Norwegian By Night

By Derek B. Miller

In this winner of the Crime Writerss Association John Creasey Dagger Award and the Guardian Best Crime and Thriller of the Year, a former Marine sniper and a newly orphaned boy race across the Norwegian wilderness, fleeing demons both real and imagined.

Sheldon Horowitz—widowed, impatient, impertinent—has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway—a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman. Not until now, anyway.

Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbor’s young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. As Sheldon and the boy look for a safe haven in an alien world, past and present weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year, Kirkus Reviews Best Crime Novel of the Year, and an Indie Next Selection. You can find the coming-of-age story of Sheldon Horowitz in How To Find Your Way in the Dark. Additionally, this is the first novel in which Sigrid Ødegård appears. You can follow her to her next case in American by Day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9780547934884

Derek B. Miller

Derek B. Miller is an American novelist, who worked in international affairs before turning to writing full-time. He is the author of five previous novels, all highly acclaimed: Norwegian by Night, The Girl in Green, American by Day, Radio Life and Quiet Time (an Audible Original). His work has been shortlisted for many awards, with Norwegian by Night winning the CWA John Creasey Dagger Award for best first crime novel, an eDunnit Award and the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award. How to Find Your Way in the Dark was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a New York Times best mystery of 2021.  Derek B. Miller is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College (BA), Georgetown (MA) and he earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude in international relations from The Graduate Institute in Geneva with post-graduate work at Oxford. He is currently connected to numerous peace and security research and policy centers in North America, Europe and Africa, and he worked with the United Nations for over a decade. He has lived abroad for over twenty-five years in Israel, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Switzerland, Norway and Spain.

Book preview

title page

Contents

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Title Page

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

The 59th Parallel

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

River Rats

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

New River

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Acknowledgments

Sample Chapter from AMERICAN BY DAY

Buy the Book

About the Author

Connect with HMH

First Mariner Books edition 2014

Copyright © 2012 by Derek B. Miller

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

Published in Australia by Scribe in 2012

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-547-93487-7 ISBN 978-0-544-29266-6 (pbk.)

Cover design © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Cover photograph © François Lacroix / Panoptika

eISBN 978-0-547-93488-4

v6.1119

For my son

PART I

The 59th Parallel

Chapter 1

IT IS SUMMER AND luminous. Sheldon Horowitz sits on a folding director’s chair, high above the picnic and out of reach of the food, in a shaded enclave in Oslo’s Frogner Park. There is a half-eaten karbonade sandwich that he doesn’t like on the paper plate cradled in his lap. With his right index finger, he’s playing with the condensation on a bottle of beer that he started to drink but lost interest in some time ago. His feet twitch back and forth like a schoolboy’s, but they twitch slower now at the age of eighty-two. They achieve a smaller arc. Sheldon will not admit it to Rhea and Lars—never, of course not—but he can’t help wondering what he’s doing here and what he’s going to do about it before the wonderment passes.

Sheldon is an arm’s length from his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, who is just now taking a long pull on his own beer and is looking so cheerful, so kind, so peppy, that Sheldon wants to take the hot dog from his hand and insert it up his nose. Rhea, who looks oddly pale today, would not respond well to this, and it might condemn Sheldon to further socializing excursions (so you can adjust), and in a world filled with fairness Sheldon would not deserve them—nor Lars the hot-dog maneuver. But it had been Rhea’s idea to move them from New York to Norway, and Sheldon—widowed, old, impatient, impertinent—saw in Lars’s countenance a suppressed desire to gloat.

None of which was fair.

Do you know why hot dogs are called hot dogs?

Sheldon says this aloud from his commanding position. If he had a cane he would wave it, but he walks without one.

Lars looks up in attention. Rhea, however, silently sighs.

World War I. We were angry at the Germans, so we punished them by renaming their food. Better than the War on Terror, he continued. We’re angry at the terrorists, so we punish the French by renaming our own food.

What do you mean? asks Lars.

Sheldon sees Rhea tap Lars on the leg and raise her eyebrows, implying—with the intensity of a hot poker—that he is not supposed to be encouraging these sorts of rants, these outbursts, these diversions from the here and now. Anything that might contribute to the hotly debated dementia.

Sheldon was not supposed to see this poke, but does, and redoubles his conviction.

Freedom fries! I’m talking about Freedom fries. Goodbye French fry, hello Freedom fry. An act of Congress actually concocted this harebrained idea. And my granddaughter thinks I’m the one losing my mind. Let me tell you something, young lady. I’m not crossing the aisle of sanity. The aisle is crossing me.

Sheldon looks around the park. There is not the ebb and flow of random strangers one finds in any American metropolis, the kind who are not only strangers to us but to each other as well. He is among tall, homogeneous, acquainted, well-meaning, smiling people all dressed in the same transgenerational clothing, and no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t draw a bead on them.

Rhea. The name of a Titan. The daughter of Uranus and Gaia, heaven and earth, Cronos’s wife, mother of the gods. Zeus himself suckled at her breast, and from her body came the known world. Sheldon’s son—Saul, dead now—named her that to raise her above the banality that he steamed through in Vietnam with the Navy in 1973 and ’74. He came home from the Riverine Force for one month of rest and relaxation before heading out for a second tour. It was a September. The leaves were out on the Hudson and in the Berkshires. According to his Mabel—vanished now, but once privy to such things—Saul and his girlfriend made love only one time on that return visit, and Rhea was conceived. The next morning, Saul had a conversation with Sheldon that transformed them both, and then he went back to Vietnam where, two months after he landed, a Vietcong booby trap blew off his legs while he was looking for a downed pilot on a routine search-and-rescue. Saul bled to death on the boat before reaching the hospital.

