The Petrona Award 2020 - Winner

 

Winner of 2020 Petrona Award announced – a first for Finnish crime

The winner of the 2020 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year is:

LITTLE SIBERIA by Antti Tuomainen, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston and published by Orenda Books.

As well as a trophy, Antti Tuomainen receives a pass to and a guaranteed panel at CrimeFest 2022. Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston will also receive a cash prize.

The judges’ statement on LITTLE SIBERIA:

Antti Tuomainen’s LITTLE SIBERIA stood out on the shortlist for all of the judges. From its arresting opening, in which a meteorite unexpectedly lands on a speeding car, to its very human depiction of a pastor grappling with private and theological crises, this is a pitch-perfect comic crime novel with considerable depth and heart.

The first Finnish crime novel to receive the Petrona Award, LITTLE SIBERIA is a particularly fitting winner for 2020 – a year in which life was turned upside down. A celebration of resilience, fortitude and simply muddling through, it is a novel for our times.

David Hackston’s fine translation captures LITTLE SIBERIA’S depictions of an icy northern Finland and its darkly comic tone, skilfully showcasing the writing of one of Scandinavia’s most versatile and original crime authors. LITTLE SIBERIA is published by Orenda Books, one of the UK’s foremost independent publishers, which consistently champions international and translated crime fiction.

Comments from the winning author, translator and publisher:

Antti Tuomainen (author):

To make a long story short, I have to make it long first. A few years ago, after publishing five very dark and very noir books, I felt there was an element within me I had to bring into my writing: humour. Before my first darkly funny book The Man Who Died was published I was very nervous. Was I making a big mistake? One of those career choices you read about in artists' biographies under the chapter title 'The Fall'? Not that anyone would write about me, as I would be forgotten, found much later in a basement room, alone, perished in the middle of a last 'humorous' sentence … Happily, I was wrong, and not for the first time. Which seems to bring us to Little Siberia. It is my eighth book and now the recipient of the prestigious Petrona Award. When I set out to write a darkly comical crime novel with a priest as main character, I knew I was taking a leap – again. Alas, here we are. I want to thank David Hackston and Karen Sullivan, both incomparable and indispensable, as without them all the jury would have had was a book in Finnish with no idea who sent it. I send my warmest thank you to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Oh, and that shorter story: after fifteen years of writing and nine books, it seems I'm finally an overnight success.

David Hackston (translator):

I'm extremely honoured to receive the Petrona Award 2020, not least because of the illustrious, formidable company on the shortlist. Many congratulations to all the authors and especially to my fellow translators – my co-conspirators in bringing Nordic writing to English-speaking readers. My thanks to the panel and a huge, heartfelt thank you to Orenda Books, without whom none of this would be possible. Of course, behind every good translation is an excellent original text, and in this respect Antti Tuomainen is the gift that keeps on giving. Kiitos, Antti; thanks for the laughs thus far. Long may it continue.

Karen Sullivan (Orenda Books):

We are honoured and absolutely thrilled by the news that Little Siberia has won this prestigious award – quite possibly the only designated award for Scandinavian crime fiction in English – and it feels fitting that in such a difficult year, Antti's beautifully written, funny, philosophical and exquisitely plotted thriller has been chosen. Antti has pushed the crime genre in so many exciting directions, and I applaud the judges for making such a bold and perfect choice. It can be no easy feat to translate Finnish and yet David Hackston has once again produced an elegant, pitch-perfect translation, and we are so delighted that his work has been rewarded in this way.

The judges would also like to highly commend THE SILVER ROAD by Stina Jackson, translated from the Swedish by Susan Beard and published by Corvus (Atlantic Books).

The Petrona team would like to thank our sponsor, David Hicks, for his generous and continued support of the 2020 Petrona Award.

Review: Palm Beach, Finland by Antti Tuomainen tr. David Hackston

Palm Beach, Finland by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston, October 2018, 304 pages, Orenda Books, ISBN: 1912374315

Reviewed by Lynn Harvey.
(Read more of Lynn's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

It was a misunderstanding, a delicate imbalance between push and shove. And thus the neck broke like a plank snapping in two.

Palm Beach Finland, Summer:
39 year-old lifeguard “Chico” Korhonen waits near the resort’s huge sign as agreed. He thinks the place looks great these days. Its greyness transformed by new owner Jorma Leivo; the place glows. Huts gleam with fresh paint, pink, blue, green; a shop, pizzeria, sunshades dotting the beach, a windsurfing setup. OK, the biting breeze and cold water means the deckchairs are empty but Chico enjoys walking past the newly planted row of plastic palm trees every day. Life is bright and new. The incident with the fat woman, her handbag and the lunch vouchers was tricky but the boss has told Chico that he is looking for someone with a bit of street savvy. He might be able to put “a little extra” his way. So now Chico waits for his best friend Robin (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and their meeting with Leivo to discuss that “little extra”.

