Karo Hämäläinen

This has to be one of the more bizarre books I’ve ever read. Described as a “black comedy”, the story unfolds over the course of one evening as 2 couples have dinner in London.

Mikko & Veera have come from Finland at the invitation of Robert. These 3 have known each other since high school & have an intricate & contentious history. Also present is Robert’s new bride Elise who seems the epitome of a trophy wife.
We know early on Mikko plans to kill Robert but his motive is not show more immediately clear. As the dinner progresses, old grudges are revealed as their entire shared history is relived in flashbacks. In alternate chapters, we follow an anonymous character as he flees London after the dinner party. One of them has survived the carnage but we won’t know who until the final chapters. It's an effective device that kept me reading to discover his identity.

These are not nice people & you may end up thinking them lucky to have found each other as no one else would have them. Long internal passages make us privy to what each is thinking as conversation around the table continues.
Mikko is a self righteous investigative journalist who hates everything the wealthy Robert represents. They have heated debates about everything from the financial crisis to who should sit in which chair. Veera is a nurse whose love for her husband doesn’t stop her from finding pleasure outside the marriage. And Elise is best described as beautiful & heavily medicated. Spending time in her head is like being in a Fellini movie.

The evening gradually descends into a horrific battle as all 4 have competing agendas. It’s difficult to describe the ensuing mayhem except to say it’s over the top & bloody. Nothing goes as planned & it’s more like survival of the “luckiest”.

I’m a huge fan of black humour but it can be a tricky genre because it’s so subjective. I think this will be a very polarizing book. Either you’ll love it or not. Sadly, I fall into the latter camp. I can only describe it as surreal or perhaps as the love child of existential angst & horror.

But hey….not every hat you try on fits. I’m glad I read it as it’s very well written & the author obviously has extensive knowledge of the business world. Possibly something was literally lost in translation for me & no doubt others will find this a perfect fit. show less

From a fantastic prologue featuring unanswered ringing phones, Cruel Is the Night quickly became a chore for me to read-- despite an added incentive of trying to recognize the Agatha Christie references. The reason why reading this book was such a chore may make some of you sit up and take more notice: it had a cast of characters straight out of Gone Girl. I only lasted twenty-five pages into Gillian Flynn's novel because I wasn't going to waste any more of my life on such repulsive main show more characters. The cast of Hämäläinen's novel is almost-- but not quite-- as bad as Flynn's, which must be the reason why I was able to finish reading the book.

In addition to the cast, the pace was glacially slow, inviting readers to decide which character was the sole survivor through acres of backstory, but I really didn't care who walked out of there alive. Cruel Is the Night was just not my cup of tea. Your mileage may vary-- and I hope it does. show less

Four "friends" circle each other in this ironic and purportedly funny novel of bad manners told in four voices - an obnoxious wealthy man, a stiff-necked journalist, and the two women who orbit them. It has gotten some good reviews, but it didn't work for me.

Prize winning? Really? It’s a messy mix of good and bad. Some of the overplayed political dialogue is erudite and entertaining. Ultimately, I got tired of the way it slowed down the plot. But then there’s not much of a plot. It’s predictably straightforward. I could not summon enough charity to like any of the characters, and their behaviour and motivations suggested lunacy. Worst of all, it ends in the air—the author out of ideas to ground a resolution.