Norwegian by night

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.