Author: Derek B Miller

Publisher: Faber & Faber

First published: 2013

Setting: Oslo, Norway
Read in October 2013

My Rating ★★★★  3.9

My Waterstones Review

“American author writes Nordic Noir”

There can’t be too many books with an eighty-two year old hero. Sheldon Horowitz rescues a boy from a Balkan gang and is then chased across Norway by his pursuers, the police, and his grand-daughter (Rhea) and her husband (Lars). Sheldon is an ex-Marine and might be losing his memory, will he remember enough of his training to reach safety?

This is a well written, sometimes complex debut novel. It is gripping and in places funny. It has had good reviews and I enjoyed it, but not everyone will. Sheldon often flits back to previous times and the book oscillates between Sheldon and each of the pursuers so that there are four sets of narratives to keep track of.

Book Review

An excellent and well written debut novel with an unfamiliar hero, an eighty-two year old Sheldon Horowitz, recently widowed and now living in the downstairs apartment of his grand-daughter (Rhea) and husband (Lars) in Oslo. Alone, Sheldon hears a violent argument, rescues a young woman and small boy of 7 or 8 and is then witness to her murder. Sheldon and the boy with bright blue Paddington Bear Wellington Boots escape into the woods and now the pursuit is on, who will find them first, the Balkan Gang, Rhea and Lars, or the police who will soon find the body and be alerted to their disappearance?

Sheldon is an ex-Marine who can’t forget the past, well at least not those that he can remember, and is haunted by the loss of his son who followed in his footsteps and to his death in Vietnam. He is in a foreign land, can’t speak Norwegian and cannot communicate with the boy who he has now named Paul. This is a cat and mouse chase across Norway with only Sheldon’s wits, memories and training to fall back on. A sophisticated and original storyline.