Feb 8, 2015

Snow Angels by James Thompson book review

Snow Angels (Inspector Kari Vaara, #1)Snow Angels by James Thompson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not sure what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised by James Thompson's SNOW ANGELS.  This is the first in a series of books featuring Inspector Kari Vaara, assigned to an area in Lapland, above the Arctic Circle.

During the annual two weeks of solid darkness in Lapland (right around Christmas), a Somali actress is murdered and left mangled in the snow on a reindeer farm. Inspector Vaara takes the case. He lives and works in his hometown, which is also home to a huge upscale winter resort run by his pregnant American wife. She hasn’t been in Finland long and is totally unnerved by the constant dark. The creepiness of the murder mystery is wonderfully offset by the additional creepiness of the weather, which affects the detective and his foreign wife.

Written in the tradition of classic noir, SNOW ANGELS quickly pulls the reader in to this foreign, exotic land draped in darkness.

As I lived in Alaska as a child, I was able to fully appreciate Thompson's ability to accurately portray the setting.  Not only do you see it, you can feel it also.

Over all it was a pretty good tale, though it did end up being a bit too unrealized for my taste. There were a few twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, but it fell short on the actual investigative end. I did find the ending to be a bit easy and unexplained.



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