Summer Fishing in Lapland? Salmon Fishing in the Yemen? That’s what came into my head when I first picked up my copy of this refreshingly unique story by Juhani Karila. But the two couldn’t be more different. And that’s putting it mildly!
So let’s have ourselves a crime novel, eh? Possible murder maybe? Killer on the run, perhaps? Female police officer investigating solo because her partner bailed. And let’s set it in some out of the way place, that not many people visit? Say a remote village in Lapland? Plenty of folk lore. We could populate it with some diverse and unusual people. And then let’s imagine that Lewis Carroll or even Tolkien bumped their heads together while they were listening for the crawdads singing, and all their thoughts and jumbled imaginings fused together and rained down from a magic faraway tree.
Given the penchant we have today for categorising and compartmentalising anything, and not just books, this novel may prove to be a challenge. There are those who may want to call it - magical realism, or fantasy, or folklore, or crime or humour - take your pick! But this is one of those deliciously genre-defiant books that exists in a class all of its own.
‘When Elina makes her annual summer pilgrimage to her remote family farm in Lapland, she has three days to catch the pike in a local pond, or she and the love of her life will both die. This year her task is made even more difficult by the intervention of a host of deadly supernatural creatures and a murder detective on her tail.
Can Elina catch the pike and put to rest the curse that has been hanging over her head ever since a youthful love affair turned sour? Can Sergeant Janatuinen make it back to civilisation in one piece? And just why is Lapland in summer so weird?
Summer fishing in Lapland is an audacious genre-defying blend of fantasy, folk tale and nature writing.’
It’s refreshingly comic also. And the characters are just one step short of being caricatures in some cases. But they all play their part so convincingly and so well. some of the characters are of a non human form and I suspect they may have their origins in Scandinavian folk lore somewhere but that’s something I’m not familiar with. They certainly added both humour and tension to the story.
I found it a snappy and well paced narrative that had me turning the pages, not in the sense that the book was unputdownable, but that my curiosity knew no bounds. I just had to keep reading. Fabulous translation by Lola Rogers.
My thanks to Kate Wilkinson at Pushkin Press for a gifted copy of the book, and a place upon the blog tour.
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