Leivo is a big man with a head-turning fashion sense and fair hair that curls upwards around his bald crown. He is sweating profusely as he explains, in his gruff teddy-bear voice, that the “little extra” he has in mind is to put some pressure on the owner of a neighbouring plot of land. Nothing serious – a smashed window, a stolen bicycle, a bit of urinating through the letterbox – but he needs that land signed over within the month, understand?
Chico and Robin stake out the neighbour’s house that evening. A ground floor light comes on. They throw stones which shatter the window. But then there is all this yelling. The pair erupt into the kitchen. There is blood everywhere, including over the woman’s face. She starts attacking them with an electric whisk, long hair flying, and it all goes west from there. They floor her. Chico grabs her feet, Robin wraps his arm around her neck and they are carrying her towards the door when Chico slips, Robin carries on moving and, crack, she goes limp. They lay her down. Definitely dead. But also … she's a he. How did that happen?

National Bureau of Investigation, Vantaa, two weeks later:
Jan Nyman’s boss briefs him on the new case, a body in a small town; local investigation, no results; regional investigation, no results. But it must be a professional job. The victim was beaten and his neck broken in a way that indicates an expert knowledge of anatomy. The woman who owns the house has an alibi but maybe she was involved, a contract hit. Jan is to make the undercover investigation; he is “Jan Kaunisto”, a maths teacher on holiday. But the boss is convinced that the woman is pulling the strings.

The woman in question, Olivia Koski, is discussing drainage issues with the local plumber. She wants to live in the house left to her by her father but it needs a lot of work, total renovation. She whittles down the plumber’s estimate. They agree an amount. But Olivia knows that her bank account contains zilch. Just as the whole town knows that this is the house where a murder took place. She’s got herself a job and her shift is starts soon. She changes into her uniform, looks at herself in the mirror, and feels just as naked as she did yesterday.

Helsinki:
Holma is dangling a man by his knees over a balcony when the news comes through on his phone that his brother is dead. He has had to release his grip on the man in order to answer his phone and hears the subsequent thump. It seems his brother died two weeks ago in some woman’s house in a small town somewhere. Holma knows his brother is – was – a disaster; they started their criminal life together. And whilst Holma has come far, his brother has not. Nevertheless, family is family. Anyone so much as touches his brother – Holma gets into his car...

Jan Nyman may be an undercover policeman but PALM BEACH FINLAND is no police procedural. Award-winning Finnish writer Antti Tuomainen takes a different approach with each novel: environmental speculative fiction; investigative thriller; psychological thriller. This latest, PALM BEACH FINLAND, brings us satire and criminal slapstick. It’s a dark farce in which a group of characters chase their dreams or rather those that money can buy. The resulting intersecting motives, misinterpretations and violent acts take place in and around an unlikely Baltic beach resort. But glimpses of Finland peek through this Americana setting: pine trees, wooden houses, a tide-less Baltic beach and the exquisite portrait of Miss Simola – an elderly, erotic Finnish earth spirit. (Well, I think so.)

Antti Tuomainen always steps into the new with each novel and PALM BEACH FINLAND, in this assured translation by David Hackston, takes a Finnish slice from the comic, crazy, greedy, crime world of the likes of Get Shorty or Fargo. Where will Tuomainen's imagination take us next?
I don’t know but before that – read this one.

Absolutely recommended.

Lynn Harvey, November 2018

Review: The Mine by Antti Tuomainen tr. David Hackston

The Mine by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston, October 2016, 300 pages, Orenda Books, ISBN: 1910633534

Reviewed by Lynn Harvey.
(Read more of Lynn's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

His senses weren’t working the way they usually did. He was too near to the people he had always loved. Up close we cannot see clearly, he remembered someone saying.

A man dies in Helsinki, electrocuted in his bath. Elsewhere in the city a journalist working for Helsinki Today, Janne Vuori, receives an email tipping him off to shady, hazardous practices at a nickel mine in Suomalahti in Northern Finland. With their staff photographer, Janne takes the long trip up north but unsurprisingly the Head of Security at the mine sends them on their way. They don’t even get through the gate.

Back in the city another man is reliving his past by dining in a once favourite restaurant. His thoughts stray to the dead man in the bathtub. And then to another death, that of a man shot-gunned in dazzling southern sunlight.

