It's Halloween which seems appropriate for a great mystery; murder meets Finnish sauna culture in Antti Tuomainen's witty take on the "amateur sleuth" whodunnit.
Published by Orenda Books. Translated by Don Bartlett.
Antti Tuomainen has won the SpecSavers Last Laugh Award and been shortlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, the Petrona Award; and the Glass Key Award. His books have been translated into thirty-three languages.
His first mystery series is a wildly entertaining trilogy about Henri, Laura and the rest of the gang at the "YouMeFun" amusement park in Helsinki. I've read all three (seen below in order) and they are great for those who enjoy a spirit of fun with their crime reads.
"The Burning Stones" is a bit darker than the Rabbit Factor series, but not without a solid dose of Tuomainen's dry wit and sense of the absurd. I also enjoyed learning about Finnish sauna culture (I'm a big sauna fan myself).
Note: I'm from the US and I needed a bit of help to keep the names straight so I've included a "Cast of Characters".
In the Prologue, Ilmo Räty is enjoying a nice sauna on a beautiful August evening in Puhtijärvi, Finland. Räty is the newly named CEO of Steam Devil, a maker of hand-crafted wood-burning sauna stoves. For Räty, the sauna is a "sacred, holistic experience". Unfortunately, this time it's more of an end-of-life experience. Tuomainen cuts Räty's last sauna short in a farcical yet horrific way. Steam Devil is going to need a new CEO.
In the first chapter, Anni Korpinen takes over the narration. She's a salesperson at Steam Devil and is on her way to make a very profitable deal with client Lauri Kahavuori. He's building a new development and has a pending order for 64 sauna stoves from Steam Devil. Anni is surprised to find out that he's more interested in solving Räty's death than closing the deal. He won't sign on the dotted line until the killer is found. His persistent amateur sleuthing is a comic highlight of the book and serves as a wry commentary on the action.
Anni returns home to find husband Santeri, as usual, watching VHS tapes of Formula One races from the 1980's and '90. He pretends to "work" buying and selling racing souvenirs, but Anni pays all the bills. Anni's not sure why she stays with Santeri; he sits all day surrounded by Formula One paraphernalia, only interacting with fellow fans on Zoom calls. Anni feels like her marriage has "abandoned the race and driven back to the pit". She's just not sure whether to give up on him or stay in a loveless relationship.
The next day, she goes to the office to find everyone behaving strangely. With Räty gone, Erkki, the founder, is going to have to choose another CEO. Almost everyone who works at Steam Devil wants the job and has their own theory about the killer. It could be Räty's ex-wife, after a "sudden and bitter divorce". A pyromaniac has been making the rounds, and “fire is an element that can never satiate the appetite, not even after all these years." Räty himself was something of a mystery; could there be something lurking in his past that would have driven someone to kill him? The speculation is rampant.
In a tense staff meeting that morning, Erkki names Anni as the most likely successor. She's later horrified to find out that a rumor is going around the office that she got the job because she and Erkki are "intimate". Her co-workers now regard Anni with suspicion; did she kill Räty to become the CEO of Steam Devil? To add to the rising tension, Erkki revealed in the meeting that the police think that the perpetrator is someone at the company. Anni, determined to prove her innocence, begins to look into her colleagues to try and unmask the real culprit. They all have their little secrets.
Unfortunately for Anni, her relationships with the local police are not the best. When Anni is stopped by constable Janne Piirto, ostensibly for speeding, we learn that these two have a troublesome past:
“Events from thirty years ago flooded my mind. At first I saw us together, me and Janne, then I saw myself alone, that fateful evening on the lake."
Because of their shared history (which is touched on later), the encounter between the two is awkward. Eventually Janne asks Anni to come to the station to answer some questions about the murder. During the interrogation, it becomes obvious that Janne's boss, senior constable Reijo Kiimalainen, suspects her of the murder. He's very hostile in his questioning, and Anni believes that there's something else behind his anger. She's right, and all I can say is that Kiimalainen's ire springs from a long-ago hunting season involving Anni's father and the antlers of a Great Elk. This man really knows how to hold a grudge but he's looking in the wrong place.
As Kiimalainen's main suspect, Anni knows that it's only a matter of time before he arrests her for Räty's murder. When another Steam Devil employee is killed, (in another absurd yet horrific manner) Anni realizes that she's being framed. The police found objects from her sauna at both murder locations. She's desperate to solve the mystery, clear her name, and take her rightful place as CEO of Steam Devil. On the other hand, she's insulted when her colleague Kaarlo insinuates that she's not smart enough to have committed the second murder; how dare he question her killing abilities? Anni is full of contradictions.
Anni's detective work puts her own life in danger as she gets closer to discovering the identity of the killer. Will she be able to solve the crime before Kiimalainen puts her in jail? The story builds to a tense climax with a surprising twist that ultimately makes perfect sense.
"The Burning Stones" is a great crime story elevated by Tuomainen's skill creating quirky, memorable characters. I felt the same way after reading "The Rabbit Factor"; Henri, Laura, Kristian and the rest of the amusement park gang were just as captivating as the central plot. The same is true in "The Burning Stones": Everyone in the book is portrayed in a distinctive way and their interactions are sometimes comical, sometimes threatening, and often, both at once. I also found the incorporation of Finnish sauna culture fascinating; who else but Tuomainen could use this as a solid foundation for a mystery? I really enjoyed "The Burning Stones"; it's charming, deadly and a lot of fun to read!
As always, please buy/order this and other books by Antti Tuomainen at your local independent bookstore or go to Bookshop.org and order there!
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