Cruel Is the Night
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
Prizewinning Finnish author Karo Hämäläinen’s English-language debut is a literary homage to Agatha Christie and a black comedy locked-room mystery about murder, mayhem, and morality in our cynical modern world.
Three cell phones ring in an opulent London apartment. The calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead.
Earlier that night, four Finnish friends meet for dinner. It’s been ten years since the host, Robert, has seen his once-best friend, Mikko. The two had an ideological falling-out because Robert, a banker, made millions off of unethical (but not illegal) interest rate manipulations. Mikko, meanwhile, is an investigative journalist who has dedicated his career to bringing down corrupt financiers and politicians. Also along for the evening are Mikko’s wife, Veera—with whom Robert once had a secret affair—and Robert’s young trophy wife, Elise. Mikko has arrived in London with an agenda and thinks he’s about to get away with murder, but he has no idea what’s on the menu for the night: not only does every diner have a bone to pick with another, but there’s an arsenal of deadly weapons hiding in plain
sight.
And by the end of the night, there will be only one survivor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
H m l inen makes his English-language debut with a darkly humorous, carefully crafted Finnish take on the classic British locked-room mystery. Telegraphing the ending first no one is alive in millionaire banker Robert's London apartment H m l inen rewinds to the events of a dinner party, to which Robert has invited his old school friend Mikko, whose sense of righteousness as an investigative journalist fighting financial corruption leads him to take the occasion as an opportunity to poison Robert for the good of the world. Mikko's wife, Veera, who is fiercely attached to him despite a long secret affair with Robert, and Robert's beautiful wife, Elise, whose simplicity hides a complex background, round out the group. H m l inen is at ease with using the four distinct character voices to shift the apparent power balance constantly over the course of the evening, providing both thrilling surprises and the dread of inevitability, all in the context of some truly delightful dinner dialogue.
