Adventures of Max Spitzkopf

The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes

Translated by Mikhl Yashinsky, By Jonas Kreppel

0-3

FICTION

575 Pages

Formats: Trade Paper

Trade Paper, $24.95 (US $24.95) (CA $33.95)

Publication Date: October 2025

ISBN 9798990998056

Rights: WOR

White Goat Press (Oct 2025)

Price:	$24.95

Overview

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 evilconspiracies, 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 MikhlYashinsky’s translation, it’s easy to see why the young Isaac Bashevis Singer thought them “masterpieces.”

Reviews

“'King of Detectives' Max Spitzkopf stars in this lively collection of rare early-20th-century detective stories, translated from the Yiddish...Wide-ranging, offbeat mystery tales—a valuable addition to Yiddish literature in translation." —Kirkus

"In bringing these tales back to light, Yashinsky offers more than a lively translation; he restores to readers a vivid, defiant chapter of Jewish popular imagination — one where a Jewish hero always had the last word." —Leah Grisham, Jewish Book Council

“Kreppel's lively tone and quick-fire presentation speed things along, and Mikhl Yashinsky's use of catchy idioms seems to reflect the feel of the original well.” —Michael Orthofer, Complete Review

“These Spitzkopf tales deserve to be included as the uniquely Jewish superhero within a genre of classic pulp superheroes like The Shadow, Doc Savage, Zorro and Buck Rogers.” —Adam L. Fuller, Ph.D., Jewish Journal

“Despite the period triteness of these tales, one quickly becomes enamored of the brilliant Spitzkopf and bumbling Fuchs as they travel around solving crimes for Jews in need. That, perhaps, is one of the more historically salient aspects of the book—that early twentieth-century Yiddish-speaking Jews were given a hero they didn’t have in real life.” —Eddy Portnoy, Jewish Review of Books

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.

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