Norwegian by Night

This book by Derek B. Miller precedes the one I previously read, American by Day, which I so enjoyed that I sought out this one. There is more info about the author in the previous post.
Rhea has recently married her Norwegian husband Lars, and invited her 82- year old widowed grandfather, Sheldon Horowitz, to come live with them in Oslo.  Rhea was raised by Sheldon and his wife and does not want Sheldon to live alone in Manhattan and she also fears he is getting senile. Sheldon always maintained to his family that he was a clerk in the Marines, but was in fact a decorated sniper in the Korean War. One day while Rhea and Lars are out, Sheldon can't help but hear a violent fight upstairs and when the Serbian immigrant woman and her young son come running down the stairs to escape her abuser, Sheldon opens the door and lets them come in. The child's father, Enver, we eventually learn, was a Kosavar war criminal who had raped her during the war and has now come looking for his child in Oslo. Enver quickly figures out where the pair are hiding, breaks down the door of Lars' and Rhea's apartment and strangles the woman. Sheldon and the boy manage to hide until Enver hears police sirens approaching. Sheldon fears Enver will come back for the boy and so they escape out a basement door and go on the run.
Chief Inspector Sigrid Ødegård of the Oslo police and her second in commend, Petter, are put in charge of the murder and of finding Sheldon and the young boy before Enver does. Sigrid is at first frustrated that an old man and a boy can disappear so effectively, but eventually she comes to have real admiration for Sheldon's abilities because, although Sheldon is old, he has a lot of skills learned as a Marine, and the two manage to elude both police and the killers for several days. Sheldon is haunted not just by memories of his time in the Marines, but also by the belief that it is his fault that his son signed up for a 2nd tour in Vietnam, where he was killed. He is determined to save this boy at any cost.
Once again I was intrigued by the author's observations on the cultures of both Norway and America. As Kirkus notes in their review, this book is " an unusual hybrid: part memory novel, part police procedural, part sociopolitical tract and part existential meditation." There is a thoughtful review of the book by the Washington Independent, and a brief one in The New York Times.