Norwegian by Night / Derek B. Miller 292 pp.

What do you call an 82-year-old slightly demented East Coast retired Jewish watch repairman who squares off against a gang of Kosovar organized crime thugs in Oslo to save a child he barely knows?  Quixotic.  Indeed, Sheldon 'Donny' Horowitz is a true knight errant, and one of the best characters I've met in awhile.  To be fair, he may or may not have been a Marine sniper in Korea, which explains his facility with rifles, but he's still fighting long odds. 

Sheldon comes to Oslo somewhat begrudgingly to be with his granddaughter and is having difficulty adjusting when violence explodes in an upstairs apartment.  Believing that he failed his son Saul, dead years ago in Vietnam, Sheldon is determined to protect the little boy left behind in the fallout.  With the help of many long conversations with his old friend Bill (also long dead, but that doesn't stop him from showing up and giving his opinion), Sheldon hatches a plan and sees it through. Full of musings about Jewish American patriotism, atonement, religion, and strangely suspenseful, too.