Adventures of Max Spitzkopf The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes

by Yashinsky, Mikhl; Kreppel, Jonas

• ISBN13: 9798990998056
• ISBN10: 8990998050
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-10-14
• Publisher: White Goat Press

Summary

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.”

Author Biography

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.