"Name her Rhea," Saul wrote in his last letter from Saigon, when Saigon was still Saigon, and Saul was still Saul. Maybe he remembered his mythology from high school, and chose her name for all the right reasons. Or maybe he fell in love with that doomed character from Stanislaw Lem’s book, which he read under his woolen blanket when the other soldiers had faded off to sleep.

It took a Polish author to inspire this American Jew, who named his daughter for a Greek Titan before being killed by a Vietnamese mine in an effort to please his Marine father, who was once a sniper in Korea—and was undoubtedly still being pursued by the North Koreans across the wilderness of Scandinavia. Yes, even here, amid the green of Frogner Park on a sunny day in July, with so little time left to atone for all that he has done.

Rhea. It means nothing here. It is the Swedish word for a sale at the department store. And, so easily, all is undone.

Papa? says Rhea.

What?

So what do you think?

Of what?

You know. The area. The park. The neighborhood. This is where we’re moving to when we sell the place in Tøyen. I realize it isn’t Gramercy Park.

Sheldon doesn’t answer, so she raises her eyebrows and opens her palms as if to conjure up a response. Oslo, she summarizes. Norway. The light. This life.

This life? You want my views on this life?

Lars is silent. Sheldon looks to him for camaraderie, but Lars is away. There is eye contact, but no engagement of his mental faculties in the moment. Lars is captive to an alien cultural performance between grandfather and granddaughter—a verbal duel for which he is ill equipped, and which he knows it would be rude to interrupt.

And yet there is pity here, too. On Lars’s face is one of the few universal expressions known to men everywhere. It reads, I-just-married-into-this-conversation-so-don’t-look-at-me. In this Sheldon finds a hint of the familiar in him. But Sheldon senses something distinctly Norwegian about it, too. Something so nonjudgmental that it immediately grates on his nerves.

Sheldon looks back to Rhea, to this woman whom Lars managed to marry. Her hair is raven black and pulled into a silky ponytail. Her blue eyes sparkle like the Sea of Japan before battle.

Sheldon thinks her gaze has grown deeper because of the pregnancy.

This life? If he were to reach out to touch her face at this moment, run his fingers over her cheekbones, and rub his thumb over her lower lip to wipe off an errant tear from a strong breeze, he would surely break into sobs and grab her, hold her next to him, and press her head against his shoulder. There is life on the way. That is all that matters.

She is waiting for an answer to her question, and it isn’t coming. He is staring at her. Perhaps he has forgotten the question. She becomes disappointed.

The sun will not set until after ten o’clock. Children are out everywhere, and people have come home early from work to enjoy the stretch of summer that lies before them as the reward for the darkness of the winter months. Parents order open-faced sandwiches, and feed little bits to their kids as fathers return plastic baby bottles to expensive prams with exotic names.

Quinny. Stokke. Bugaboo. Peg Perego. Maxi-Cosi.

This life? She should already know that this life is the product of so many deaths. Mario. Bill. Rhea’s grandmother Mabel, who died eight months ago, prompting Sheldon’s move here.

There is no calculating the trajectory caused by Saul’s death.

Mabel’s funeral was held in New York, though originally she and Sheldon came from different parts of the country. He was born in New England and she in Chicago. Eventually, both settled in New York, first as visitors, then as residents, and possibly, after many years, as New Yorkers.

After the funeral service and reception, Sheldon went alone to a coffee shop in Gramercy, close to their home. It was midafternoon. The lunch hour was over. The mourners had dispersed. Sheldon should have been sitting shiva, allowing his community to care for him, feed him, and keep him company for seven days, as was the custom. Instead he sat at the 71 Irving Place Coffee and Tea Bar, near 19th Street, eating a blueberry muffin and sipping black coffee. Rhea had flown in for the service without Lars, and noticed Sheldon’s escape from the reception. She found him a few blocks away, and took the seat across from him.

She was wearing a fine black suit, and her hair was down to her shoulders. She was thirty-two years old and had a determined look on her face. Sheldon misread its cause, thinking she was going to reprimand him for skipping out on shiva. When she spoke her mind, he nearly spit a blueberry across the table.

Come with us to Norway, she said.

Get stuffed, said Sheldon.

I’m serious.

Me too.

The area is called Frogner. It’s wonderful. The building has a separate entrance to the basement apartment. You’d have complete autonomy. We’re not in it yet, but we will be by winter.

You should rent it to trolls. They have trolls there, right? Or is that Iceland?

We don’t want to rent it out. It feels weird knowing strange people are under your feet all the time.

That’s because you don’t have kids. You get used to that feeling.

I think you should come. What’s here for you?

Other than the blueberry muffins?

For example.

One wonders how much more there needs to be at my age.

Don’t dismiss this.

What am I going to do there? I’m an American. I’m a Jew. I’m eighty-two. I’m a retired widower. A Marine. A watch repairman. It takes me an hour to pee. Is there a club there I’m unaware of?

I don’t want you to die alone.

For heaven’s sake, Rhea.

I’m pregnant. It’s very early, but it’s true.

At this, on this day of days, Sheldon took her hand and touched it to his lips, closed his eyes, and tried to feel a new life in her pulse.

Rhea and Lars had been living in Oslo for almost a year by the time Mabel died and Sheldon decided to go. Lars had a good job designing video games, and Rhea was settling into life as an architect. Her degree from Cooper Union in New York was already coming in handy, and, as the population of Oslo pushed ever outward and into mountain cabins, she decided to stay.

Lars, being Lars, was overjoyed and encouraging and optimistic about her ability to adapt and join the pod. Norwegians, true to their nature, prefer to spawn in their native waters. Consequently Oslo is peopled by Norwegians married to a shadow population of displaced souls who all carry the look of tourists being led like children through the House of Wax.

