(Drivebycuriosity) - Antti Tuomainen belongs to my favorite writers. I enjoy his dark humor & his descriptions of weird characters and situations in his novels "Little Siberia", "Palm Beach Finland" & "The Man who died" (my reviews Siberia Palm The Man Who).
Unfortunately Tuomainen`s novel "The Mine" - set in contemporary Finland like the other books - lacks the dark humor and the surreal touch (amazon ). Suddenly a father, who has disappeared 30 years ago, approaches his abandoned son and his mother. It doesn´t help that the father does murders for a living and the son is a investigative journalist with an environment agenda. The journalist inquires about a mine in Northern Finland which causes a lot trouble (this is a spoiler free blog).
The plot is implausible. Suddenly characters appear and disappear and their are many holes in the story as in a Punch and Judy show for small children. I enjoyed Tuomainen`s intense & beautiful descriptions of snowy cities & landscape but these parts don´t fully compensate for the general flaws.
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"The Mine" was published before the above mentioned much better novels. Maybe Tuomainen had developed and changed his style. I plan to read "The Rabbit Factor", Tuomainen`s newest novel, and will test my thesis.
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