Snow Angels by James Thompson.
Release Date: January 7, 2010
Publisher: Penguin/Putnam Adult
This is the first book in a new series featuring Finnish Police Inspector Kari Vaara by an American-born writer who has lived in Finland for many years.
The publisher’s release information says:
“Kaamos: Just before Christmas, the bleakest time of the year in Lapland. The unrelenting darkness and extreme cold above the Arctic Circle drive everyone just a little insane . . . perhaps enough to kill.
A beautiful Somali immigrant is found dead in a snowfield, her body gruesomely mutilated, a racial slur carved into her chest. Heading the murder investigation is Inspector Kari Vaara, the lead detective of the small-town police force. The vicious killing may have been a hate crime, a sex crime-or one and the same. Vaara knows he must keep this potentially explosive case out of the national headlines or else it will send shock waves across Finland, an insular nation afraid to face its own xenophobia.
The demands of the investigation begin to take their toll on Vaara and his marriage. His young American wife, Kate, newly pregnant with their first child, is struggling to adapt to both the unforgiving Arctic climate and the Finnish culture of silence and isolation. Meanwhile Vaara himself, haunted by his rough childhood and failed first marriage, discovers that the past keeps biting at his heels: He suspects that the rich man for whom his ex-wife left him years ago may be the killer.
Endless night can drive anyone to murder. ”
Considering the great crime fiction to come out of Scandinavia recent years, this book looks to be an exciting read and a welcome addition to the body of Finnish crime fiction available in English. With the exception of the Detective Sergeant Timo Harjunpaa novels by Matti Yrjänä Joensuu (first, The Priest of Evil, followed by To Steal Her Love) there are in fact very few available titles in English coming from or even being set in Finland.
