Skip to main content

Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen #BlogTour

I have a good idea!

Why don't we open a beach resort Miami stylie but in Finland! Well, yes, it's cold but this particular beach is the hottest beach in the whole country! Well, yes, it may STILL be colder than my knackered central heating but we will stick some Palm Trees up (plastic of course) slap some neon paint on and a fake flamingo or two later bob's your uncle we have ourselves a holiday resort!

This is the idea of permanently sweaty Jorma Leivo (pink shirt, white blazer, shoulder pads) and to be honest I could have loved Palm Beach Finland for the resort alone. The description of the giant flamingo with the diving board and slides - it all sounded so wonderfully kitsch. 

The opening sentence (fabulous by the way) sets the tone. Throw in a murder, an undercover policeman and a mishap or ten from odd and plod (Robin and Chico) and you have an EVEN better book making it a glorious mishmash of Scandi noir and dark comedy. 

Tuomainen describes in his acknowledgements how his most recent books mark a change in his writing style. His newer works are now served up with a 'healthy dose of black humour, flavouring the noir proceedings' as opposed to his previous darker works. This is my first exposure to Tuomainen so I can't comment on his previous works but if he was aiming for witty crime writing, he really hit the nail on the head with this one. 

It had a great supporting cast, I particularly liked Muurla with his accounts of his ex-wife and Chico with his growing doubt in Eric Clapton (you know things are going wrong when you question the man behind Layla!)

Yet despite it being loud and proud Tuomainen surprised me with his subtlety. For example I loved how Chico's out of date beer became sour tasting as his outlook on his situation worsened. Subtle in a resort otherwise so brash.

It could perhaps have been a bit slicker, those who have watched Jackie Brown will appreciate how satisfying a plot can be when it only becomes clear at the end how every link completes the circle. Every link did fit, but I would have liked it to have been just a touch sharper.

Overall I loved it though and thought Jan Nyman, the undercover cop sent to investigate the murder, easily has another book or two. Antti - if Nyman does reappear, please allow Muurla a line or two! It's original, it's funny and it stands out in all its neon glory in the ever popular Scandi noir genre. I will be watching to see what comes next. 

My thanks go to Orenda Books who provided me with a copy of the book via Anne Cater's Random Things Through My Letter Box in exchange for an honest review.   




Comments

  1. Anne14 October 2018 at 16:05

    Huge thanks for this amazing Blog Tour support x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o...
Post a Comment
Read more

After The Party by Cressida Connolly

After The Party was May's book of the month. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’ It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.” We were very confused initially as to which party the book was referring to. We all thought it...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Familiars by Stacey Halls

"Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong. As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the north-west, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Soon the two women’s lives will become inextricably bound together as the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood’s stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake." We talked first about the cover of the bo...
Post a Comment
Read more