James M. Thompson, an American author, is married to a Finnish lady, and they live in Finland, and so quite fittingly, he sets his gritty police procedural there. My wife is of Finnish extraction (in fact, a minor character in the novel shares her surname). Therefore I wanted to read Snow Angels. I've also exchanged several emails with Jim and I guest posted once on his weblog, Jimland, so we aren't strangers.

At any rate, I was blown away by how Snow Angels excels on several levels: a sensitive More...

This story is from the shores of Finland a police procedural. The murder that starts the story is very brutal and the victim is a lady from an ethnic minority, she comes from a people who have lost their homeland to civil war, the author covers well their cultural practices and the religious rights of various parts of their religion. The murder brings out old wounds to the main protagonists life and one main thorn in is side becomes his ex-wife. The main protagonist is a detective married to an More...

I'm not sure if it was the narrator or what, but this one didn't ring my chimes as much as some others. Still it was good. I kept wondering if the author is a Finn so checked and he was actually born in Kentucky, although he has a degree from the University of Helsinki. It's filled with Laplander angst. Our hero, Kari Vaara, is married to an American, which seems most unlikely.

Snow Angels by James Thompson introduces readers to Inspector Kari Vaara, Finnish detective. While comparisons have been drawn between Vaara and classic American PIs like Spade and Marlowe, Snow Angels is more reminiscent of police procedural novels like those of Ed McBain, as Vaara and his team of detectives look into the grisly murder of an actress, in an investigation that grows increasingly personal for Vaara.[return][return]One nice touch of Thompson’s is the inclusion of Vaara’s American w More...

I was excited to find a Scandinavian crime at my library set in Finland. I have read my way around Norway and Sweden, but hadn't yet read one in Finland and since I have a good friend who lives there, I thought it would be fun to learn more about her culture.

This book is especially interesting as it is by an American author who is married to a Finnish woman and has lived there for a decade. So it was a) written in English and hasn't been translated and b) explains a lot of cultural things that More...

Lo más interesante de esta novela negra, de lectura fácil y amena (porque decir agradable en este contexto sonaría un tanto extraño) es su ambientación y el retrato que ofrece de Finlandia y el carácter de sus habitantes... especialmente los de la zona más septentrional, sumidos en la oscuridad permanente durante buena parte del año por su proximidad al Círculo Polar. No obstante, el hecho de que el autor sea un norteamericano que lleva más de diez años viviendo allí me hace tener ciertas reserv More...

Psychological thriller by an American author who has lived in Finland for several years, about the sheriff of a small town in rural Finland who must solve a murder during the sunless winter season. The victim is a glamorous black actress, and the murder is an obvious hate crime - the victim, Sufia, has been mutilated, sexually assaulted, and the murderer cut a racial slur into her stomach with a knife.

The local sheriff, Kari, is worried about the publicity that will surround the grisly murder of More...

Another Scandinavian noir writer, but with a kick, he’s from eastern Kentucky. Born and raised in the USA, Mr. Thompson now lives in Helsinki, Finland. Mr. Thompson has adapted well to his new home and writes stories that rival those of the top Scandinavian noir authors.

Snow Angels takes place inside the Artic Circle during a two-week period without sunlight called kaamos. The mystery begins with the investigation of a brutal murder of a beautiful Somali movie personality. And what a great myste More...

First Sentence: I am in Hullu Poro, the Crazy Reindeer, the biggest bar and restaurant in this part of the Arctic Circle.

Inspector Kari Vaara has brought his pregnant American wife to Finnish Lapland; above the Arctic Circle where the two weeks before Christmas are spent in perpetual darkness. That darkness has overtaken the humans as well with the discovery of a body. The victim is Sufia, a beautiful Somali woman and famous actress. Her body has been brutalized, both before and after death. Kar More...

This debut mystery by James Thompson is a riveting read with all the best elements of a character driven mystery. Mr. Thompson was born and raised in the United States and has lived in Finland for the past decade. The book jacket indicates that he has worked as a "bartender, bouncer, construction worker, photographer, rare coin dealer, and soldier...before becoming a full-time writer".

The mystery takes place in Finland during the time of Kaamos, that time of the year when the sun never shines, w More...

James Thompson, the American born and Finland residing author of Snow Angels, crafts an intriguing crime novel set during Kaamos, the time of year when parts of Finland are covered in darkness for 24 hours a day. Against this start and maddening background, Thompson introduces us to Kari Vaara, a detective working to solve the case of his career. The crime is brutal (and yes, you get a very detailed description of it), the suspects list constantly changes, and Kari is drawn into the investigatio More...

Thompson paints a bleak picture of Finland during Kaamos, the countries two weeks of complete darkness. Residents tend to stay drunk, fall into deep depressions and suicide rates climb. But through this all police chief Kari Vaara tries to maintain order. After the vicious, brutal homicide of a refugee, Kari finds himself mixed up in a press nightmare. His ex-wife's lover is the prime suspect, the son of a high profile business man the next suspect on the list. As Kari digs deeper the clues lead More...

A brief, brutal pageturner, Snow Angels strikes me as the ideal mystery novel for our time, the way Saw now composes our idea of the horror movie. Not that either work is necessarily a standout entry in its respective genre; but the elements in play here are exceptionally well-calculated towards their audience. For example, the violence in Snow Angels (like in Saw) is over the top. This I think is less a reflection of our generation's tendency towards or away from violence, than the fact that sa More...

Considering that this garnered such high praise, I was expecting much, much better. Instead I got some trite nonsense coupled with gratuitous violence. I mean, alright, I did read a crime novel. So I guess the gratuitous violence should've been expected. However, I found it to be a bit ludicrous. The development of the case seemed really odd and unbelievable and jumped a lot of points. The writing lacked subtlety and twists that made it enjoyable.

