BY: James Thompson, DATE: 2013, AVAILABLE: Amazon, Chapters Indigo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
James Thompson, married to a Finnish woman, was an American crime writer based in Helsinki, Finland. He had a Master’s degree in philology from the University of Helsinki. He studied six languages. He had written four Inspector VAARA novels when he died at the age of 49 in Lahti, Finland.
“Thompson draws on his long residence in Finland to convincingly portray a grungy northern underworld filled with neo-nazis, intelligence, spooks, and Russian mobsters.” (Publisher’s Weekly)
ABOUT:
Finnish Inspector Kari Vaara is approached by a young Estonian widow for help in finding her missing daughter, Loviise. The mother, Salme Tamm, thinks her daughter was brought from Estonia to Finland under false pretences of a job offer. The case is especially complicated because nineteen year old Loviise has Down’s Syndrome. She is also young, lovely and naive which makes her especially attractive to the wrong people. The reader gets a glimpse into the very dark world of human trafficking.
QUOTES:
“I ask her how she found me. ‘The Estonians in Helsinki have their own communities and networks.’ She says they know how.”
“Her diminutive size makes her excellent fodder for pedophiles, a good earner. Some men in the human slave trade duped her, likely brought her to Helsinki, took her passport and whatever money she had, and told her she had to reimburse them for the cost of bringing her here.”
REVIEWS:
“Thompson draws on his long residence in Finland to convincingly portray a grungy northern underworld filled with neo-nazis, intelligence, spooks, and Russian mobsters.” (Publisher’s Weekly)
