The Final Solution: A Story of Detection (Abridged)

In deep retirement in the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, vaguely recollected by the locals as a former detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African grey parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of numbers the bird spews out--a top secret SS code? A Swiss bank account? Or do they hold a far more sinister significance? Though the solution to this case may be beyond the reach of the once-famed sleuth, the true story of the boy and his parrot is revealed in a wrenching resolution.