Antti Tuomainen (tran David Hackston)
Orenda Books, 24 October 2024
Available as: HB, 276pp, PB audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781916788329
I'm grateful to Orenda for sending me a copy of The Burning Stones to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.
Anni Korpinen is the star saleswoman at sauna stove maker Steam Devil.
But is Anni also a serial killer?
All the facts seem to suggest it. Anni's colleagues have her down as a cold-blooded killer (albeit one who employs hot steam for her murders) and local police chief Kiimaleinen is determined to make charges stick.
Only one person believes in Anni's innocence - herself. But can she really hold out in the teeth of the evidence?
The Burning Stones was a fun book to read. It's described as comedy crime, but I think the truth is more nuanced than that - while the story does have its humorous aspects, it's a very dark humour, and the comedy arises from a desperate human predicament. The crime we see is also very, very gruesome. And the eventual revelation of who the killer is and what their motives are points less at human wickedness but at small, rather pathetic and plaintive motives - certainly compared with the nature of the killings. So it's equally a rather sad book, the record of a few days that turn Anni's world upside down, stressing all her relationships and breaking some behind repair.
I enjoyed the way that Tuomainen throws the burden of proving her innocence on a woman who manifestly has no special talents in that line. As she repeats several times, she is a saleswoman (though a very good one) not a detective. Anni's attempts at tracking down the real killer often seem apt to land her in more trouble, and there's a murky secret in her past that makes it hard for her to be frank with (possibly) sympathetic policemen who might be willing to help - so she's very much on her own, surrounded by colleagues who mistrust her and who, lets be plain, all have questions to answer themselves.
Anni does though have one resource to fall back on - the peace she gains from her regular sauna sessions and swimming in the local lake. Many times in the story she retreats to ponder matters in the steam. But might even this, her understanding of the uses of the sauna, be evidence of her guilt?
A real mystery, an involving and enjoyable story with well drawn and plausible characters and a tale with ratcheting tension, as Anni waits for that knock on the door, this is a book I'd strongly recommend. It's also a window onto Finnish sauna culture which was enlightening to say the least! I'd never, for example, heard about the concept of a "bumlet" (you'll just have to read the book!) I think that David Hackston's translation is brilliant here, it's as though Tuomainen is deliberately posing challenges, using colloquialisms, songs and jingles, technical terms and very specific language for which, clearly, there are no direct English equivalents and which require words to be created. Hackston deals with all this and more with aplomb and gives us a very readable text besides.
For more information about The Burning Stones, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below.
You can buy The Burning Stones from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith or Waterstones.
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