Little Siberia by Antti Tuomainen is one very action-packed thriller combining dark crime with darkish humor. Can one sole priest hold his own against the Russian mafia and Finnish villagers?
Location: set in a village in the eastern part of Finland
Little Siberia Synopsis
A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland, when there is a flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns about to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel.
But Joel has a lot more on his mind than simply protecting the riches that have apparently rained down from heaven. His wife has just revealed that she is pregnant. Unfortunately Joel has strong reason to think the baby isn’t his. As Joel tries to fend off repeated and bungled attempts to steal the meteorite, he must also come to terms with his own situation, and discover who the father of the baby really is.
Book review
“I’m driving a dead man’s snowmobile along a snow-covered road in a remote eastern-Finnish village.” That would have been a brilliant first sentence for a book. Though the beginning that Antti Tuomainen chose is not bad either. Not bad at all. What is better than an over the top thriller with one lonely ex-military priest against the Russian mafia and your scary everyday Finnish villager? Sounds far-fetched, but somehow I’m totally buying it. The writing style is such that you accept the story for what it is and the humor and smartass comments help with that. Joel is one very cool priest. No mercy for those that mess with him.
Joel is the only person in this book that comes to life. The other characters in the book aren’t fleshed out, which only adds to the feeling of Joel against the unknown enemy (or to be more dramatic: Joel against the world). He listens to other people’s problems all day long as a chaplain and doubts god after what he has seen in the war. But fortunately for him, his view on life is such that he accepts that people believe in different things and that believing in what you love doing is also believing.
He sees listening as a privilege, yet the reason for it is kind of sad though not devoid of hope. “For the duration of our conversations I don’t have time to think about my own problems. But after each session I realise I’ve learned more about myself, and I feel more grateful, either for my life in general or for something specific.” It is impressive how he picked up the courage to talk to his wife about the pregnancy, even though the conversation ended in an anti-climax. But we get a take two. Joel and his wife are well-matched in how they talk to each other.
I don’t envy Joel: he lives in a village where I wouldn’t last long and he has to deal with a wife that he loves very much but is now pregnant with another man’s kid. Plus he has to protect the meteorite because they can’t spare a security team to do so. I mean, it’s only worth a million euros… who cares, I’ll accept it.
This is one very action-packed thriller combining dark crime with darkish humor. The action scenes are well-written. At one point the sharp humor gets to you and you start to come up with sentences like “if the floor of a car can stop a meteorite, then what is stronger, the meteorite or the ice?” That sentence doesn’t make any sense at all, but I find it funny and I think Joel would agree.
Little Siberia takes place in eastern Finland near lake Hurmevaara, a fictional lake at about 20 kilometers from the Russian border. And as the Russian says about this cold, godforsaken backwater (and he should know): “This … this place is like Siberia. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. Nothing is certain. This is like … a smaller version of Kamchatka. It’s Little Siberia.” Hence the title of the book.
When Joel says “I only know one direction I want to take. It’s the direction that’s been given to me,” it sounds rather uninspirational. Yet there he goes again to fight for what he believes in and for those he loves. He doesn’t sit still.
I enjoyed the author’s writing style and sense of humor very much so I will check out his other books for sure. Please give me another very unlikely starting scenario with our anti-hero winning against all odds. Let’s explore Finland together. Because “I have stepped into the unknown, and never again will I step… on familiar territory.”
Questions for reflection
Just one very important question remains:
What would you think about if you had a giant Chinese kitchen knife stuck in your chest?
Me: let’s use the sauna because everything is better than going outside with -20 degrees Celsius on a dead man’s snowmobile, driving with one hand to confront the Russian mafia over a meteorite that is in an even colder place.
I am looking forward to your answers.
Translated from Finnish by David Hackston.
Interested?
You can get your copy of Little Siberia from Amazon.
