“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.