CHILL OUT WITH A HOT THRILLER
Snow Angels
by James Thompson
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
January 2010
Fiction
What’s the most fascinating crime novel you’ve ever read?
Well, I just devoured one erotic thriller that will change your mind – James Thompson’s ”Snow Angels.” Pages explode with murder, mystery, sex, and just enough gore to earn a prime spot on your reading list.
Thompson paints a sharp contrast between day and night, warmth and cold, trust and deception, calm and fear, and life and death. With the help of determined Inspector Kari Vaara and the memorable snowdrifts of northern Finland, this hard-to-put-down mystery is a puzzle with many shady players and even more missing pieces.
Visibly shaken, Finnish residents, in the small town of Kittila, are frightened when the discarded, brutalized body of a Somali movie actress is discovered. Her naked body is discarded like infectious rubbish on a secluded reindeer farm blanketed in fallen snow.
In the solitude of lifeless, arctic nights, and kaamos (Finland’s two weeks of darkness), it’s easy for a crimes (even ones as savage and as ruthless as this one) to go unnoticed and unsolved.
It’s not long before suspects become too familiar and too close to home, adding to the small police force’s difficult task of solving what appears to be an unsolvable crime. Is this case too big for Vaara and his sidekick Valtteri, a religious man?
Well, one thing’s for sure, with his Columbo-style tactics readers will wage a bet that this cool cat will eventually catch his prey. But what will he lose to solve this crime? What will he gain?
What’s most unique about Thompson’s debut thriller, “Snow Angels,” is his uncanny ability to introduce readers to believable characters whom they’ll never meet: Sufia Elmi, the first victim; Vaara’s deceased sister Suvi, who died 30 years ago; and Heiki, the son of officer Valtteri.
But the true measure of a true crime novel is the author’s creative gift of keeping the reader in the dark, like the Polar nights of Finland, from the first page to the very end. James Thompson achieves this incredible feat and much more.
The Inspector Vaara series will solve crimes and reader fatigue – one book at a time.
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