Helsinki Noir
edited by James Thompson
Finland is a weird
place. I love Iceland and all things
Icelandic because of their “otherness” but Finland may even be a bit stranger. Since this anthology was put together by an
American who moved to Finland and has lived there for a long time he
understands the uniqueness of the country and the things to emphasize that
Americans would find odd.
Most of the stories
in this collection are strong. I
especially enjoyed “Kiss of Santa” a story about an undercover security person
working as a Santa in a department store to discover who is robbing from
them. “Stolen Lives” was simply hard to
read because it was dark and heartbreaking at the same time. The other entries are all quite good, even
the confusing financial trading one that I was surprised I enjoyed, but there
are a few where you can predict the ending but I think that would happen in
almost any anthology to anyone who reads a lot of mysteries.
Of course this is a
noir collection and Finland is painted as a shady, dark place because of the
genre. Doesn’t mean I don’t really want
to go there anyway.
