Snow Angels

In a small Finland town, a beautiful actress has been brutally murdered and her body left in the snow on a deer farm. Kari Vaara, the lead detective, must answer a difficult question in racism-sensible Finland: was Sufia Elmi killed because she was a woman or because she was black? Even if her family says that Sufia was a virgin, Vaara soon finds out evidence that she had more than one lover. Among them figures the man his ex-wife left him for, which opens old wounds and may put him in a very uncomfortable position. The investigation takes place during mid-December, and the country is in the dark about 24 hours a day. Vaara's personal life is also put to the test when his new wife, an American, has a hard time adjusting to pregnancy and winter in Finland.

Having always been interested in books taking placing in other countries, I was not disappointed by the description and characterization of Finland: you can feel the claustrophobic depression brought by the absence of sunlight and the extreme cold. It is easy to understand why people drink so much and are hard. Relationships, especially couples, are sculpted by the harshness of the elements and alcohol. In the book, when a wife kills her husband, the surprise comes from the fact that she waited that long and not that she'd done it.

Sadly, the rest of the book is not as good. Too many coincidences can kill a mystery, and that's the case here. It seems that about every event in Vaara's life has a link or an impact on the investigation, from his ex-wife leaving him for a wealthy man, to his assistant's son's suicide. Also, I had a hard time believing in most of the female characters' reactions, especially Vaara's new wife. Even in such a hard environment, A woman who has grown up in a more clement climate would not react as a man would...

In what can be described as noir-procedural, James Thompson introduces Inspector Vaara, a Police Chief limping among the villages and ski resorts of northern Finland. Snow Angels is the first novel of an expected series, and it opens with the mutilation murder of a Somali-born star of Finnish B-movies.

As the mystery begins to wend its way into Vaara's personal life, the bodies pile up and his home-life suffers. He never seems to take action, letting events roll over him until he is forced to act, then inevitably makes the wrong decision. He is blind to the simple explanations, instead choosing to believe his own concoction of wealthy conspirators and international intrigue. In the final pages, little he has done has helped solve the mystery.

Thompson writes all of this in the present tense, which I presume is meant to make it feel more immediate, but just feels more like a gimmick than anything else. Plus, it creates confusion: “I've still never figured out if [he] is a good actor, smarter than he seems, or if he really is the complete dolt I take him for.” When did this thought happen? Is it at the time of the events happening in the next sentence, or is it in retrospect, after the case has been closed?

But, Thompson is excellent at conveying a sense of place. His Finland in December is dark, depressing, and drunk, and through Vaara's American wife, the reader understands exactly how forbidding this place is to outsiders. It's rare for a novel set in Europe to feel foreign, but Thompson accomplishes this quite well.

Overall, Snow Angels was uneven and unbelievable, but Thompson shows some promise.