The arrival of a meteorite in a small Finnish town causes chaos and crime in this poignant, chilling and hilarious new thriller from the King of Helsinki Noir.
A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland when there is flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns about to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel.   
But Joel has a lot more on his mind than simply protecting the riches that have apparently rained down from heaven. His wife has just revealed that she is pregnant. Unfortunately Joel has strong reason to think the baby isn’t his. As Joel tries to fend off repeated and bungled attempts to steal the meteorite, he must also come to terms with his own situation and discover who the father of the baby really is.   

I bought ‘Little Siberia‘ (2018) with great enthusiasm after having enjoyed Antti Tuomainen’s previous dark comedy, ‘Palm Beach Finland‘ (2017). 

To my surprise, I’m setting it aside at the 29% mark because the book is going to places that I don’t want to visit and I’m increasingly feeling like a passenger who has gotten on the wrong train.

I was expecting dark, quirky, distinctly Finnish humour. That may be exactly what I got but if it is, then the ‘Finnish humour’ has flown over my head.

‘Little Siberia‘ strikes me as more angry than funny. It’s definitely quirky but in a way that feels pathological rather than amusing. The main character is a Pastor but he’s very far from a serene man of God bringing peace and hope to his community. He’s a man consumed by jealousy and doubt who is giving way to rage and violence. Given what has been done to him, I can see what pushed him into these reactions but that doesn’t mean I have any sympathy with him.

The story is told mostly from within the Pastor’s head, showing me how he flips from rationalising and justifying his reactions, to being consumed by them, to knowing that what he is doing is wrong but that he’s going to do it anyway. 

The storyi is well told. It’s dark and quirky and distinctively Finnish but I have the sense that I failing to connect with an important part of the book, that there’s a nuance that I’m missing, so I’m watching a 3D movie without the glasses that would let me see what the director intended. 

I’m sure the problem is my expectations rather than the attributes of the book but I’m setting it aside anyway.

I’m not done with Antti Tuomainen. I’m planning on reading ‘The Rabbit Factor’ (2020), the first book in his trilogy, next year.