James Thompson (5) (1964–2014)

Well, okay. I really enjoyed the setting, both as premise and description. In this respect at least, it's not bad writing. It's also not a small amount of the book, so that weighs heavy in my rating.

However. There is a practical limit on how many unique, lurid murders and coincidental subplots you can work into a story before it becomes absurd and off-putting. This had arguably too many for a series, never mind a single book. Crime novels are candy for the logic and puzzle-solving appetite of my brain, but only when they have a bit of reason and logic in them.

Will I read another one? Yeah, probably. On the chance that the things I didn't like were just a rush of first-novel enthusiasm.… (mais)

This is a review of the advanced copy “Helsinki Blood” by James Thompson for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

The book is about Inspector Kari Vaara’s life as he and his mates scramble to mop up the consequences of their last round of well-intended thefts and executions.

Kari is the top cop in Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation and has been “shot to pieces.” His wife Kate has gone off with their daughter Anu due to PTSD.

Someone who knows that Kari and his colleagues stole €10 million from drug dealers is threatening him with increasingly lethal parcels tossed through his front window. Kari calls DS Milo Nieminen and police translator Sulo “Sweetness” Polvinen for help.

Together with Milo’s girlfriend Jenna and Sweetness’ cousin Mirjami, they hunker down inside Kari’s besieged apartment and wait for an excuse to go on the offensive against their old enemies. A pretext arrives when Estonian widow Salme Tamm reports her daughter Loviise missing.
Kari and company lean on the Harper brothers, casino keepers and pimps, to help them go after the usual suspects and incidentally recover Loviise.

The book feels like as a violent soap opera that owes less to other tales of Scandinavian cops than to samurai sagas and spaghetti Westerns.
This reviewer is luke warm on book and rates the book with 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.… (mais)