Norwegian by Night

Derek B Miller Norwegian by Night Drew Ratter writes: Derek B. Miller is the director of The Policy Lab and a senior fellow with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He has a PHD in international relations from the University of Geneva, among numerous other academic distinctions. He is also the author of rather a marvellous novel, a thriller certainly, but a very unusual one. His hero, and a hero he is, is an old Jew. Eighty-two years old, and recently widowed, Sheldon Horowitz has grudgingly moved to Oslo, with his grand-daughter and her Norwegian husband. They are lovely, but Sheldon is unsure, and grouchy. In New York, he was a watch repairer, with friends, and a relationship with his dead son. He was a marine in Korea. He may be slipping into senility (especially given his conversations with his son and his old friend 4000 miles away in New York. Both dead). He may have been a sniper, or he may have been a cook's helper. When he takes on, without the slightest hesitation, the child of a murdered woman, to save him from his monstrous Albanian father; the murderer of his mother, we begin to accept that his marine training and career were serious, and he is, without qualification, wonderful. Norwegian by Night is full of wonder, rather a marvellous piece of work. I certainly hope this fine and deeply humane writer produces more work.