With his parents’ help, Lars had bought a split-level three-bedroom flat in Tøyen back in 1992 that was now worth almost three and a half million kroner. This was rather a lot for the part of town that Sheldon associated with the Bronx. Together they’d saved up five hundred thousand in cash, and with the necessary mortgage—which was a stretch, but not a terrible stretch—they were looking at a three-bedroom place in Frogner, which to Sheldon was the local Central Park West. It was a slightly stuffy area, but Lars and Rhea were growing tired of waiting for Tøyen to gentrify, and the influx of immigrants was moving the money out to other areas and affecting the quality of the schools. There was a growing population from Pakistan and the Balkans. Somalis had moved into the local park for khat-chewing sessions, the local council in its wisdom had moved a methadone treatment facility into the shopping center across the road that attracted heroin addicts, and all the while Rhea and Lars tried to explain that the area had character. But Sheldon saw only menace.

Luckily, though, there were no North Koreans, those slanty-eyed little bastards. And if there were any, they would stand out. Hiding a North Korean in Norway is hard. Hiding one in New York is like hiding a tree in a forest. They’re on every street corner, selling flowers and running grocery stores, their beady eyes glaring at you as you walk down the street, sending coded messages back to Pyongyang by telegraph, letting them know your whereabouts.

They’d been tracking him since 1951—he was sure of it. You don’t kill twelve men named Kim from the top of a seawall at Inchon and think they’re going to forgive and forget. Not the Koreans. They have Chinese patience, but an Italian-style vendetta streak. And they blend. Oh! It took Sheldon years to learn how to spot them, feel their presence, evade them, deceive them.

Not here, though. Here they stood out in a crowd. Each evil-hearted one of them. Each brainwashed manic nutter who was under the surveillance of the next brainwashed manic nutter, in case the first one started to suffer from freethinking.

I have news for you bastards! he wants to yell to them. You started the war! And when you learn this, you will owe me a serious apology.

But Sheldon, even now, believes the deceived are not responsible for their actions.

Mabel never understood his aversion to Koreans. She said he was slipping, that his doctor also suspected it, and that it was time he listened to reason and accepted that he’d never been a romanticized sniper, but rather a pedestrian clerk in Pusan, and that the North Koreans were not following him. He’d never shot anybody. Never fired a gun in anger.

She was going on about this only a few months before she died.

You’re going senile, Donny.

Am not.

You’re changing. I see it.

You’re sick, Mabel. How isn’t that going to affect me? Besides, you’ve been saying this since 1976. And maybe I’m not changing. Maybe it’s you. You’re just growing immune to my charms.

It’s not an accusation. You’re over eighty years old. Rhea told me that at eighty-five, over twenty percent of us get Alzheimer’s. It’s something we need to discuss.

Is not!

You need to eat more fish.

Do not!

In retrospect, this was a rather childish response, but it was also a tried-and-tested rebuttal.

His memories were just becoming more vivid with age. Time was folding in a new way. Without a future, the mind turned back in on itself. That’s not dementia. One might even say it’s the only rational response to the inevitable.

Besides­, what accounts for such memories?

He’d gotten lost in Korea in early September 1950. Through a series of events that only made sense at the time, he was picked up on the coast by the Australian ship HMAS Bataan, part of Task Force 91, whose job was to set up and maintain a blockade and provide cover for the American troops landing on the beach, of which Sheldon was supposed to be one, but wasn’t because he was on the Bataan. Sheldon, who was called Donny then, was supposed to be with the Fifth Marine Regimental Combat Team that was hitting Red Beach, but he got lost during the reassignment, because armies lose things.

He was too young to fight when World War II came around. All he could think when Korea popped up five years later was that he wasn’t going to miss this war, too, and he enlisted immediately, only to end up—at the moment of truth—surrounded by a bunch of outback hillbillies who wouldn’t let him borrow their rowboat so he could get to shore and shoot people, like he was supposed to.

Sorry, mate. Could need that. Only got four. Little ship, big guns, bullets flying around. You understand, right?

So he decided to borrow without permission—he refused to use the word steal—a rowboat from his Australian hosts. It wasn’t completely unreasonable, he realized, their wanting to keep the emergency gear during a massive amphibious assault mission, but people have different needs sometimes, and choices have to be made.

Donny Horowitz was twenty-two years old then. He had a clear mind, a steady hand, and a chip on his Jewish shoulder the size and shape of Germany. For the Army, it was only a matter of assigning him to the proper role and then tasking him with the right job. The role was scout-sniper. The task was Inchon.

Inchon was a tactically challenging mission. The North Koreans had weakened themselves against the Pusan Perimeter for almost a month and a half, and General MacArthur decided now was the time to flank them by taking Korea’s western port city of Inchon. But the site had poor beaches and shallow approaches, and it restricted invasion options to the rhythm of the moon’s tidal pull.

The naval bombardment had been going on for two days, weakening Inchon’s defenses. There wasn’t a man there who wasn’t thinking of D-Day. Nor a man there not thinking about what happened at Omaha Beach when American bombers missed their targets and the DD tanks sank to the bottom of the sea during their approach, giving the Americans no armor on the ground to provide cover and firepower. No bomb craters to use as foxholes.

Donny would be damned if he wasn’t going to be at the front of that invasion.

That morning, amid the smoke and the artillery fire, with birds flying wildly amid the noise, the Third and Fifth Marine regiments were advancing toward Green Beach in LSTs, with Pershing tanks in their bellies. Donny eased the borrowed rowboat down the side of the Bataan, slid down after it with his rifle, and rowed face-forward into the artillery fire directed at the naval craft.

On Red Beach, the North Koreans were defending a high seawall that the South Korean Marines were scaling on ladders. A row of sharpshooters on the top of the wall were trying to pick off Americans, South Koreans, and everyone else fighting under the UN flag. Missiles arced overhead. The North Koreans were firing green tracer bullets supplied by their Chinese allies, which crossed with the Allied red ones.

