Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Finnish Crime Fiction for Teenagers

I blogged last month about the dearth of Finnish crime fiction available in English. I've now discovered another Finnish author who is about to be published in English: Ilkka Remes. He has written 12 adult thrillers and 7 teenage/young adult thrillers and it is one of the latter which is to be published in English in May. Operation Ocean Emerald is the first of the Luke Baron teen series:

A giant cruise ship with over 1,000 passengers and 500 crew, the Ocean Emerald is a floating luxury palace. But for 14-year-old Luke Barron the cruise is a nightmare from the moment the ship sails. Luke has unwittingly disturbed the plans of a highly organized criminal gang, and his efforts to stop them place him firmly in the firing line.



Remes won the 'Clue of the Year Award' from the Finnish Detective Novel Society in 1999 so perhaps one day his adult thrillers will also be available in English.

9 comments:

Maxine Clarke said...

Thanks for this info - I'd definitely be interested in reading his adult thrillers, if anyone would be so kind as to have them translated ;-)

Kevin Wignall said...

Interesting, I'll look out for this one.

As to your previous post, it does cut both ways. When I was in Finland last June one of the bookshop managers asked me if there was much British crime writing - she'd assumed not because so little makes it into Finnish.

The Finns were also very amused by my attempts to pronounce "Matti Joensuu" which is itself a shortening of his full Finnish name, I think.

Anonymous said...

Karen - Please stop by my blog. Something awaits you there : ).

Karen (Euro Crime) said...

Never thought of that Kevin! There's seems to be so much less Finnish than Swedish and Norwegian writing reaching us in English.

You can tell us the correct pronunciation of Matti Joensuu at CrimeFest.

Anonymous said...

Who is the translator?

Karen (Euro Crime) said...

I haven't been able to find the name of the translator yet but when the book comes out, I'll have a look and update this post.

Anonymous said...

Have you gotten a copy of this yet?

Karen (Euro Crime) said...

A copy should be on its way to me from the pr people.

Anonymous said...

I got a copy of this finally. There is no indication of who the translator was. Given the quality of the translation, I wouldn't want my name on it either. Unless of course teenagers are speaking Oxbridge English now.