ADVENTURES OF MAX SPITZKOPF

“King of Detectives” Max Spitzkopf stars in this lively collection of rare early-20th-century detective stories, translated from the Yiddish.

Even the most avid mystery buffs may be unfamiliar with the work of short-story writer Kreppel, who published these 15 tales as pulp fiction pamphlets in Poland circa 1908. Among his fans, writes translator Yashinsky in his excellent introduction, was Nobel Prize–winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who eagerly followed the adventures of Spitzkopf, “the Viennese Sherlock Holmes,” in his youth. Spitzkopf, like Holmes, is a genius investigator with a fondness for disguises; he even has a Watson-like assistant. However, Spitzkopf is unlike Holmes in at least one significant respect: As Kreppel’s pamphlets’ covers declared, Spitzkopf  “IS A JEW—and he has always taken every opportunity to stand up FOR JEWS.” “Kidnapped for Conversion,” set in Galicia (now part of Ukraine), revolves around a deranged Christian man’s plot to marry a Jewish woman—after kidnapping her and forcing her into a convent; in another tale, a young Christian boy’s disappearance sparks vile, antisemitic rumors that local Jews are using young Christians’ blood to make Passover matzos. Spitzkopf encounters bigoted villains throughout, but unfailingly brings them to justice. Some crimes are especially gruesome: In “The Forged Will,” for example, a man murders an entire Viennese family, including a 10-year-old girl. Other cases, though, feature unexpectedly hilarious details—for instance, a gang called the Tabletop Brothers have a habit of “unscrewing…the round tabletops in the city’s cafés, then instigating a quarrel with one of the guests or a waiter and using the heavy marble disks as weapons.” Spitzkopf’s sleuthing methods sometimes rely more on gut feelings than deduction, but Kreppel’s keen sense of melodrama keeps the stories humming; it’s thrilling and satisfying when the shamus stops one villain at gunpoint (in a courtroom!), calmly intoning, “Don’t you dare move a muscle, you murderer….Or I’ll shoot you down like the dog you are.” Kreppel tragically died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1940, but his triumphant tales live on, thanks to Yashinsky’s fine work.

Wide-ranging, offbeat mystery tales—a valuable addition to Yiddish literature in translation.