Books: The Man Who Died By Antti Tuomainen

 (Drivebycuriosity) - A man goes to the doctor and learns that he is poisoned and has just some days to live. This is just the start of a series of really unpleasant events, the begin of the novel "The Man who died" by the Finish writer Antti Tuomainen ( amazon.).

The story evolves in a small Finnish town on some almost hot July days. The macabre plot - told in first person - is much more complex than the title and the beginning suggest. The tale is a who-dunnit mystery about relationships and betrayal and death. But the novel also dives deep into economics. The poisoned is the CEO of a small company which harvests mushrooms in Finland´s forests and exports them to Japan. The protaganist - and the readers - gets confronted with the perils of competition and the fragility of monopolies (the book should be duty lecture for any antitrust student and the American antitrust authority Federal Trade Commission). The novel also dives into the subtleties of the labormarket and other aspects of business. Besides that the reader immerses into the peculiarity of the mushroom business and woke my appetite for mushrooms.

This all is told in a straight forward and funny way, mixed with a lot surprises & twists and spiced with some hilarious action scenes.

"The Man" is the third book by Tuomainen I have read, after "Little Siberia and "Palm Beach Finland" (my reviews are here & here). Tuomainen is an underrated author and all three books are gems of the dark thriller genre.