Helsinki Noir

Another in the Akashic series of noir collections by city, this one is set in Helsinki, Finland. It reads easily and is amazingly noir. There are young hoodlums out on the town for a little joyful tormenting, serial killers, stolen children, savage wrestling matches in the halls of finance, devil's bargains, drugs and alcohol. I don't recall quite so many hate-filled, misogynistic rotters, some of whom get their comeuppance, in one book before.

In spite of seasonal variations, I came away feeling that Helsinki was perpetually dark, as well as economically divided, massively prejudiced against immigrants, and poisoned by its own version of testosterone. I had some inkling of this before, from Finns who came to the U.S. It was certainly show more borne out. This bleak portrait of Helsinki did not beckon me to see the real thing. show less

I won [book:Helsinki Noir|20949629], the newest installment of Akashic Publishing's ____(city) Noir series, from LibraryThing. The collection of stories, set in Finland's capital city, Helsinki, is edited by one of my favorite authors, [author:James Thompson|2114] whose Kari Vaara series I love. (Sadly, Thompson died suddenly several months ago, a great loss for crime fiction.)Thompson's contribution to the collection, The Hand of Ai is an excellent if somewhat gruesome work.

The collection is overall excellent, although very dark. I often read short stories in great gulps, reading five or six in one sitting but I was unable to do this with Helsinki Noir-it is very noir indeed and very bloody. But what I found most disconcerting was the show more unremitting grimness of the characters and their lives. I welcomed Jarkko Sipila's Silent Night for the more detached tone of a police procedural (note: more detached, not just "detached). This may be the noirest of all the noir books in this series that I have so far read.

This is definitely not a book for the faint of heart. But it is beautifully atmospheric and the stories are almost all excellent. I would advise readers to pace themselves to avoid overload. But if you are a fan of "Nordic Noir," this is definitely a book to read. show less

To my great satisfaction, having recently read and reviewed Tehran Noir, I was excited to receive a copy of Helsinki Noir as my next Early Reviewers’ read. James Thompson, its editor, is not unfamiliar to me, as I’ve read his Inspector Vaara series, and had some idea of what to expect. Unfortunately, those expectations also were that there would be some variety in the stories included in the anthology, as stated in the introduction to the book and on the back cover, “…the best representation of Finnish noir ever offered to the international community.” I enjoyed the book (and that’s why the four star rating), but I found them to be more representative of Thompson’s work than I can imagine it to be of all Finnish noir show more writing, especially since a few, and only a few, deviated from the extremely violent and profane represented in this collection. My favorites were “Snowy Sarcophagus” by Jukka Petaja (although I could guess the ending, it offered great visuals), and Johanna Holmstrom’s “Stolen Lives.” I thought that story, at the conclusion of the anthology, almost perfect. Helsinki Noir does offer a look at a “parallel universe,” a glimpse at the myth of a city that is touted as one of the best places in the world to live. It’s frightening and as it appears to me, a bit one-sided. show less

A blizzard struck again this week depositing snow knee-deep and now it’s snowing again. Temperatures hover in the single digits to low 20s. Snow, sleet, and ice rotate ad nauseam requiring out of body moments to escape. The brief charm of snowfall is quickly replaced by the lasting smears of dirty white and mud. Life seems treacherous.

In Helsinski Noir, that kind of winter shrouds the characters with predictably dark consequences. Dampness and cold infuse down to the bone. Things smell like wet dogs and all surfaces are frozen. The landscape is unforgiving.

Images of bad women, stupid men, and suspicious alleys may be elements found in Hollywood’s noir films but the 14 stories in this collection, most translated from their original show more Finnish, feature a world more twisted. Children feature prominently in some of the stories, (“The Hands of Ai”) as do themes of human trafficking and racism. Some of the stories are strange, unsettling and difficult to grasp; “St Peter’s Street’ is one. Four pages in length, it features an island, some ice and a sauna. But what precisely happens? “Little Black” involves violence and degradation of immigrant women. A point is made but getting there is grim.

If you can deal with hard-boiled grittiness times two, you can learn something about Finland from these stories. Like Steig Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy set in Sweden, these stories debunk the more positive associations with Finland. Sweden is not always the sunny pictures in an Ikea catalog, and Finland is not merely the “affluent postmodern” Finland with Nokia, a point elaborated on in “Snowy Sarcophagus.” This story also is closer to more mainstream detective stories with the sympathetic inspector, plugging away at the details of a crime to solve it. It is one of the less overtly grisly and macabre tales.

My favorite story was the last one, “Stolen Lives” in which the narrator follows the footsteps of Patricia Highsmith’s famous sociopath, Tom Ripley. Yet one would have to acknowledge that it is the not-for-the-faint-of-heart flavor of most of the other stories in this collection that leaves the reader with a sense of Helsinki and Finnish culture, distilled down to its darkest layer. Despite all the nastiness of many of these characters, you may be tempted to try other books in the Noir series published by Akashic Books. See what evil still lurks in the hearts of men when seemingly endless winter isn’t a major player. show less

Like other reviewers, I found this collection of short stories to be dark in a disturbing way. The authors are exceptional in their ability to keep a grim, gritty, twisted atmosphere. I found that it easier to read the stories in small chunks rather than all together. I was less likely to have nightmares that way. I wonder how representative of Finnish Noir this collection is. I'm not well versed in Finnish literature; but if this IS representative, I'm pretty sure I won't be reading more.

**This was an advanced reader copy won through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.**

Noir in Helsinki means isolated people in unhappy marriages (if any contact with other humans at all) that finds escape through alcohol, drugs and heavy violence.

The selection of stories is good. Plot-wise not very original, but all keep an engaging pace, the locations are well described and they fit for the content.

In every story there is alcoholism involved, in most there is shocking violence (more or less bloody), and in general is difficult to root for any of the characters. But all works to expose the underbelly of this prosper nordic society and stand out some of its problems, like racism, isolation, enviousness, greedy individualism and lack of empathy.

I don't know much about Finland except for what I've seen through the movies of Aki Kaurismaki which bring to mind lots of drinking, cold ice and snow, general depression, and a seriously dark sense of humor. To be honest, some of these stories were a little rough even for me -- particularly the ones that included some sexual violence. Although there was generally some kind of revenge / divine retribution, being in a narrative with a really horrible character can get a little old. The best stories were those that relied on a solidly written detective character (particularly Leena Lehtolainen's "Kiss of Santa" and Jarkko Sipila's "Silent Night." [Also, Finnish names are really weird, guys.] A few of the stories were originally written in show more English, but most were translated from Finnish for this book. The editor notes in his preface that Finnish authors don't usually see a lot of crossover appeal because there is something unusual about Finland that just doesn't translate to other cultures. I could definitely see a little bit of that here, but that oddness and untranslatability often added to the creepy noir feeling of the stories.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2015/07/helsinki-noir-edited-by-james-thompson.htm... ] show less