A mysterious criminal upends lives across Helsinki through a string of deviously absurd pranks in this Finnish comic noir novella.

The winter dark of Helsinki is even more chilling thanks to Hermann Ångström, who subjects his unsuspecting victims to a series of unbearable embarrassments. Ångström leaves a young bride at the altar, disguises himself as a doctor and delivers false medical reports, sends a government official into a downward spiral of depression—it’s a veritable plague of shame.

As Ångström’s methods grow ever more cunning, his true identity remains as mysterious as his motive. The case is assigned to Commissioner Vehmas, a widower who believes that the future is an illness and that police work is folk poetry. And though he’s seen it all, even Vehmas can’t seem to track down Ångström. Until serendipity steps in.

At once suspenseful and blackly comic, Crime Novel is a playful twist on Nordic crime fiction from one of Finland’s greats.

Petri Tamminen