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by Derek Miller
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, who failed his only son by sending him to Vietnam to die. 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. But old age and circumstances are altering Sheldon's experience of time and memory. He is haunted by dreams of his son Saul's life and by guilt over his death. As Sheldon and the boy look for a haven in an alien world, reality and fantasy, past and present, weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.
Norwegian by Night introduces an ensemble of unforgettable characters - Sheldon and the boy, Rhea and Lars, a Balkan war criminal named Enver, and Sigrid and Petter, the brilliantly dry-witted investigating officers - as they chase one another, and their own demons, through the wilderness at the end of the world.
"Miller's affecting debut...is an unusual hybrid: part memory novel, part police procedural, part sociopolitical tract and part existential meditation...First published in Norway, [Norwegian By Night] was worth the wait." - Kirkus
"Both an exciting chase thriller and a poignant story about a man who comes into his own again in his dotage." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. No brief plot outline can do justice to a book that deserves to find a place on a few best-of-the-year lists. Sheldon is a brilliantly imagined character, a true mensch, made of Greatest Generation stuff... Miller joins the ranks of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, and Jo Nesbø, the holy trinity of Scandinavian crime novelists." - Booklist
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"A literate, thoughtful and unusual thriller...Our image of Scandinavia is one of tolerance - Miller doesn't disagree with the image, but Norwegian by Night offers a fascinating fictional exploration of the meaning and implementation of that tolerance." - The Times (UK)
"Norwegian by Night has all the ingredients of a top-notch thriller, but it's the superb characterisation of the protagonist that fuels true suspense. Funny and moving as well as thoroughly gripping, this is crime fiction of the highest order." - The Guardian
"Norwegian by Night is not just a great title, it's also a soulful, humane, and sparklingly funny novel. Spend some time with Sheldon and company in the Scandinavian wilderness and you just might make peace with your god, your ghosts, and yourself." - Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
This information about Norwegian by Night was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Phtot: author
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-...
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