New Reviews: Brightwell, Gerhardsen, Indridason, Miller, Nickson, O'Brien

Here are six new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today.

Check back tomorrow to see what is the favourite overall Euro Crime read of 2013, plus who are the team's favourite authors and translators of 2013.

NB. Keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

I review Emily Brightwell's The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries which has recently had a (very belated) UK release;

Rich Westwood reviews The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen tr. Paul Norlen, the first in the Hammarby (Stockholm) series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Arnaldur Indridason's Strange Shores tr. Victoria Cribb;

Amanda Gillies reviews Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller;

Terry Halligan reviews Chris Nickson's The Crooked Spire, set in fourteenth-century Chesterfield

and Lynn Harvey reviews the latest in Martin O'Brien's south of France set, Daniel Jacquot series, The Dying Minutes.


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller

Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller, September 2013, 304 pages, Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571294278

Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.
(Read more of Amanda's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

What a beautiful book! Superbly crafted and touching on a delicate subject with sensitivity and perception, NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT is a story of one man’s loss and regret and how he tries to come to terms with everything. An excellent debut novel from Derek B Miller; he is another talented new voice to keep an eye out for in the future.

The central character is Sheldon Horowitz, an 82-year-old American Jew who is recently widowed and has been persuaded, against his will, to move to Oslo to live with his granddaughter and her husband. Sheldon is a bit doddery on his feet, a bit stiff in his joints and prone to forgetfulness but when he witnesses the horrific murder of a neighbour, and ends up sheltering the dead woman’s son from the attackers, his old army training kicks in and he goes on the run to keep them both safe.

Sheldon is haunted by the ghosts of his long dead friends and has conversations with them while he is on his journey. Himself an ex-Marine who saw active service in Korea, he is still raw from the death of his own son in Vietnam. He blames himself for his son going to war in the first place – having over-instilled in him the importance of fighting for one's country, as well as the significance of being Jewish. Sheldon’s family seem to think that he is insane, and he may well be as he is frequently confused between the past and the present. One thing is true, though. He knows how to survive when people are hunting him and the journey he takes across the country, with young Paul at his side, dodging both the police and the criminals that want to kidnap the boy, is nothing short of miraculous.

To my shame, it took me longer to get into the book than it deserved but, by halfway, I was hooked and in love with dear old Sheldon. This book pulls at your heart-strings and reminds you that, just because people are old, doesn't mean they should be quietly written off, as they could do things that will surprise you.

Quite simply brilliant!

Amanda Gillies, January 2014.

A Kindle Freebie & a Bargain

Currently free in both UK and US Kindle, is Tony Black's Gus Dury novella, Last Orders:

Official blurb:
When he receives a mysterious letter on expensively embossed paper, reluctant investigator Gus Dury decides to take the case, if for no other reason than he needs the cash. But there's something about his well-heeled client, Callum Urquhart, that doesn't sit right with Dury.

Urquhart has travelled across the country to find his missing teenage daughter -- who definitely doesn't want to be found. As Dury gets closer to locating Caroline, what he uncovers is a web of lies and deceit and some painful realisations that lead back to his own tangled past.

Last Orders is a 14,000 word novella, first published in the Edinburgh Evening News, from the author of the Random House UK Gus Dury series: Paying for It, Gutted, Loss, and Long Time Dead - which is soon to be brought to the big screen by Richard Jobson.




I was tipped off by MrsPeabody that Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller is currently selling on UK Kindle for £1.59.

Official blurb:

He will not admit it to Rhea and Lars - never, of course not - but Sheldon can't help but wonder what it is he's doing here...


Eighty-two years old, and recently widowed, Sheldon Horowitz has grudgingly moved to Oslo, with his grand-daughter and her Norwegian husband. An ex-Marine, he talks often to the ghosts of his past - the friends he lost in the Pacific and the son who followed him into the US Army, and to his death in Vietnam.

When Sheldon witnesses the murder of a woman in his apartment complex, he rescues her six-year-old son and decides to run. Pursued by both the Balkan gang responsible for the murder, and the Norwegian police, he has to rely on training from over half a century before to try and keep the boy safe. Against a strange and foreign landscape, this unlikely couple, who can't speak the same language, start to form a bond that may just save them both.

An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero, Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man still trying to come to terms with the tragedies of his life. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret.