American by Day

In Norwegian by Night, Norwegian police chief inspector Sigrid Ødegård shoots a man while protecting herself from a perceived attack. He dies in her arms, a moment she's never been able to get past. If he'd only understood her warnings—he didn't speak Norwegian—would she have reacted so quickly? Now Sigrid is in America, looking for her estranged brother: he's missing after the suspicious death of the woman he loved, a professor of African American studies. Miller's latest novel is about redemption, both Sigrid's and her brother's. It's also about differences, how being young and black in America paints a target on your back and how difficult it is to get beyond color here even if one is trying to. Lastly, it's a novel about detection: Sigrid is a solid sleuth but so is the sheriff in upstate New York, whose contrarian ways irritate but also attract her.