They started firing at Donny directly. The bullets came in slowly at first and then sped past him, splaying into the water or puncturing the rowboat.

Sheldon often wondered what the Koreans, a superstitious lot, were thinking when they saw a lone soldier standing face-forward in the water, illuminated by the reds, greens, oranges, and yellows of combat reflecting off the water and clouds of the morning sky. A diminutive, blue-eyed demon impervious to their defenses.

One barrage hit Donny’s boat hard. Four bullets punctured the prow, and then the deck. Water started coming in, and ran around his boots. The Marines had already touched the beach and were advancing toward the wall. The green tracers were tracking low into his regiment.

Having come this far, and being a bad swimmer—from four hundred yards offshore, and with two feet in his watery grave—Sheldon decided to use his ammunition, goddamn it, rather than drown with it.

He had such soft hands for a boy. Five feet seven inches tall, he’d never done physical labor or heavy lifting. He added up the figures in his father’s cobbler shop, and dreamed of hitting one deep into left field over the Green Monster for the Red Sox. The first time his fingers touched the bottoms of Mabel’s breasts—under the wire of her bra during a Bogart movie with Bacall—she said his fingers were so soft it was like the touch of a girl. This confession had made him more sexually ravenous than any picture show he’d ever seen.

When he’d enlisted, they’d chosen him as a sniper. They could see he was even-tempered. Quiet. Smart. Wiry, but rugged. He had a lot of anger, but a capacity to direct it through reason.

We think of guns as brutal things used by heavy men. But the art of the rifle demands the most subtle feel—the touch of a lover or a watchmaker. There is an understanding between the finger and trigger. The breath is kept under disciplined control. Every muscle is used to provide only stillness. The direction of the wind on the cheek finds expression in the rise of the barrel, lifted lightly as from the heat of a warm blueberry pie on a winter afternoon.

And now, with his feet in the water, Donny focused on the distant objects above the wall, flickering in the fog. The artillery fire did not unnerve him. The water in his boots was just a sensation with no meaning. The bird that flew into his upper thigh, in the confusion of noise and smoke, was only a feeling. He was withdrawn, and to this day he remembers the event with music. What he heard, and hears even now in his memories, is Bach’s unaccompanied Cello Suite no. 1 in G Major.

At this moment of deepest calm, of the most complete peace, he lost the anger of his youth. The venom against the Nazis was bled from his veins by the music, the fog, the water.

Now, in this moment of grace, Donny killed.

Through the business end of an unusually straight-shooting .30-caliber M-1 Garand, Donny emptied three clips of armor-piercing 168-grain ammunition in under thirty seconds. He killed twelve men, clearing them off the high wall from a distance of four hundred yards, allowing the first U.S. Marines to assault the peak without loss of life while he bled from a surface bullet wound to his left leg.

His action was the smallest of gestures, like dropping a pebble into a still pool of water and disturbing the image of the night sky.

He didn’t tell Mabel any of this until much later, of course. So late, in fact, that she never came to believe it. They had a son to think about, and heroism was a private matter for Sheldon. He said he’d been a logistics officer, far south on much safer ground. The wound? The wound was caused by carelessly walking into a toolshed, where he was punctured by a rake. He made it a joke.

Compared to me, it was the sharpest tool in the shed.

Sheldon was, as he recalls, awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Purple Heart for his part in the invasion. The question is, however, where had he put them? He ran an antique and watch-repair shop. They could be anywhere, in any crevice. They were the only tangible proof that he still had his marbles. And now the shop is gone, its contents sold off. Everything once so carefully assembled is scattered now. Back in the world, they will be assembled into new collections by new collectors, and then scattered again as the collectors return to the mist.

This life. What a question! No one really wants to know the answer to this.

In this life, my body has become a withered twig, where once I stood tall. I distantly remember the lush earth and beech forests of New England—outside my bedroom window as a child—growing in kingdoms. My parents near me.

In this life, I hobble like an old man, when once I could fly over doubts and contradictions.

In this life, my memories are the smoke I choke on, burning my eyes.

In this life, I remember hungers that will never return. When I was once a lover with the bluest eyes she had ever seen—deeper than Paul Newman’s, darker than Frank Sinatra’s.

This life! This life is coming to an end without any explanation or apology, and where every sense of my soul or ray of light through a cloud promises to be my end.

This life was an abrupt and tragic dream that seized me during the wee hours of a Saturday morning as the sunrise reflected off the mirror above her vanity table, leaving me speechless just as the world faded to white.

And even if they did want to know, who is there left to tell?

Chapter 2

IT IS SOME UNGODLY hour, and Sheldon stands naked in the bathroom of their apartment in Tøyen. Rhea and Lars are out. They left in the middle of the night without a word, and have been gone for hours.

The light is off, and it is dark. He has one hand pressed against the cold tiles of the wall above the toilet, and with his other hand he is taking aim, such as it is. He’s waiting for his prostate to get out of the way so he can take a well-deserved leak and get back to bed where he belongs, so that if by chance his heart stops this very second, he won’t be found—holding his pecker, dead on the floor—by a bunch of twenty-year-old medics who will gawk at his circumcision and bad luck.

It is not only his age that is slowing things down. A man and a woman are fighting upstairs in some Balkan language, with all its acid and spleen. It might be Albanian. Or not. He doesn’t know. It sounds vile, anti-Semitic, communist, peasant, rude, fascistic, and corrupt all at the same time. Every phoneme and slur and intonation sounds bitter. The fight is loud, and its constituent qualities cause his innards to constrict in some kind of primordial self-defense.

