James Thompson RIP

Sad news via Scandinavian Crime Fiction, that James Thompson author of the Finland-set Inspector Kari Vaara series has died.

From an article in the Helsinki Times:

...the fifth book, Helsinki Dead, was set for release this year but its status is unknown. Thompson also contributed to Helsinki Noir, an anthology of short crime stories which is scheduled for publication this November.

From Terry's Euro Crime review of Snow Angels, the first book in the series:

SNOW ANGELS is an astonishing good first rate police procedural thriller. Extremely violent and so may not be for those that are particularly squeamish, but the author has the gift that the best writers have, which is to completely transport you to the world of his imagination all within a few pages. Finnish is a very hard language to learn and the names of characters in the story seem very strange to my eyes, but because of the writer's huge skill, this does not stop me enjoying this mesmerising story.

Snow Angels - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for James Thompson's Finland-set Snow Angels.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS - complete with "If You liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you'll love this!" sticker)) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with this title?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

Read the Euro Crime review by Terry of Snow Angels.

New Reviews: Bird, Crouch, Kuzneski, Leon, Myers, Parris, Thompson & New Competitions

Two new competitions for March, both close 31st March:
1.Win a signed copy of Complicit by Nicci French UK only
2.Win From the Dead by Mark Billingham UK & Europe only

Here are this week's reviews:

Paul Blackburn reviews Nigel Bird's Dirty Old Town a short story collection available for the Kindle;

Michelle Peckham reviews Julia Crouch's debut, Cuckoo, calling it "a highly accomplished first novel";

Amanda Gillies feels she's not the target audience for Chris Kuzneski's disappointing The Secret Crown;

Maxine Clarke reviews Donna Leon's "well up to scratch" A Question of Belief which is now out in paperback;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Amy Myers' Murder on the Old Road which she highly recommends;

Susan White reviews S J Parris's follow-up to the acclaimed Heresy: Prophecy

and Terry Halligan reviews James Thompson's police-procedural Snow Angels the first in a series set in Finland.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

Finnish Crime Fiction

Very few Finnish crime authors have been translated into English. The most famous perhaps being Matti Joensuu. German author Jan Costin Wagner spends half the year in Finland and his haunting Finland set Ice Moon was translated into English in 2006.

News comes via Mystery Book News of a novel written by an American author who has been living in Finland for ten years.

Snow Angels by James Thompson, is published in the US on 7 January and marks the first of a new series featuring Finnish police officer Inspector Kari Vaara. The cover has quotes from Michael Connelly and Peter Hoeg:

The first thriller in a new series featuring Inspector Kari Vaara: the haunted, hardened detective who must delve into Finland's dark and violent underbelly.

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.