This new novel by Derek B. Miller, of whom I’d never heard (he’s an American living in Norway, and the book was first published in Norwegian), was recommended to me as something well-written and interesting in the Leif Enger mode. And it is, except that Enger’s work is mainly rooted in Christianity, while Norwegian by Night is essentially Jewish, though with some genial nods to Christianity.

Start with a sort of homage to Huckleberry Finn, and to Mark Twain’s idea of God. Mix in the Book of Job. Move it all to Norway, of all places. That’s what you’re dealing with in Norwegian by Night.



Sheldon Horowitz is an old, embittered New York Jew, still grieving the death of his wife and – years before – his guilt at encouraging his son to enlist for service in Vietnam, where he was killed. His only surviving relative, his granddaughter Rhea, who loves him dearly, asks him to come and join her new husband Lars in their home in Oslo. Sheldon goes, but feels unconnected. There are only about a thousand Jews in the whole country. His wife thought – and Rhea is unsure – that he’s sliding into dementia. He claims to have won medals as a sniper in Korea, though he’s lost the evidence. He sometimes thinks North Korean snipers are hunting him. Now and then he gets visits from a dead friend, who seems to be speaking for God.

Then, one morning while Sheldon is alone in the house, he overhears a violent fight between two neighbors – immigrants from the Balkans. When the woman runs downstairs and he sees her through the peephole, looking for a place to hide, he opens his door to her. She has her little boy with her.

Before that terrible morning is over, the woman will be dead, and Sheldon will have decided to go on the run with the boy, to keep him out of the hands of the murderer, in a country where neither of them speaks the language. In this iteration of Huckleberry Finn it’s Jim who speaks, and Huck is silent, but the great issues of life are confronted just the same.

There is much talk of God in Norwegian by Night, and I generally don’t endorse it. It calls up the liberal Jewish arguments (I think they’re liberal Jewish arguments) that man has become better than God, and God owes man an apology (Mark Twain would have loved it). But the questions are important, and Sheldon is a man worth getting to know. I enjoyed the book, but it’s not for everyone. Cautions for language and violence.

I had been reading for some time of Olen Steinhauer as a superior writer of espionage novels. So I bought a copy of The Tourist, one of his Milo Weaver trilogy.

My perception is that there are two major strains of spy novel. One is the rah-rah thriller, in the tradition of James Bond and Jack Ryan, where the emphasis is on action but there’s little or no question who are the good guys.

The other strain is the John Le Carré school, probably more technically realistic, where the tendency is to reduce the conflict between freedom and tyranny to a game played by cynical and generally dispassionate professionals. In this kind of story it’s hard to tell one side from the other; in fact, our side generally comes off looking worse, as we get a closer look at its transgressions.

Judging by The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer seems to belong to the second group.

His hero, Milo Weaver, is a former “Tourist,” a roving professional assassin for the CIA. Now he has settled down happily with a wife and stepdaughter. Then he’s recalled to join the hunt for a famous assassin, loose in the USA. Once he catches him he learns things that lead him to question some of his most cherished relationships. Caught in a power struggle between the CIA and Homeland Security, he must take the risk of trusting an old enemy, and take the chance of losing everything that has made his life worth living.

The writing’s good, and Milo is an engaging character. But I disliked the cynicism of the story, the assumption that there’s really nothing to choose between America and any other world power. There isn’t much hope in this book. Cautions for language and mature subject matter.

Dennis Lehane, best known for superlative contemporary mysteries, takes on a historical tale in Live By Night, the story of a Boston gangster who becomes a bootlegger king in Tampa. It’s a very good novel. I’m not entirely sure what it’s about thematically, and I’m fairly sure I disagree with the subtext. Still, a worthy read.

Joe Coughlin is a cop’s son, but chooses to become a gangster (he prefers the term “outlaw”). He first sees Emma Gould while robbing an illegal poker game, and he starts dating her even though a mob boss is obsessed with her. One thing leads to another, and Joe ends up doing five years in prison while Emma ends up in a wrecked car in a river.

Joe can never forget her, though he’s sure she’s dead. In prison he gets close to a mob leader who, on his release, sends him down to Tampa to run the rum running operation there. This leads him to great wealth and success, and marriage to a beautiful Cuban woman. He tries to do his job in his own way, showing mercy to people when he can, but gradually he realizes he’s a gangster, not an outlaw. And his longing for lost Emma haunts him until he achieves at last a painful clarity.