Sheldon slaps the wall a few times, but his strike is flaccid.

He recalls graffiti in the men’s latrine during basic training: Old snipers never die, they just stay loaded.

Sheldon

Reviews for Norwegian By Night

[jpe9 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Read Across Rhode Island selection for 2015. A macho, yet thoughtful, thriller concerning soldiers, fathers and sons, genocide, and wars across the 20th century. Definitely a page turner.

[daftboy1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a nice but sad book. Main character is 82 year old ex Marine Sheldon Horowitz who has moved to Norway with his grown up Grand daughter Rhea and her Husband Lars. There is an incident at their new apartment a Woman is killed, Sheldon takes her Son who he names Paul on a big adventure to get away from the Killer who happens to be the boys father.Lars and Rhea cant go back to their place so they head towards their Cabin in the Woods, that is also where Sheldon and Paul are heading, The Police are trying to find them and so are the Baddies. Sheldon misses his wife Mabel, his son Saul and all his old friends he speaks to them along the way. Sheldon is a Korean War vet his son Saul followed in his footsteps and went off to Vietnam for 2 tours but never returned. At the climax of the book Paul is ok but Sheldon gets shot. This book is about life's long journey and how people deal with loss and regret near the end.

[auntieg0412 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despite feeling a bit of blah in the middle part of the book, I think it deserves a 4. Sheldon Horowitz is an octogenarian widower who recently relocated from New York to Norway with his granddaughter Rhea and her husband. He is awash with regrets and guilt, both for things he did and things he failed to do throughout his life.

Sheldon has heard the woman in the upstairs apartment fighting with a man, possibly being beaten. One day when he hears the commotion again and looks out the peephole, he sees the woman fleeing down the stairs with her small son. He also sees a Mercedes outside with a man standing watch, so he bows to his instincts, opens the door, and motions the woman and boy inside. As the man in pursuit of the woman breaks down the door, Sheldon and the boy hide in a closet. The man chokes the woman to death but doesn't find Sheldon. As he listens to the woman being killed he reasons that the boy is in danger too -- and thus begins his odyssey to save the boy.

Throughout the book we are privy to Sheldon's memories: of his time in Korea, of his only child, Saul, who was killed in Vietnam, and of his bitter regrets. It's a moving story of a man seeking redemption, who sees a second chance for himself in the boy he calls "Paul." (If you are familiar with the New Testament, you are likely aware of the meaning in the two names Saul/Paul.)

I understand from the author's comments on Goodreads that there is some follow-up to this story in his new book, American by Day, coming in spring 2018. I am eager to read it.

[pattylee-621744 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sort of mesmerizing. Thriller? Yes. A meditation on aging, war, death? Yes. An insight into Eastern European enmity? Certainly. It all worked for me.

[carol420 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story is an intriguing offering that blended a mix of cultures and presented an interesting insight into life. Even though the beginning was rather slow…I’m glad that I kept reading. I really liked how the author led up to the search for Sheldon and the boy using the old man's long-buried military skills in the emergency situation. The character of Shelton takes some getting use to as the reader needs to be aware that he has “shifts” in his thinking that while making him an interesting and true to life character…it also makes him difficult with his bouts with dementia,…fantasy… hallucinations…and recall. The author does a fantastic job of writing a story that is, by turns funny…heartbreaking...and suspenseful.

[northernteacher-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fabulous read - a most unexpected storyline, not a run-of-the-mill murder story.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A poignant, witty, and thought-provoking story of an elderly Ametican in Norway who, while falling into dementia, must protect a young boy from his mother's murderer. Yep. Very intriguing plot, mostly narrated from the point of view of the protagonist whose mind slips between the very real responsibility of protecting a child and his internal life of memories of his own son's life and death. A very good read, which attempts to illuminate the way dementia may blend past and present.

[bblum_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Murder mystery in modern Oslo. Kosovar bad guys, police chief heroine and displaced New York Jew still dealing with Korean War experiences and the loss of his son in Vietnam. Humorous yet original mystery with small Albanian boy caught in the middle.

[belgrade18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Better than average mystery fiction, though a bit disjointed with flashbacks planted in the midst of present action. Not sure why it's called an "Sigrid Ødegård Mystery" when she is such a minor character who did not even solve the crime. Mostly well-written, with some interesting scenes and characters, but not as compelling as I first expected.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller is about an aging cantankerous American-Jewish widower who has been transplanted to Norway and becomes involved in a hate crime. When a stranger murders the immigrant woman who lives upstairs, Sheldon shelters, protects and escapes with her son, fearing the boy is in danger as well. Haunted by his experiences as a Marine sniper in the Korean War and by his son’s death in Vietnam, Sheldon sometimes has difficulty in deciding what is real and what is not. He believes that that the Koreans are still after him, but he also knows that he is this little boy’s one chance as his mother’s killer is trying to hunt them both down.I loved this book, the story was captivating and Sheldon was a unique and sympathetic character. He is so strongly drawn that many of the other characters seem to fade into the background by comparison which mostly was alright as Sheldon was more than able to carry the story. I did however enjoy the scenes that involved the police detectives Sigrid and Petter and would love to read more about them. Derek B. Miller’s first novel, Norwegian By Night is a blend of styles from police procedural to a literary work that examines the emotional toil of aging, to a war story that combines memory and loss, and a stream of consciousness story that puts the reader firmly into the head of Sheldon Horowitz. Some of these styles work better than others, but the author’s clever use of humour, wit and compassion make this an original story of redemption.

