In all honesty: two pages into this book, not knowing anything about Chabon or the contents of this book, I felt this was most probably written by an American pretending to be English, born and braised.

While Chabon can obviously write well, the book works as a whole piece, but I tended to get interrupted by the details really bothering me as every dialogue sounded as though Chabon had really wanted to be Arthur Conan Doyle, writing about Sherlock Holmes; the title of this book is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story.

The mystery in itself is plain and simple: where's the parrot? An old detective tries to solve everything.

A light, quick read, but painful and really, Conan Doyle's stories are infinitely better.