Suomalahti is a small town with a bank, a supermarket, petrol station, church, optician, hotel, school, cafe. It is not surprising that everyone Janne Vuori asks tells him that “the mine is a good thing”. A site depleted of ore, its current owners Finn Mining Ltd bought it for 2 euros. They announced they would use a new technique – bioleaching, a kind of chemical washing, “proven safe” – which would enable them to salvage the highly commercial nickel. Janne decides to have another nose around but gives the photographer a lift back to the airport. During a frigid phone call with his wife, Janne is reminded that he has forgotten to pay their daughter’s nursery fees. Distance and accusations are filling their marriage with mutual contempt. He is surprised to find the Suomalahti hotel full and sets out for the Casino Hotel seven kilometres further on. In the bar of the Casino Hotel, also filled with mining staff, a drunken man calls out to him: shouldn’t you be on duty tonight? “That shit won’t disappear by itself.” Realising he has mistaken Janne for a work colleague, the drunk apologises but Janne is already heading to his car, snow crunching beneath his feet.

In Helsinki the man reliving past memories contemplates that people’s homes aren’t as inviolate as they think. He considers the people he has followed and how he has slipped into their homes and killed them.

Janne drives along the complex perimeter looking for a way to slip in. He reaches a vast clearing in the forest divided into square sections and notices movement over at the forest edge, arc lights and diggers. He realises that the squares are huge industrial slurry pits smoothed by the snow. The men are digging some kind of canal. He tries to take a photo but his phone has frozen. He heads back to the hotel where, from his room, he spots the shadow of a man in the car park, watching his window; the security chief.

On his return to the city Janne starts researching Finn Mining. The only board member available for interview is the Environmental Officer. Janne is surprised. At their meeting she explains that she is no longer a board member; she has been “promoted” to some vaguely titled post. By the way, did he know that one of the board members died recently? Some kind of domestic accident.

The “hit-man”, for what else can he be, suffers nightmares now. But at least he has found his son …

THE MINE is written through the eyes of two men, a journalist and a killer. There are more deaths, the trail of corruption and environmental threat to investigate and twists of tension as the identity of the hit-man emerges; all embedded in the complicated lives of the lead characters. I read a review on a popular book site which deplored THE MINE because the reviewer didn’t like the lead character. But I tend to congratulate a crime novelist whose characters are human, warts and all – and still you follow them to the book’s end, not just because you are gripping the pages with sweaty, tense palms but because you want to know the end of the story and what happens to its characters.

This is only the second of Tuomainen’s crime novels that I have read. (the first being his glimpse into a dystopic future of climate change and rising waters, THE HEALER) but I intend to read more. An award winning writer, Antti Tuomainen gives each book a fresh take, complex characters, a blend of empathy and objectivity – and above all he is a good story-teller. THE MINE may not be hot off the press but I recommend catching up with it.

Lynn Harvey, April 2018

New Reviews: Enger, Fowler, Kavanagh, Learner, Lipska, Macbain, Sutton, Tuomainen, Walker

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, three have appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and six are completely new.

In another of my occasional feature posts, I recently put together a list of vegetarian detectives and sidekicks.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Laura Root reviews Thomas Enger's Scarred tr. Charlotte Barslund, the third in the Henning Juul series set in Oslo;

Mark Bailey reviews the latest in the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler: Bryant & May and The Bleeding Heart;



Michelle Peckham reviews Emma Kavanagh's debut, Falling;

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's third thriller, The Stolen;

Geoff Jones reviews Anya Lipska's Death Can't Take a Joke the follow-up to the well-received, Where the Devil Can't Go;

Susan White reviews The Bull Slayer, the second in Bruce Macbain's Pliny series;

Terry also reviews Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square by William Sutton, set in Victorian London;

Lynn Harvey reviews Antti Tuomainen's The Healer tr. Lola Rogers which is now out in paperback

and Amanda Gillies reviews Martin Walker's The Resistance Man the latest in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series set in rural France.


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Publishing Deal - Antti Tuomainen

A press release in today's Booktrade reveals that Harvill Secker have bought a second book from Finnish crime writer Antti Tuomainen, called Dark as My Heart:

Alison Hennessey, Senior Crime Editor at Harvill Secker, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to Finnish crime writer Antti Tuomainen's Dark as My Heart. The Healer, Tuomainen's first novel to be published in English, was published by Harvill Secker in 2013 to glowing reviews. Dark as My Heart will be published in 2015.

Alison Hennessey said: 'I am delighted to have acquired Antti's new book. He is a huge favourite of everyone here at Harvill and, as anyone who has read The Healer will know, a wonderful writer. Dark As My Heart has all the elements of a fantastic psychological thriller which will appeal to fans of Patricia Highsmith and Harvill's own Karin Fossum.'