[viking2917_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the funniest books I've read in years. And it's a thriller! Sheldon is a Jewish grandfather and ex-Marine sniper in his 80s who goes to live with his granddaughter and her Norwegian husband in Norway. Witnessing a brutal attack by a Balkan immigrant warlord, he becomes the caretaker of small Balkan boy who doesn't speak, and whom the attacker wants back. Sheldon may or may not be suffering from dementia, but he's still got moves, and he and the boy go on the run. The humor is sardonic and laugh-out-loud funny, especially if you're "of a certain age". The ruminations on age, family, memory and dementia, cultural assimilation and the evolution of Europe are the icing on the cake of this funny and literary thriller. I've loved the cover of this book for years and glad I finally read it. You will be to.

[asxz-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well that was unusual. I read fairly widely in this genre, but that was the first book about an 82 year old Jewish veteran of the Korean war taking on a war criminal from Kosovo in Norway.

As much a meditation on parenting, being Jewish in America, grief, war, and regret as a plot-driven thriller. Sheldon Horowitz is a flawed hero for all ages. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath for the sequel.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There’s nobody going to accuse this guy of plagiarism. Imagine coming up with an idea for a novel…. Let’s see, it’s going to combine Jews, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the KLA and dementia. Where shall I set it? Ah yes – Norway.What I admired most of all about this novel was the quirkily intelligent writing style. It constantly teases and surprises without losing focus. The storyline was good, but simpler than an out-and-out thriller might have been. The end, when it came, felt abrupt. Perhaps the main message that came out of it for me was that dementia – exactly the right amount of dementia – makes you pretty much invincible.

[yhgail · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It took a while to sort out the story, for my ears to recognize and understand the shifts in time and voice. The complexity of the telling is integral to the story. Once my ears became accustomed I was able to follow the scrambled tale of extraordinary events taking place.

I am so glad I hung in there. This is one of the best books to which I've listened. This is an exceptionally gifted author.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sheldon is an elderly Korean War Marine now living in Oslo with his grand daughter and her husband. When the woman who lives upstairs appears at his door with her young son, Sheldon depends on his old military training to save the boy from his violent father.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eighty-two-year-old Sheldon Horowitz is widowed and grudgingly agrees to leave his New York apartment to move with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her husband, Lars, to Oslo, Norway. Alone in their shared apartment he witnesses an argument between the woman upstairs and an aggressive man. On an impulse Sheldon grabs the woman’s young son, and flees with him form this violent scene. Neither of them speak Norwegian, nor do they speak a common language, but somehow Sheldon communicates that he will keep this boy, whom he calls Paul, safe. What an unlikely hero! Though it is never named or specifically diagnosed, Sheldon clearly suffers PTSD from his service in Korea, as a Marine sharp-shooter – a military history he has kept from his family. He also carries a heavy burden of guilt for the death of his only son, Saul, who died in serving in Vietnam, presumably to gain his father’s admiration as a warrior. Now, Sheldon is a frail, shadow of his former self; isolated by language and by dreams / fugue states that are every bit as real to Sheldon as reality.I marveled at his inventiveness and boldness in finding his way, eluding both the bad guys and the police. My heart about stopped several times, when Sheldon, Paul and/or Rhea faced dangerous situations. The book is also full of many humorous scenes that serve to lessen the tension. Even the bad guys fall into comic situations. (Hasn’t a love of cinnamon buns been everyone’s downfall at some point?) Miller also gives us wonderful supporting characters. Police Chief Inspector Sigrid Odegard has few scenes, but she makes an impact – strong, resourceful, a born leader, and courageous. Her colleague Petter Hansen is the quintessential quiet detective; he pays attention to small oddities and ferrets out information that others might disregard as unimportant. And Paul. He is a completely silent character, never saying a word, and yet Miller gives us such a clear picture of him. Frightened, isolated by language and culture, unaware of who this giant American grandfather is or why he’s doing so, Paul goes along with Sheldon. He doesn’t complain, he doesn’t balk as what he’s asked to do, he simply trusts that Sheldon knows what should be done. And he clearly feels safe with the old man. This is a wonderful debut, and I’m eager to read more by Miller.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A most affecting literary suspense novel, with important universal themes such as grief, parent-child relations, revenge, violence, and guilt. Sheldon, an elderly Jewish watch repairman, has been displaced from New York City to Oslo to join his daughter and her Norwegian husband, following the death of his wife and the news that his grand daughter is pregnant. His late wife and now his grand daughter believed he is suffering from dementia, but there's much evidence to contradict that assumption, although he does have visions of people and situations from his past. After a Serbian woman is murdered in Sheldon's bedroom while he hides in the closet with her son, he flees with the boy to escape from the violence and the unknowns of the situation. Although the story is told primarily in the third person from Sheldon's perspective, the narrative shifts occasionally to what is happening to his grand daughter, the police inspector who is trying to find the murderer, and the Kosovan perpetrators. The strength of the novel derives from the power of the back stories of Sheldon, his Korean War experience, and his relationship with his son. Sheldon's guilt for his perceived responsibility for his own wartime activities, as well as for his son's death in Vietnam, are combined with his acute grief over the many losses he has experienced. Although this is a page-turner that we want to rush through for its suspense, it is a book to savor and remember.

[mitchell_bergeson_jr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic!

[judithrs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Norwegian by Night. Derek B. Miller. 2012. OMG Jim would have loved the subtle ethnic humor in this book! Sheldon Horowitz, a widowed, Jewish Korean War vet and watch repairer has moved to Oslo to be with his granddaughter. Sheldon opens the door one morning to see the woman who lives upstairs and her young son running for their lives. He manages to save the little boy but the mother is killed as she tries to give Sheldon time to save her son. Sheldon decides to take the boy to his daughter’s summer house. Sheldon visits with his dead son, and his deal comrades from the war and uses his sniper training to save the boy. I agree with the NYT: “…the brains of a literary novel and the boy of a thriller. This is one of the best books I’ve read in ages.

