Helsinki Blood (An Inspector Vaara Novel)
Kossu vodka, muscle relaxants, cortisone shots—it takes an arsenal of painkillers to move Finnish cop Kari Vaara out of his depression over his last case and off the couch in this, the fourth in the Inspector Vaara series. But what really galvanizes Vaara is a brick bearing the message, “There are ten million ways you could die,” thrown through the window near where his infant daughter sleeps. Meanwhile, an Estonian widow whose 19-year-old daughter with Down syndrome has vanished contacts Vaara, hoping he can find her daughter and also live up to his reputation for forcibly punishing bad guys. The action throttles from Vaara’s besieged home life through all the places that a kidnapped woman might end up, from high-end nightclubs to the bottom of the human-trafficking barrel. Nonstop action, with a hero whom readers will view as either heroic or faintly ridiculous in his never-ceasing awareness of pain, make this one read fans of Scandia noir will especially like. Thompson’s first Inspector Vaara mystery, Snow Angels (2010), was nominated for both the Edgar and the Anthony awards. --Connie Fletcher