As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka
Nov. 4th, 2015 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Lumikki Andersson is familiar with secrets and lies, but she also has a rule not to mind other people’s business.
When she discovers a lot of money – hanging, blood stained, in her school darkroom – that rule is put sharply to the test.
Lumikki is quickly drawn deep into the heart of Finland’s criminal underworld, caught in a dangerous web of corruption, deceit and murder.
She is no longer an observer, she is a target. And she needs to out-smart a ruthless killer.
17-year-old Lumikki Andersson is a loner. She lives alone in a flat in Tampere, Finland and keeps to herself at a high school for talented students and she makes it a personal rule never to get involved in other people’s business. But when she finds a fortune in blood-stained banknotes hidden in the school dark room, she can’t resist investigating and in doing so, finds herself caught up with fellow students Tuuka, Elisa and Kasper who’ve stumbled onto a plot involving drugs, murder, corruption and the criminal underworld ...
Salla Simukka’s Scandi-noir YA thriller (the first in a trilogy), is a dark and dangerous story filled with murder, drugs and corruption and seen through the eyes of an intriguing main character who has a backstory filled with mystery. The translator, Owen F. Witesman, has done an excellent job with the translation, which is lean, mean and stylish. Lumikki is an intriguing and resourceful heroine who’s clearly suffered some serious trauma and heartache in her past (which I hope will be expanded upon and explained in the later books). I particularly enjoyed the reluctant way she is drawn into a friendship with the self-absorbed Elisa and the way the two girls find common ground with each other as they try to unravel what happened to the money and why. I also enjoyed the way Simukka also weaves in the story as seen from the villain’s point of view, which really fleshes out the situation and adds a sense of danger and intrigue. The criminal empire created by the Polar Bears is very interesting, especially the way it’s permeated the different social layers of Finnish society and I hope that this is again, something that gets explored more in the later books. That said, I did find one of the twists disappointingly easy to guess (and the implications of it get rather brushed beneath the carpet when it could have added more emotional oomph to the story) while the male characters of Tuuka and Kasper don’t get the page time needed to flesh them out and make them more rounded – indeed, this is a very short book and I’d have happily read something twice the length. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and it will certainly appeal to any teen fans of THE BRIDGE or WALLENDER. I will definitely be checking out the next book in this trilogy.
The Verdict:
Salla Simukka’s Scandi-noir YA thriller (the first in a trilogy), is a dark and dangerous story filled with murder, drugs and corruption and seen through the eyes of an intriguing main character who has a backstory filled with mystery. The translator, Owen F. Witesman, has done an excellent job with the translation, which is lean, mean and stylish. Lumikki is an intriguing and resourceful heroine who’s clearly suffered some serious trauma and heartache in her past (which I hope will be expanded upon and explained in the later books). I particularly enjoyed the reluctant way she is drawn into a friendship with the self-absorbed Elisa and the way the two girls find common ground with each other as they try to unravel what happened to the money and why. I also enjoyed the way Simukka also weaves in the story as seen from the villain’s point of view, which really fleshes out the situation and adds a sense of danger and intrigue. The criminal empire created by the Polar Bears is very interesting, especially the way it’s permeated the different social layers of Finnish society and I hope that this is again, something that gets explored more in the later books. That said, I did find one of the twists disappointingly easy to guess (and the implications of it get rather brushed beneath the carpet when it could have added more emotional oomph to the story) while the male characters of Tuuka and Kasper don’t get the page time needed to flesh them out and make them more rounded – indeed, this is a very short book and I’d have happily read something twice the length. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and it will certainly appeal to any teen fans of THE BRIDGE or WALLENDER. I will definitely be checking out the next book in this trilogy.
Lumikki Andersson is familiar with secrets and lies, but she also has a rule not to mind other people’s business.
When she discovers a lot of money – hanging, blood stained, in her school darkroom – that rule is put sharply to the test.
Lumikki is quickly drawn deep into the heart of Finland’s criminal underworld, caught in a dangerous web of corruption, deceit and murder.
She is no longer an observer, she is a target. And she needs to out-smart a ruthless killer.
17-year-old Lumikki Andersson is a loner. She lives alone in a flat in Tampere, Finland and keeps to herself at a high school for talented students and she makes it a personal rule never to get involved in other people’s business. But when she finds a fortune in blood-stained banknotes hidden in the school dark room, she can’t resist investigating and in doing so, finds herself caught up with fellow students Tuuka, Elisa and Kasper who’ve stumbled onto a plot involving drugs, murder, corruption and the criminal underworld ...
Salla Simukka’s Scandi-noir YA thriller (the first in a trilogy), is a dark and dangerous story filled with murder, drugs and corruption and seen through the eyes of an intriguing main character who has a backstory filled with mystery. The translator, Owen F. Witesman, has done an excellent job with the translation, which is lean, mean and stylish. Lumikki is an intriguing and resourceful heroine who’s clearly suffered some serious trauma and heartache in her past (which I hope will be expanded upon and explained in the later books). I particularly enjoyed the reluctant way she is drawn into a friendship with the self-absorbed Elisa and the way the two girls find common ground with each other as they try to unravel what happened to the money and why. I also enjoyed the way Simukka also weaves in the story as seen from the villain’s point of view, which really fleshes out the situation and adds a sense of danger and intrigue. The criminal empire created by the Polar Bears is very interesting, especially the way it’s permeated the different social layers of Finnish society and I hope that this is again, something that gets explored more in the later books. That said, I did find one of the twists disappointingly easy to guess (and the implications of it get rather brushed beneath the carpet when it could have added more emotional oomph to the story) while the male characters of Tuuka and Kasper don’t get the page time needed to flesh them out and make them more rounded – indeed, this is a very short book and I’d have happily read something twice the length. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and it will certainly appeal to any teen fans of THE BRIDGE or WALLENDER. I will definitely be checking out the next book in this trilogy.
The Verdict:
Salla Simukka’s Scandi-noir YA thriller (the first in a trilogy), is a dark and dangerous story filled with murder, drugs and corruption and seen through the eyes of an intriguing main character who has a backstory filled with mystery. The translator, Owen F. Witesman, has done an excellent job with the translation, which is lean, mean and stylish. Lumikki is an intriguing and resourceful heroine who’s clearly suffered some serious trauma and heartache in her past (which I hope will be expanded upon and explained in the later books). I particularly enjoyed the reluctant way she is drawn into a friendship with the self-absorbed Elisa and the way the two girls find common ground with each other as they try to unravel what happened to the money and why. I also enjoyed the way Simukka also weaves in the story as seen from the villain’s point of view, which really fleshes out the situation and adds a sense of danger and intrigue. The criminal empire created by the Polar Bears is very interesting, especially the way it’s permeated the different social layers of Finnish society and I hope that this is again, something that gets explored more in the later books. That said, I did find one of the twists disappointingly easy to guess (and the implications of it get rather brushed beneath the carpet when it could have added more emotional oomph to the story) while the male characters of Tuuka and Kasper don’t get the page time needed to flesh them out and make them more rounded – indeed, this is a very short book and I’d have happily read something twice the length. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and it will certainly appeal to any teen fans of THE BRIDGE or WALLENDER. I will definitely be checking out the next book in this trilogy.