About Dark as My Heart:

In the vein of Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock, comes a brilliantly atmospheric psychological thriller from an outstanding voice in international crime fiction. Antti Tuomainen's Dark As My Heart is narrated by Aleksi, whose mother disappeared when he was a boy, never to be found. Now in his early thirties, Aleksi has never got over his mother's disappearance but when he sees an interview with his mother's former employer it triggers some disturbing memories and, determined to find out more, he applies for a job as caretaker of the man's isolated seaside estate. Dark as My Heart has spent nine weeks in the Finnish bestseller list and rights have been sold throughout Europe.

The whole press release is here.

My review of The Healer.

New Reviews: Byrne, Hooper, Jones, Kerr, Soderberg, Theorin, Tuomainen, Tursten, Wilton

Win Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska (UK only)






Nine new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

Laura Root reviews the CWA John Creasey Dagger Award shortlisted Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne;

Michelle Peckham reviews Australian author Chloe Hooper's The Engagement;

Lynn Harvey reviews Chris Morgan Jones's The Jackal's Share, the sequel to An Agent of Deceit, writing "If you like contemporary spy thrillers, and even if you think you don't, The Jackal's Share is one to try and Chris Morgan Jones an author to follow";




Norman Price reviews the latest Bernie Gunther novel from Philip Kerr, A Man Without Breath and says it's a strong contender for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger;

JF reviews Alexander Soderberg's The Andalucian Friend tr. Neil Smith, the first in the Sophie Brinkmann trilogy, calling it "a remarkable debut novel";

A warm welcome to Sarah Ward who joins the Euro Crime team with her review of Johan Theorin's The Asylum tr. Marlaine Delargy;

I review Antti Tuomainen's The Healer tr. Lola Rogers;

Mark Bailey reviews the fifth in Helene Tursten's Inspector Huss series, The Golden Calf, tr. Laura A Wideburg (the correct reading order can be found here)

and Terry reviews Robert Wilton's Treason's Tide which won the HWA/GOLDSBORO CROWN For Best Debut Historical Fiction 2012 (as The Emperor's Gold).




Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: The Healer by Antti Tuomainen

The Healer by Antti Tuomainen translated by Lola Rogers, February 2013, 246 pages, Harvill Secker, ISBN: 1846555876

Antti Tuomainen's THE HEALER is set in an unspecified but future time when climate change has meant environmental and economic disaster. Those who can afford to flee further north than Helsinki, the setting of THE HEALER, and inhabitants of southern Europe are shifting northwards. Increased rain and sea levels have left countless people homeless and made many parts of Helsinki uninhabitable.

The protagonist of THE HEALER is Tapani, a poet who hasn't sold anything for several years. His wife Johanna is a journalist, trying to cover important issues rather that the lightweight celebrity news that a depressed readership craves. And then she goes missing.

Tapani knows that his wife has been covering 'The Healer' case - that of a serial killer who has been targeting wealthy businesspeople and their families - people who could have done something about climate change if they hadn't been so greedy, in the killer's opinion.

Tapani sets off to find his wife and is aided in his quest unexpectedly by the policeman in charge of The Healer case - a man who is a police officer to his core despite the dismal situation the world finds itself in.

Tapani's investigations takes the reader on a tour of Helsinki, interspersed with flashbacks to happier times with his wife, as he uncovers secrets and finds that he may not know those closest to him as well as he thought.

THE HEALER, like several books I've reviewed recently is full of atmosphere, albeit a gloomy rain-sodden one, slightly at the expense of the action. The plot, tied up refreshingly in less than 250 pages, could be said to be very well constructed or, equally, heavily laden with coincidences but it works in the main. Although called 'The Healer', the book is not about him, it is about a man trying to find his wife: a very noir, amateur private detective story. There are some interesting secondary characters: the policeman mentioned above and an immigrant taxi-driver who chauffeurs Tapani around.

Readers of Scandinavian crime fiction will probably by now feel at home in Stockholm's Gamla Stan or on Oslo's Sofies gate and the slowly increasing number of Finnish crime novels available in translation may mean that Helsinki becomes an equally familiar place. At the moment though, the futuristic Helsinki in the THE HEALER seemed to me a very alien place, it almost could be on a different planet.

THE HEALER is an unusual crime novel and the ethereal tone is reminiscent of Jan Costin Wagner's Kimmo Joentaa series, also set in Finland.

Read another review of THE HEALER.

Publishing Deal - Antti Tuomainen

News of a Finnish crime author to be published in English in 2013 comes from Booktrade:

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.