Fuchs, super-sleuth Spitzkopf deploys equal parts physical bravery and intellectual ingenuity-- not to mention a knack for stealthy disguise-- to unpick evil conspiracies, outwit the canniest of criminals, and restore moral order to the world. Giving a unique twist to a beloved literary genre, this complete collection of the fifteen Spitzkopf mysteries is also a vibrant testament to Jewish life, in all its variety, during the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Reading the tales, with every iota of their linguistic verve and historical charm preserved in Mikhl Yashinsky's translation, it's easy to see why the young Isaac Bashevis Singer thought them " masterpieces."

Review Quotes

"'King of Detectives' Max Spitzkopf stars in this lively collection of rare early-20th-century detective stories, translated from the Yiddish...Wide-ranging, offbeat mystery tales--a valuable addition to Yiddish literature in translation." --Kirkus

About the Author

Mikhl Yashinsky is a translator, playwright-lyricist, singer-actor, and teacher in New York City. He was born in Detroit and graduated with a degree in European history and literature from Harvard. His translation of Ester-Rokhl Kaminska's memoirs, The Mother of Yiddish Theatre, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He has taught Yiddish at Columbia, the University of Michigan, and Tel Aviv University and co-authored the award-winning Yiddish language textbook In eynem (White Goat Press). Jonas Kreppel was born into a middle-class family in Drohobycz, Galicia, in 1874. A gifted Talmudic prodigy, he was destined for the rabbinate but instead found his calling as a journalist, editor, civil servant, and intellectual writing in numerous languages. Settling in Vienna around 1914, his main activity for the next three decades was editing a German-Jewish weekly and writing a series of books on Jewish and world politics. Between 1924 and 1930 he published almost a hundred slim storybooks in four main series: historical tales, Hasidic legends, stories of World War I, and crime fiction.