I think author Lehane recognizes, and wants us to understand, that Joe is not without his self-delusions. The title of the book, Live By Night, is a reference to his belief that there are day people and night people, and that the night people are more glamorous and more honest, because they’re not hypocrites like the day people. This is of course a rationalization; the only choices in life aren’t between being a corrupt cop or an open criminal. One could, for instance, be a dirt farmer. The work might kill you, but you’d have small scope for corruption.

No, Joe’s real motivation is an addiction to risk-taking, and Lehane admits as much.

All in all, I suspect the real message of the book is essentially Marxist. The Americans are bad because they’re racist and rich. The Cubans, though Lehane admits they’re just as racist, are poor and therefore pure in some sense. The book ends before Castro shows up, so Communism is only addressed in an oblique way.

There is an running theme of religious aspiration, but Lehane doesn’t seem to see much hope in it.

But it’s not a heavy-handed book. Anything but. Live By Night is a well-written, moving story. Cautions for language and adult themes.

Dennis Lehane, best known for superlative contemporary mysteries, takes on a historical tale in Live By Night, the story of a Boston gangster who becomes a bootlegger king in Tampa. It’s a very good novel. I’m not entirely sure what it’s about thematically, and I’m fairly sure I disagree with the subtext. Still, a worthy read.

Joe Coughlin is a cop’s son, but chooses to become a gangster (he prefers the term “outlaw”). He first sees Emma Gould while robbing an illegal poker game, and he starts dating her even though a mob boss is obsessed with her. One thing leads to another, and Joe ends up doing five years in prison while Emma ends up in a wrecked car in a river.

Joe can never forget her, though he’s sure she’s dead. In prison he gets close to a mob leader who, on his release, sends him down to Tampa to run the rum running operation there. This leads him to great wealth and success, and marriage to a beautiful Cuban woman. He tries to do his job in his own way, showing mercy to people when he can, but gradually he realizes he’s a gangster, not an outlaw. And his longing for lost Emma haunts him until he achieves at last a painful clarity.

I think author Lehane recognizes, and wants us to understand, that Joe is not without his self-delusions. The title of the book, Live By Night, is a reference to his belief that there are day people and night people, and that the night people are more glamorous and more honest, because they’re not hypocrites like the day people. This is of course a rationalization; the only choices in life aren’t between being a corrupt cop or an open criminal. One could, for instance, be a dirt farmer. The work might kill you, but you’d have small scope for corruption.

No, Joe’s real motivation is an addiction to risk-taking, and Lehane admits as much.

All in all, I suspect the real message of the book is essentially Marxist. The Americans are bad because they’re racist and rich. The Cubans, though Lehane admits they’re just as racist, are poor and therefore pure in some sense. The book ends before Castro shows up, so Communism is only addressed in an oblique way.

There is an running theme of religious aspiration, but Lehane doesn’t seem to see much hope in it.

But it’s not a heavy-handed book. Anything but. Live By Night is a well-written, moving story. Cautions for language and adult themes.

Let me take this opportunity to apologize for posting so much about my hip problem lately. That’s not what you come here for, and I appreciate your patience. My most recent discovery has been that using crutches instead of a cane punishes my body a whole lot less, so I’m now in considerably less pain than I was. Thanks for the prayers.

As a reward, here’s a book review: Time Release, by Martin J. Smith.

It’s hard not to compare Time Release to Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels. Like the Delaware stories, this one centers on a psychologist summoned by a policeman friend to help him investigate a series of murders. But the differences are numerous too. The setting here is Pittsburgh and its grim environs, rather than Los Angeles, and Smith’s characters, psychologist Jim Christensen and detective Gary Downing, are a lot more damaged by life. Christensen is still recovering from the loss of his wife, on whom he “pulled the plug” after brain death, and Downing’s career has never recovered from the way he botched a drug poisoning case, reminiscent of the Tylenol murders. He lost his objectivity because one of the victims was his secret lover, something he has never shared with anyone.

Now the poisonings seem to have resumed after ten years. Downing thinks the surviving son of his chief suspect may have repressed memories that would help his case. Would Christensen talk to the young man and see?

Christensen reluctantly agrees, not realizing that in doing so he is putting his remaining family in mortal danger. Some secrets are almost too hard to face, and some people would kill the innocent rather than face them.

Time Release is an adequate thriller. I never thought that it soared, and the relentless grimness of the story wore me down a bit. Religion is not a major theme, but is always in the background. Christensen, who has become an atheist, takes a cheap shot at the Bible at one point, but he still prays when desperate, and we’re given no reason to think that’s a stupid thing to do.

The price of the book is low, and I didn’t hate it. Worth reading if you like this sort of thing. Cautions for language and adult themes.