I also kind of hated that it was written by an Am More...

When I was small, one book made a particular, inordinate impression on me, out of all proportion to its literary merit, so much so that I still have it on my shelves. The book is The Smartest Bear in the World and his Brother Oliver. It's about a bear who schemes to stay up all winter reading every entry in his encyclopedia. Although the book's ostensible lesson is moderation in all things and tolerance for people, like brother Oliver, who don't like to read, the message *I* took from it--the ho More...

I sat for a very long time moving the cursor from 3 to 4 to 3, back and forth, finally landing on 3. This riveting book taught me a great deal about the Finns, their lifestyle, and the difficulty of living with a season of days of no sunshine (kaamos, in Finnish). It is unnecessarily bloody, brutal, gory, you get the picture, and if you enjoy those elements in your reading entertainment, find this one now. I claim to hate excessive violence in literature but kept right on reading. The narrator's More...

Kaamos: Just before Christmas, the bleakest time of the year in Lapland. The unrelenting darkness and extreme cold above the Arctic Circle drive everyone just a little insane . . . perhaps enough to kill.

A beautiful Somali immigrant is found dead in a snowfield, her body gruesomely mutilated, a racial slur carved into her chest. Heading the murder investigation is Inspector Kari Vaara, the lead detective of the small-town police force. The vicious killing may have been a hate crime, a sex crime- More...

If you are primarily a crime fiction buff who thrives on putting pieces of the puzzle together in a case, then you will not be overly impressed with the outcome of this series debut. If (as I imagine) you have read countless novels on murder cases, you may wince at the immodest and implausible coincidences (even for a small town!) that occur. You will embrace the noir, Arctic atmosphere of Finland during its most glacial and darkest time of year, known as Kaamos, or polar night (as cold as -40 d More...

James Thompson’s SNOW ANGELS is filled with bad language, horrific details about mutilation, brutal murders, characters who are victims of their geography, and a culture about which most of us know very little. There is repeated use of a term that most Americans shun. I started reading and didn’t stop until I finished the book.

I have to clarify that; I did skim the most lurid details but once the book is started, it is impossible to put it down. This is the first in a series of books featuring I More...

This book produced mixed feelings for me. Unlike one negative reviewer, I found the depiction of the dark side of Finnish life intriguing and well integrated into the plot. Having one of his characters be an American, relatively new to Finland, was a clever way to draw contrasts between our culture and theirs. Katie, the hero’s wife, cannot understand why many Finns refuse to speak English to her even when they know it. He explains to her how private Finns are and sensitive to criticism. They’re More...

Things I learned about Finland: Apparently it's dark all the time and people are always drunk.

The main character is a typical fictional detective with a whiny pregnant (American) wife who apparently won't learn Finnish and is offended when people won't speak English to her - he loves her more than anything and between her bouts of complaining about being in Finland, we're not really given a reason why. He also has (yawn) a troubled, painful childhood. The mystery itself is pretty convoluted, wi More...

Inspector Kari Vaara is the lead detective in a small town in Finland. When a beautiful B-movie actress is found slain and dumped in the snow, the crime exposes the dark side of a country's prejudices. The victim's family claims she didn't drink or engage in sexual activities. The evidence and witness statements prove otherwise. When the trail of the victim's lovers leads Vaara to his ex-wife's current lover, it opens old wounds. Vaara's current wife is an American who isn't quite sure she likes More...

First, my thanks to Amazon Vine for allowing me to have an advance copy of this book. I happen to be a huge fan of Scandinavian crime fiction, so I've been eagerly awaiting the release of this book. I was drawn in by the author's ability to set the tone of the bleakness of life above the Arctic Circle in Finland, where it's dark and cold and to pass the time, people have little to do other than drink. The atmosphere was so well laid out for the reader that for a time you can imagine yourself the More...

Thompson, an American who has lived for than ten years in Finland, has done a good job of explaining some of the differences in Finnish society and culture. I can say so because in 1996 I went through a crash course in them before, during, and after a ten-day visit to Helsinki University as a guest lecturer. I do feel, however, he lost some of the "atmosphere" by using inches, feet, yards, etc. instead of metric, especially as it seemed the temperatures were given in Celsius.

For the first third More...

Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell got me a while ago back into the never ending international crime, suspense, and thriller binge. And after seeing the selection in my local bookstores, I was amazed how even Icelandic authors are better represented than the Finns. Why? I'm not sure. They can't market their books? That surely, at least partly. Or they write only to people who know how everything works in Finland, where all the small cities are located, and who know what is normal for a Finn behav More...

I think the reason I liked it as much as I did is that I am an American who lived in Finland nearly 6 years, and all of the cultural issues Thompson refers to are so familiar to me. I enjoyed seeing how the things that he found worth mentioning are also the things that used to impress me, both positively and negatively. I don't know if the police procedures are correct and I don't know how he learned about them, but everything else is true, to a point--at least, it's Finnish culture as seen thro More...

This was my first read by this author, and I loved it. Again wishing Goodreads would have half-stars -- I'd give this a 4.5

I became interested in Scandinavian crime fiction when I read the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' series, and continued by reading some Jo Nesbo (which I wasn't as enamored with) -- but am now very happy that a friend suggested I read this book by James Thompson.

His writing is fast paced and provides just enough information to keep the story moving without getting bogged down More...

The body of a Somali immigrant is found in the field of a reindeer farm in Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle in Finland. Her murder has both sexual and racial overtones. Kari Vaara, the lead detective of a small-town police force, investigates. As the investigation progresses, the circles of suspects and victims expand. Both circles touch Vaara in a personal way.

The reader is introduced not only to Vaara's professional life but also to his personal life. His newly pregnant American wife is hav More...