Sawdust, secrets and a body that won't stay dead…
Heikki Nevalainen is the proud owner of a once successful sawmill, a mountain of debt and very few options to deal with either of them. An unexpected solution arrives in the form of local gangster Ismo Sippo. Dispose of Sippo's dead wife, and the sawmill can keep running. Refuse, and Heikki loses everything. Horrified but desperate, Heikki agrees, loads Annaleena into his car and heads for the mill.
But Annaleena proves to be not quite as dead as expected.
As a Belgian buyer arrives to inspect the mill's timber, Heikki scrambles to keep up appearances. But the situation is splintering fast, and even his own workers seem to be hatching plans of their own…
Deadlines loom, tempers fray and misunderstandings multiply, and as the interminable situation grows ever worse, Heikki discovers that keeping a sawmill running is hard enough without a half-dead body and potentially fatal complications…
Blending deadpan humour, escalating danger and absolute chaos, The Fresh Cut is Antti Tuomainen at his most audacious, as good intentions, bad decisions and a small Finnish town collide with explosive results.
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I've read every one of Antti Tuomainen's books that has been translated into English, and I've really enjoyed them all. He has such a wonderful ability to take an ordinary person, place them in an increasingly ridiculous situation and somehow make the whole thing both hilarious and so incredibly tense. The Fresh Cut is another absolute treat and it deservedly won the Finnish Crime Novel of the Year Award.
Heikki Nevalainen is a man with problems. His once successful sawmill is struggling, the debts are mounting and he's desperate to keep the business afloat. Unfortunately, accepting help from local gangster Ismo Sippo comes with quite a few more strings attached than Heikki could ever have imagined. When he's asked to dispose of a body, things take a very unexpected turn, and that's all I'm going to say about the plot!
What follows is a gloriously chaotic story of bad decisions, misunderstandings and increasingly desperate attempts to keep everything under control. I absolutely loved Heikki. He's an ordinary, decent man trying to do his best in circumstances that become more outrageous by the minute. You can't help but feel for him, even while laughing at the situations he finds himself in.
The author's dark humour is, as always, absolutely brilliant. There's a proper deadpan quality to his writing, and the contrast between the absurdity of events and the seriousness with which his characters approach them is delicious. However, beneath the comedy there's real danger, and the tension never disappears.
I must also mention David Hackston's excellent translation. The dialogue, comic timing and wonderfully dry observations feel completely natural in English. The translation really contributes to the whole reading experience
The Fresh Cut is clever yet unpredictable, incredibly entertaining and filled with memorable characters. Antti Tuomainen continues to be one of my favourite crime writers, and this latest novel has only reinforced that. I loved it!
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