History Literature / TheFinalSolution

** [[spoiler: [[Literature/TheYiddishPolicemensUnion This isn't the first time in one of Chabon's works that a conspicuously out of place dairy has covered up a conspiracy.]]]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Linus and the parrot are reunited, and the murder is caught. But the other characters still don't understand the significance of the numbers--which refer to the railway cars in which Linus' parents were taken away to a concentration camp.]]

* GloryDays: The detective is naturally given to contrast his present circumstances, in which his body is slowly failing and his mind, while far from decrepit, is nevertheless not what it once was, with his powers

* NotInFrontOfTheParrot: A rather dark example. [[spoiler: Though the human characters do not realise it, it is heavily implied that the numbers the parrot keeps reciting are the numbers of train cars carrying people to death camps. Including Linus's parents.]]

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%%* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Bellows.
* MythologyGag: [[spoiler: [[Literature/TheYiddishPolicemensUnion This isn't the first time in one of Chabon's works that a conspicuously out of place dairy has covered up a conspiracy.]]]]

%%* NotInFrontOfTheParrot: A rather dark example.
%%* SwissBankAccount: One proposed answer to the mystery of the numbers. [[spoiler: Wrong.]]

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Creator/MichaelChabon's ''The Final Solution'' (first published in the ''Paris Review'' in 2003) features an unnamed but strangely [[SherlockHolmes familiar]] detective, elderly and long-retired, investigating the case of a boy's missing African gray parrot. However, the boy is a mute Jewish refugee whose parents were taken away to a concentration camp, and the parrot keeps spouting mysterious numbers. Thanks to the numbers, the parrot attracts some unwelcome attention from more than one source--perhaps enough attention to lead to murder.

* NoNameGiven: The retired detective, although he is obviously SherlockHolmes.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: Both referencing the Holocaust, and mirroring Doyle's ''The Final Problem''.

* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Bellows.

* NotInFrontOfTheParrot: A rather dark example.
* SwissBankAccount: One proposed answer to the mystery of the numbers. [[spoiler: Wrong.]]
* TitleDrop: At the end.

* TheWatson: Mr. Panicker, but not very well.
* WorldWarII

* TheLestrade: Inspector Bellows.

* WorldWarII

MichaelChabon's ''The Final Solution'' (first published in the ''Paris Review'' in 2003) features an unnamed but strangely [[SherlockHolmes familiar]] detective, elderly and long-retired, investigating the case of a boy's missing African gray parrot. However, the boy is a mute Jewish refugee whose parents were taken away to a concentration camp, and the parrot keeps spouting mysterious numbers. Thanks to the numbers, the parrot attracts some unwelcome attention from more than one source--perhaps enough attention to lead to murder.