We’re excited to tell you that Putnam releases James Thompson’s HELSINKI BLOOD today!
Publishers Weekly calls the book “compelling,” and Booklist says, “Nonstop action make this one read fans of Scandia noir will especially like.”
See what more nice things the critics have to say about the fourth installment in the Kari Vaara series after the jump!
In his blog review for Kirkus, J. Kingston Pierce proclaims, “The vigor of Thompson’s storytelling is a thing to behold.”
The Denver Post calls it “painstaking and equally painful,” “a tough book, beautifully and hauntingly told.”
Syndicated columnist Elizabeth A. White says, “James Thompson has created an immensely compelling and complicated character in Kari Vaara.” According to her, Thompson’s level of realism “elevates the Kari Vaara series to something more than ‘just’ crime fiction.”
White goes on to say that “he has the skill as a storyteller to combine his intelligent and provocative social commentary with intense and engaging plots in an incredibly smooth and seamless manner.” She concludes, “It all makes for a series which both educates and entertains, and which consistently raises the bar on itself. Thompson has said that Helsinki Blood wraps up an arc and that there is something completely new in store for Vaara and his team. I can’t wait to find out what that is.”
Kirkus declares, “Kentucky-native Thompson has created in Kari a hero as dyspeptic as Kurt Wallander and as prone to vigilante justice as Harry Hole.”
ARLA’s own C.J. Box says, “James Thompson’s prose blend of chilly Scandinavian atmosphere and dark Southern Gothic is unique and jolting, like an ice-cold straight razor slashed across sweaty flesh. In Helsinki Blood there are equal measures of violence, detection, pathos, blood…and finally, sweet redemption.”
While Jenn of Jenn’s Bookshelves found the book “quite dark,” which it certainly is, she says, “My faith in Thompson’s writing prevailed and ultimately I was rewarded with a promise of hope and recovery in Kari’s character. I do recommend it, along with the other books in the series. My strong feelings/response to this novel simply indicate how skilled Thompson is at involving his readers in his writing, eliciting a strong response in me that not many writers can.”
We certainly agree that few writers can grab a reader like Thompson can. Go out and get a copy of the book, which is a SheKnows Crime Fiction Pick for March, to see for yourself!
