It is Christmas Eve, and 55-year-old Professor Pål Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street.
Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to a local sushi bar, only to find himself face to face with the murderer?
'Dag Solstad, Norway's most distinguished living writer, is a clear-eyed moralist who takes an existentialist's interest in the compromises, evasions and accommodations we make to get through life? Wryly humorous? A deeply rewarding novel'
Sunday Times
'An exquisitely composed novel? Dag Solstad is an unflinching explorer of the plight of educated humankind in the face of the inexplicable, whose artistry matches his ambitious theme'
Guardian
