Snow Angels

In northern Finland above the Arctic Circle, the snowfields of a rural reindeer farm are the scene of a gruesome murder. The victim is a minor celebrity, a gorgeous Somali immigrant film actress. The chief of the small local police force could bring in the national police but instead keeps the case and works with his Christmas-holiday depleted staff while balancing life with his newly-pregnant American wife, his dysfunctional birth family, and, for that matter, his completely dysfunctional town: it's Kaamos, the pre-Christmas polar night, when there is darkness 24 hours a day.

While there are many suspects and more bodies to come, overhanging all is the character of a land where people are often driven to drink, violence or suicide by show more the lack of light. It pervades the book and is an extraordinary addition to the ambiance. I found myself depressed just reading and imaging the characters' lives, thinking about how humans came to live in such a place over the eons while slowly moving outwards from the warmer areas of the world. Along with a gripping mystery which kept me glued to the pages, the ever-present darkness of the landscape pushed me to finish and get my mind into the sunlight again, even though I was reading in a sunlit room myself.

The author is an American who has lived in Finland for the last decade, but while there is an American flavor to plot, the culture and lifestyle of Finland is a strong presence. I'll certainly be looking for a sequel, but maybe I'll read the next one in the summer. Highly recommended. show less

Snow Angels is a dark mystery/thriller written by an American but set in a small skiing town a hundred miles north of the Arctic circle in Finland during the cold winter darkness. Kari Vaara is in charge of a small police station when the mutilated body of a Somali film actress is found on a reindeer farm in his jurisdiction. Suspicion quickly falls on her Finnish lover who, coincidentally, is also the man his ex-wife left him for some thirteen years earlier.

Thompson has lived in Finland and describes the land and culture with an outsider's eye, which is to say, he is attuned to what is unusual and noteworthy. He uses Vaara's wife, an American, to voice criticism of Finnish culture, a touch that felt very real to me. Unfortunately, show more Vaara himself sounded American in places, Finnish in others. That quibble aside, this book has a wealth of details about life in Finland, from offshoot religious groups to the importance of alcohol in daily life.

That said, the mystery itself defied reason. It had its moments, but didn't hold together, especially the unbelievable ending. This was clearly a debut novel, but Thompson shows signs of being able to develop an interesting series, he just isn't there yet. show less

“Endless night can drive anyone to murder.”

When I think of Finland, I see a cold, bright and friendly place. The country in these pages, is a dark, inhospitable place, a frigid alien world, where the sun refuses to rise, for months at a time, leading to a staggering homicide rate.
This is the first book in a Scandinavian crime series, featuring a tough cop named Kari Vaara. A beautiful Somali actress has been found, brutally murdered. Inspector Vaara investigates and soon finds himself, plunging into a cesspool, of hate, revenge and retribution. This well-written police procedural, might not be for the faint of heart, but if you are willing to jump aboard this exceptional thriller, it will take you to some very dark, unexpected show more places. Bring ear-muffs and a strong stomach. show less

This is one of the most unusual books that I've read in a long time. Maybe it's the setting- near the Arctic Circle in Finland. Maybe it's the time - around Christmas time which is macabre with all the death and killings that occur. James Thompson is an excellent writer, and I think his new series with Inspector Kari Vaara is going to be a winner. The book is a book that is written in the raw, but it has a Noir feel to it. Vaara is a wonderful protagonist - laconic, aware of his human frailties and smart as a whip. This book reminds me somewhat of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series. In that one we see the dark underbelly of Edinburgh, and in this one we see the dark underbelly of Lapland. Both Rebus and Vaara will stop at nothing to show more uncover the truth, even up to putting their own lives at grave risk. This book just plain took my breath away. I can't wait to read the next one that Thompson writes. show less

“Instead of justice I got truth which was a poor substitute.”

Audiobook. Definitely not a tourist brochure for Finland. Right up front we are told of the Finnish racism, hatred for foreigners, especially Germans, the cold, the lack of light in the winter, and their penchant for alcohol and killing loved ones.

A Somali black movie star has been brutally murdered with a racial slur carved into her body.. The local inspector, Vaasa, married to an American ski resort manager, now pregnant with twins, knows he has political dynamite in this investigation. Suspects arrive in droves, and most of them are in the inspector’s circle. Admittedly, the town is small, but I was beginning to feel claustrophobic at the narrowness of his show more investigation. Mix in religious and cultural conflict and you have quite a melange. The Laestadian religion, a very conservative offshoot of Lutheranism, plays an important role in the book, as does the Koran. Both provide the motivations for many of the characters’ actions.

The Wikipaedia entry on Thompson notes that Vaara is portrayed as a “good” cop who goes bad in later novels and I can certainly see the seeds of future corruption. Given events, I wondered how he could ever follow up this novel with a second in the series. But I will certainly want to read the rest of the series. . Definitely not a book for those who like their cozies: it’s graphic and often profane.