[tangledthread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is our April 2017 book group selection and I have to admit that I was a skeptic....yet another book about a grumpy old man. There have been a lot of them lately: [A Man Called Ove], [The Little Paris Bookshop], [The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye], [Major Pettigrew's Last Stand].....see what I mean?Somehow, this one is different...I really liked it. Sheldon (aka Donny) the obligatory grumpy old man main character is 82 yrs. old, recently widowed, and has emigrated to Norway from NYC to be his adult granddaughter, Rhea, his only surviving relative. Saul is a veteran of the Korean War where he served as a Marine sniper....or perhaps he was a clerk?...He was not terribly forthcoming with his family on that point.Rhea's father, Saul, was Sheldon's only son and a casualty of the Viet Nam war. A death for which Sheldon feels responsible because he applied WWII & Korean War sensibilities in Saul's upbringing, thus his fatal service in Viet Nam.Shortly after we meet Sheldon, he is drawn into a situation where he witnesses a murder in his own home and becomes responsible for a 7 yr. old boy which he cannot communicate. Sensing that organized crime is involved and the boy is in danger, Sheldon sets off with the boy to protect him from the killer(s).The result is an improbably odyssey through the Norwegian northwoods where Sheldon's depth of character is revealed. There is humor, suspense, and tension as the drama unfolds. I give it 4 stars.

[kimmyd76 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Listened to this book on Audible and it was a great read.

[dianekeenoy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story took me by surprise, it was an unexpected thriller. Sheldon Horowitz was a Marine sniper in the Korean War who has recently lost his wife at 82. He decides to leave New York to live with his granddaughter Rhea and her husband Lars, in Norway. About as far as he can get from his former life.Norway is difficult for Sheldon to adjust to. Although, he loves his granddaughter and her husband, he misses his old life in New York, his wife of many years, Mabel and the son he lost in the Vietnam War, Saul. But, the most frightening thing is the dementia that is slowly taking hold. In his mind, the memories of his former life are crisp and so real that he loses track of what’s real and what’s not. One day while alone in the apartment, he opens the door to a woman and her child to get them away from a very dangerous man. He has to save the young boy and they set off going across the country being chased by the bad guys, the police and his family. Excellent book and highly recommended..

[rwt42 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ambitious first novel succeeds with a quirky story, finely formed characters and writing rich with interest and meaning. Slow to read but worthwhile for it.

[fderby-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An utterly surprising and wonderful thriller with an unexpected and not necessarily likeable protagonist.

[dcarlin-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

With four chapters left I think I can safely say that this book has been a waste of time, which is a shame as Sean Mangan, narrated the audio book and I have never been disappointed with one of his books, until now. The book seems to revolve around a murder, the victims young son and an old man and of course more bad guys. The worst part of the story is that it jumps from present to past so quickly and stays in the past recounting memories of younger, fitter days. Then for a twist occasionally the old blokes childhood mate arrives upon the scene to counsel his ageing friend. Only thing is I think the mate is long gone from this world. Two stars because Sean M. Narrated so well.

Have just noticed that another reviewer thinks that the old bloke, Sheldon, and his mate, Donny, are one and the same. Maybe it's me who is suffering from dementia!

[kakadoo202 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this book is funny which is a surprise looking at the synopsis. I so enjoyed the old main character. Nothing to lose he just does what he thinks is right to make up for the loss of his son.When he tries to get rid of the tractor, I was laughing out loud.Great book.

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The main character of this delightful book is a marvelous creation. Cranky, opinionated, and remorseful, 82-year-old Sheldon Horowitz is also insightful and funny. Part of the wonder of this book is the way that Miller was able to weave imaginary conversations with people long-dead with issues arising from geopolitical conflicts to create a story full of marvelous descriptions, humor, and a strong narrative drive.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Norwegian By Night is the story of a man, a man with a secret. At 82, Sheldon Horowitz has just buried his wife Mabel. His granddaughter, Rhea, has asked him to move to Norway to live with her and her husband, Lars. She doesn’t want him to be alone. Her grandmother has told her that he has the beginnings of dementia and she is concerned. He has no one left in New York, so finally, she convinces him to move with her to Oslo. Moving someone with dementia can be devastating. If a person’s surroundings are even more unfamiliar they can be seriously challenged, but Sheldon seems to be adjusting. He doesn’t go anyplace alone; he doesn’t speak the language so it would be difficult to go out, anyway.Sheldon’s only son, Saul, was killed in Viet Nam. Afterwards, he dreams of him and starts to talk about the days when he, himself, was a marine, a sniper, even calling out a man’s name in his sleep. His wife is put out. After all, he has always told her that when he was in service, he had a job as a clerk, a desk job. This is what leads her to believe he is losing it. Sheldon meanders between reality and fantasy, at times, but never madness or confusion. He has logical explanations for everything he does, although sometimes his explanations rattle those around him. In Norway, he lives in an apartment adjacent to Rhea and Lars. Upstairs, the neighbors are always quarreling loudly, in a language he does not understand. One day, a woman appears outside his door and is in need of help. When he opens up the door, he sees it is the woman from upstairs and she also has a little boy with her. He allows her to come in and escape the wrath of the man she is living with, and the story sprouts wings.Senka, the boy’s mother, is a Serb. In her country, her family was brutally killed by Kosovars who were extracting revenge for the deeds of the Serbs who murdered their families and friends. They do not care that the war is over. Brutally raped, Senka becomes pregnant, and the little boy with her is the product of that encounter. The man who raped her, Enver, is from Kosovo. He traced her to Oslo when he found out that he was a father, and he traveled there to capture his son and return with him to Kosovo.Now, getting back to Sheldon’s story; he has long believed that the Koreans may be looking for him to exact revenge for those he killed when he was a sniper during that war. Though this may defy reality a bit, in fact, after he rescues the child and his mother, he does wind up being pursued by some pretty unsavory characters, although they were definitely not Koreans! As he flees with the child, whom he names Paul, as a tribute to his son, his thoughts travel between his past and the present time, recalling tactics he was taught in military training that will help them both survive. He remembers WWII, a war he was too young to fight in and thinks about Korea, the war he personally witnessed. Then he thinks about Vietnam where his son lost his life. Sheldon is filled with guilt. He thinks of his war time experiences and remembers his personal responsibility for some of the pain; he blames himself for causing things that were beyond his control, random accidents of fate, sometimes. He thinks about his son and his son’s service to the country and blames himself for his enlistment. He accepts his own weaknesses as the cause of most of the failures in his life. Sheldon’s thoughts are so basic and so simple, that, at times, the reader will have to laugh out loud, even though the prior thought might have provoked a deeper emotion and thought, in contradiction to that “funny” feeling. The story really opens up a dialogue on aging as well as bigotry. It suggests many questions to the reader. Why would Norway allow wanted men into the country because they seek sanctuary? Have they become too liberal in their behavior, saving the victimizer to attack the victim again? Which of Sheldon’s and/or Donny’s memories are real and which are made up to salve his conscience? Does Sheldon have dementia or are his explanations for his behavior plausible?The book is hard to put down. It draws the reader in, as Sheldon, an octogenarian, draws on his military background and memory to become somewhat of a hero. The mystery is told in three parts in which Sheldon reminisces about the past and the major events that have colored his attitudes about life. The reader will discover that evil begets evil, hate begets more violence, revenge invites vengeance and war invites serious retaliation into the future. There is no easy answer for the prejudices and the anger someone harbors in their heart and mind. I liked the book, but I thought some of the coincidences required the suspension of disbelief. Also, there are some unanswered questions. How did Senka get the information she hid away? How did Enver find out about it? Why didn’t the police put a surveillance detail on Rhea and Lars? Regardless of the inconclusive moments, still, the book was exciting, and I stayed up half the night to finish it! The author juxtaposed tongue in cheek humor opposite gruesome scenes and it worked so well that it was really easy to read. Sheldon’s philosophical ideas about aging and behavior are really thought provoking and worthy of discussion.

