Liz Foley at Harvill Secker has acquired UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights to Antti Tuomainen's The Healer, in a deal with the Salomonsson Agency. The Healer will be published in 2013.
The Healer is a dystopian crime novel set in a futuristic Helsinki struggling with ruthless climate change. Subway tunnels are flooded; abandoned vehicles are left burning in the streets; malaria, tuberculosis, Ebola, and the plague are rife. People are fleeing and social order is crumbling. Tapani Lehtinen, a struggling poet, is among the few still living in the city. When his wife Johanna, a newspaper journalist, goes missing Tapani embarks upon a frantic search. Johanna's disappearance seems to be connected to the story she was researching, that of a politically motivated serial killer known as 'The Healer'. Tapani's enduring love for Johanna is illustrated in flashbacks as he searches for his wife, and he uncovers secrets from Johanna's past; secrets that connect her to the very murders she was investigating...
The Healer is a story of survival, loyalty and determination in merciless times. When the world is coming to an end, all that's left is love and hope.
Liz Foley says: 'We are immensely excited to have acquired Antti Tuomainen's The Healer. Following our recent success with Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell in the bestseller lists we're delighted to welcome a new and original Nordic crime writer to Harvill Secker.'
The Healer won the Finnish Academy of Crime Writers' Award 2010 for Best Crime Novel of the Year.
This will be a welcome addition to the currently small number of Finnish crime writers available in English translation.
2 comments:
Sounds intriguing....reminds me only very slightly of Paul Johnson's first series, set in an alternative Edinburgh (I think it was Edinburgh). At any rate, it does not sound much like J D Robb's Eve Dallas series! Certainly looks well worth checking out.
Karen (and Maxine), I'm lucky enough to have read a section of this and I can't wait to see the full and final translation (in 2013...).
Although there are a couple of Finnish crime writers in English (Matti Joensuu and Sofi Oksanen spring to mind) they haven't broken through, so it's good that this has gone to Harvill Secker who have form with Nordic fiction.
And as an aside, Antti is a great guy, so I hope they get him over here for some events.
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