Thompson, who had studied Finnish (as well as several other languages), was fluent in it, and lived in Finland, died in 2014 after writing four in the Vaasa series. show less

Psychological thriller by an American author who has lived in Finland for several years, about the sheriff of a small town in rural Finland who must solve a murder during the sunless winter season. The victim is a glamorous black actress, and the murder is an obvious hate crime - the victim, Sufia, has been mutilated, sexually assaulted, and the murderer cut a racial slur into her stomach with a knife.

The local sheriff, Kari, is worried about the publicity that will surround the grisly murder of a celebrity. He insists on investigating the case himself, although the Chief of Police in Helsinki offers to ship out a contingent of big city cops - but Kari begins to regret his decision when the #1 suspect turns out to be his ex-wife's new show more man, Seppo. Kari knows he's moved on, that his new wife Kate is the best thing that's ever happened to him, but the media spin Kari as a bad cop out for revenge when he arrests Seppo.

As he continues his investigation, the details get more lurid but also more personal. Sufia had been sleeping around and taking money for sex - while her parents, devout Muslims, fly into town and insist she was a virgin. The other main suspect is a wealthy playboy with a taste for underage girls. Their best witness is mentally handicapped, and could never testify. One of the other cops on the force is hiding something, and eventually Kari begins to suspect his ex-wife.

Thompson's writing is vigorous and spare, and he does an excellent job bringing the beauty and the terrible harshness of the Finnish winter to life. The main characters, their problems and relationships, are compelling. Minor, secondary characters feel real and complex no matter how brief their appearance. The story is peppered with all kinds of interesting factoids - about the Swedish minority in Finland, or the war in Somalia - that give the novel added breadth without sacrificing dramatic tension. I found SNOW ANGELS hard to put down - I read it straight through in one sitting, cover to cover, with relish. show less

If there is a Kittilä Tourism Authority I’m guessing James Thompson isn’t on their Christmas card list. In Snow Angels, part police procedural and part observation on Finnish culture and traditions, he has painted a unflattering portrait of the winter holiday resort in the northern part of the country. Against the backdrop of the investigation of a brutal crime Thompson shows us a country with one of the world’s highest suicide rates, where alcoholism is prevalent and resentment and abuse of foreigners is if not universal then fairly widespread. If that were all he showed then the book wouldn’t be much of a read but, using knowledge and experiences gained during his ten years living there, Thompson, who is American by birth, show more also depicts some of the subtleties of the culture which help to explain why people act the way they do. He also highlights some positive things like the community’s practical and drug-free way of dealing with a resident with mental health issues. For me this exploration of the customs and cultures of the region was the most successful aspect of the book.

The crime in question is the murder and disfigurement of a beautiful Somali immigrant, Sufia Elmi, who had gained some fame as an actress in her adopted country. It is an uncommon crime but Inspector Kari Vaara is confident he can solve it. When evidence points to the new lover of his ex-wife as the murderer things do start to get complicated for Vaara and the investigation spirals out of control fairly early on. At one point Vaara seemed to be following a logical, evidence-based trail but then story then morphed into pondering his series of weird and wacky theories, based more on guesswork than facts. I think this loss of plot strength stemmed from the first-person point of view in which the whole story is told. This POV also provided for some clunky exposition which would have been far more smoothly integrated in a third-person story.

The characters in Snow Angels go a fair way towards making up for the plot problems though. Kari is hiding some demons of his own but not to the point of being a hopeless alcoholic like so many of his fellow fictional detectives. His new marriage to an American woman is portrayed believably, with her difficulties in adapting to the country being thoughtfully depicted. Having once had to go to hospital in a country where I didn’t speak the language I could entirely identify with Kate’s fears and frustration at the way she perceived her treatment in such a circumstance. Most of the minor characters, like the succession of truly horrid people inhabiting Sufia Elmi’s life and Kari’s fellow police officer Valtteri, are also credible even if some of them are abhorrent. However the victim is never really fully fleshed out so it was difficult to become wholly absorbed by finding out what happened to her. The book could have spent less time repeating the horrible mutilations done to her and more time letting us get to know her back story and how she ended up in such horrid circumstances.

Reading this book made me think about the impact of the author’s perspective on storytelling as it’s the only one of the books I’ve read for this challenge written by someone who isn’t Scandinavian by birth. It’ fairly common to read books by ‘outsiders’ set in the US or UK or even Australia but to come across a non-local but knowledgeable perspective of a fairly closed society like this one is fascinating. Overall I enjoyed the read and could forgive some of the plot problems of the debut novel because the setting and characterisations were well realised and I will happily read another story in which they feature. Though I’ll hope it’s summer time and the poor folk get a bit of sunlight in their lives. show less