Glen reviews two new Nordic titles to read – Death At The Sanatorium by Ragnar Jonasson and The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen.

Death At The Sanatorium by Ragnar Jonasson

Death At The Sanatorium, where a body is found in a remote tuberculous sanatorium and there are five suspects, sounds like a lost Agatha Christie work, and Ragnar Jonasson’s latest novel does tip its hat not only at the Queen of Crime but to many a golden age whodunit.

When a nurse is found murdered at the sanatorium, the small band of staff begin to view each other with suspicion. When a second murder occurs, one of them is arrested but released without charge, leaving the case in a semi-solved limbo.

Years later, Helgi, a student finishing off his Master’s dissertation before joining the Icelandic CID, is investigating the long-forgotten case as part of his studies. Cutting between three time periods, Jonasson takes us from the events themselves to more recent investigations to show how the passage of time can change the focus of an investigation.

Like Christie herself, the murders in Jonasson’s work are almost a byproduct – there’s little shocking detail here to scare the squeamish – instead, this is more a study into character, behaviour and relationships.

And in that character work, we have a lot of detail to absorb. The working dynamics between the team at the Sanatorium, the interactions with the police – both past and present, and the personal relationships of the police themselves.

The multiple timelines make this a complex web to navigate, with ever-shifting narrative voices from short, punchy chapters requiring a reader’s full attention. This isn’t a novel one can skim-read.

Jonasson’s character detail is always a strong point of his works, and Death At The Sanatorium is no different. We learn a lot about our protagonists but it’s almost too much. The day-to-day minutiae of their lives threaten in places to derail pace and plot. We delve deep into their lives but not their motivation, and as such it is hard to emotionally connect with some of the characters.

It is perhaps Helgi who shows the strongest promise, the soon-to-be detective the one character we can relate to. Perhaps that is a deliberate ploy. There’s a nice overlap between Helgi, the new kid on the block taking over from retiree Hulda (who features in Jonasson’s earlier Hidden Iceland series) and so there is a hint this is a set-up work for a new literary franchise.

Helgi’s domestic problems are particularly well handled and take the reader on an unexpected, yet rewarding side journey. Jonnason doesn’t provide all the answers here, leaving the reader to draw on their own imagination, and the surprise ending is an unexpected cliffhanger.

Death At The Sanatorium is dialogue-heavy and the characters talk a lot, really a lot. That’s great for detail but here it becomes somewhat repetitive and comes at the cost of pace and a hook to grip readers attention.

There’s much to admire in Death At The Sanatorium but it is not an entirely satisfying read. Plot twists are thin and far between for a truly gripping crime novel and the atmospheric setting of an old Sanatorium is barely explored. Instead, the feeling left at the end of the book is this is an opening set up to test the waters for a new series of books. If so the central character has promise but the structures he is placed in need more work to make this a more compelling read.

Death At The Sanatorium by Ragnar Jonasson, translated by Victoria Cribb, is published by Michael Joseph

The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen

For Finns, the sauna is a part of their national soul, an almost religious experience to be revered and protected. For writer Antti Tuomeinen, in his latest novel The Burning Stones, the sauna becomes a weapon as a serial killer descends on a sauna manufacturer in rural Finland.

For those of us outside Finland, for whom the sauna is not a daily way of life, it initially may seem an odd setting, but Tuomeinen provides a comprehensive guide to the rituals involved so that it is easy to follow the progress.

When the newly appointed Chief Executive of Steam Devil dies in his sauna it soon becomes apparent this isn’t an accident, and someone must have kept him in place as they restocked the sauna fire several times.

When another member of the Steam Devil team is killed it seems the little village could soon become the Finish equivalent of Midsummer, where villagers are bumped off with an alarming regularity.

For Steam Devil’s top saleswoman Anni Korpinen, the murders soon take on a personal dimension as she becomes the police’s prime suspect. Korpinen then faces a race against the clock to clear her name and find the real killer.

The Burning Stones, though, is more than a ‘whodunit’, Tumoainen takes a wider look at office politics, corporate infighting and mid-life crisis. That middle-aged dilemma is well observed here, Anni coming to a crossroads in her life, both professionally and personally. The ‘what if’ is an ever-present question, past emotions brought painfully to the surface with a re-encounter with the local policeman Janne, now investigating her as a potential murder suspect but with the added complication of a former fiancé.

Tuomainen excels in the detail he paints with his characters, and The Burning Stones is no exception. Korpinen is drawn in vivid detail, her hopes, her fears, and her failings painted without any attempts to rose-tint them. Stuck in a marriage that she doesn’t understand herself; it becomes clear how work becomes her new passion and yet even that drive for the ultimate sales success doesn’t fill a void.

Those expecting a big plot twist revelation on solving the murderer’s identity may be slightly disappointed, with the denouement being somewhat predictable and slightly rushed. In the end, however, that revelation isn’t the driving force of The Burning Stones, instead this is more an examination of the burning that lies deep within Anni Korpinen, a burning desire to turn back the clock and say what has remained unsaid for the last 30 years.

Those expecting a laugh a page as in previous works such as The Rabit Trilogy may be disappointed, but there’s still some wryly observed dark humour here triggered by equally dark events, the revelation that Ikea must do well out of divorces perhaps a yet unseen marketing campaign for the Swedish furniture giant. Any author who manages to weave a pair of signed socks from Finnish Formula One legend Mika ‘The Flying Finn’ Häkkinen into his plot also deserves a round of applause.

If there’s any criticism here it’s that we never really get to know enough about the murder victims to feel any real investment in rooting for their murderer to be brought to justice. It may be a deliberate plot device to draw us more into the world of Anni Korpinen

There’s always something cinematic about Tuomainen’s work and you can easily imagine The Burning Stones appearing on the TV screen, David Hackston’s translation keeps the pace fast and the mysterious world of Finnish sauna culture accessible to an international audience.

The Burning Stones may see readers hesitate before they next enter a steamy sauna, but it does continue Antti Tuomainen as one of Finland’s most exciting writing talents.

The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston, is released by Orenda Books in ebook on 26 September and in paperback on 10 October 2024.