[kmmt48 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I chose this novel because it appeared on the Best List of 2013 in the UK's Guardian newspaper. No need to reiterate the story as it is reviewed by others. Sheldon is a complex 82 year old using all his life experiences to save a small boy who is being pursued by some very unpleasant people. The author tells the story pretty much through Sheldon's thoughts. He has a slight case of dementia so sometimes things are a bit fuzzy for him but he is determined to do what is necessary to keep this boy safe. Sheldon is a crusty, old but caring guy who has had a good deal of life's experiences thrown his way. He seems to be steely on the outside but has a very good handle on life and his place in it. He is a loyal, loving guy with alot of life's guilt regarding his choices. The author does a good job of making you laugh when he thinks he is conversing with his dead friends for advice, and then putting you on edge when the "bad" people show up and yes the end will make you cry but also glad you had the chance to spend a few days with Sheldon Horowitz! Good read.

[vcg610 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have recently come to seek out the crime thrillers from Scandinavian authors. I had thought Stieg Larsson was the only one, but boy was I wrong! So imagine my surprise to find out that Derek B. Miller, author of Norwegian by Night, is an American and this is a debut novel. Friends, I am telling you, don't miss this!Sheldon Horowitz is an 82 year old Jewish American who has just moved to Oslo after the death of his beloved wife. His granddaughter Rhea has previously married an Oslo native and now resides there. She convinces her grandfather not to remain alone in New York City by revealing that she and her husband are expecting Sheldon's great grandchild. Sheldon was too young to fight in WWII, but he was profoundly shaped by patriotic emotions as he watched his older brother go off to war. He also was scarred by the horrors that emerged from the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Nazis, not to mention the apathy of the non-Jewish Europeans who did nothing to stop the slaughter of millions of Jews. When the Korean War broke out, Sheldon signed up and served his country with extraordinary bravery, though he did not see it as such, and kept his medals hidden from his wife, downplaying his war service if it ever came up. Rhea's father, the Horowitz' only son had been killed in Afghanistan shortly before Rhea was born.A lot of this background information comes to us via Sheldon's thoughts and reminiscences, and he is hilarious. His expressions are rich with Jewish humor and self-deprecation, but his love and tenderness for his family as well as a strong sense of what is right and wrong comes through clearly. So when he is home alone in Oslo and hears yet another huge fight between the couple upstairs, he goes to his front door to peer out when he hears footsteps clattering down the stairs. Amazingly it is the woman and he is shocked to see that she stops right at his door, looking back up the stairs and then out toward the street. "Run!" he shouts silently in his head, but when she doesn't he remembers the apathetic Europeans of the WWII era who did not open their doors when the Nazis came for their Jewish neighbors. Sheldon opens the door and the woman and a child rush in. They do not speak the same language, but Sheldon knows they must hide. Too soon a very angry man is pounding on the door. Sheldon hides the boy and himself but the woman makes it known that she will go talk to her husband. When the noise stops, Sheldon realizes that the man may come back for the boy and that they must get away and hide til he figures out what to do next.The story is told not only from Sheldon's perspective, but from that of the police investigators, Rhea and her husband, and even the killers. Talk about an action-filled book! Sheldon's military training from the Korean War days kicks in and he and the boy are one step ahead of both the cops and the killers til the last page of the book. A poignant and moving story about aging, heroism and family, as well as a crime thriller. Really a good read, so let's be watching for Derek B. Miller's next work, whatever it might be! In the meantime, get Norwegian by Night and enjoy this novel!