Helsinki Homicide: Darling
I haven't read all of Jarkko Sipila's Helsinki Homicide series, but the current one (Darling, translated ably by Katriina Kitchens) is focused less on Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamӓki than on his team (in comparison to the ones I have read). The result is very good, right up to the end (which I found a bit rushed and a bit more brutal in a casual way than anything that had come before). I kept thinking of Ed McBain and the 87th Precinct books, in the way that Sipila handles the shifting point of view and the broadened focus on the characters. The cops are interesting and well differentiated from one another, and along the way another interesting character, defense attorney Nea Lind, also becomes an important aspect of the story. The plotting is also off-beat in an interesting way. When a mentally handicapped adult woman is found dead, the police focus in on a group of men (including the caretaker in her apartment building) who hang out together in the Alamo Bar; each in turn...
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