BEST OF 3 – Antti Tuomainen, author

1) Enough Rope – Collected Stories by Lawrence Block

WHY I LIKE IT: Alongside novels, I love writing short stories and reading them. This massive 900-page book is filled with great stories from one of my all-time favorite crime writers Lawrence Block. The stories are of incredible variety from very dark to lighter fare. Brilliant stuff and always inspiring.

2) Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates

WHY I LIKE IT: Short stories, again. Joyce Carol Oates is definitely one of my favourite authors and even more so if we’re talking about short stories. You can pick any collection (there are, I think, perhaps twenty of them) and find suspenseful, scary, thought-provoking, touching and simply great stories.  

3) We Live in Water by Jess Walter

WHY I LIKE IT: Short stories, again. Some of these are crime stories and some are stories with an element of crime. All are very good indeed: human, often moving, often funny, sparely and precisely written. 

BIO: Antti Tuomainen is the award-winning Finnish author of seven standalone crime novels. His works have been translated into more than 25 languages. His latest, THE MAN WHO DIED, is a page-turning thriller brimming with the blackest comedy surrounding life and death, love and betrayal, with a nod to Fargo and the best elements of the Scandinavian noir tradition. Follow him on Twitter as @antti_tuomainen.