Sofas, secrets and a snowbound road to trouble…
Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate.
A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland.
With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a bright-yellow Lada.
That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special.
And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…
A darkly funny and unexpectedly moving thriller about friendship, love and death – The Winter Job tears through the frozen landscape of northern Finland in a beat-up van with bad steering, worse timing, and everything to lose…
The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen is published on 23 October 2025 by Orenda Books and is translated by David Hackston. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy as part of this Blog Tour
The Winter Job is set in Finland in 1982, and follows Ilmari Nieminen, a recently divorced postal worker who’s made a Christmas promise to his daughter — a piano — but has almost no time and even less money.
Desperate, he takes a last-minute job transporting a valuable antique sofa all the way to Kilpisjärvi, which is way up north. Along the way, complications begin: an old friend shows up, repairs are needed, and soon Ilmari realises that someone is tailing him (a Saab 96, a bright-yellow Lada) and what he is transporting may be more than just furniture.
What starts as a fairly simple job gets tangled with danger, unexpected passengers, secrets, and moral complications. It becomes not just about delivery, but about friendship, love, what a father will do, and how far someone will go when promises are at stake.
It's a complicated plot, with a cast of characters that arrive on the page to bring joy and laughter, and also anxiety, and some love.
The wintry Finnish setting is vivid and cold and bleak in just the right way. It amplifies the urgency, the isolation, and the danger. The author does a good job using landscape, weather, and environment not just as backdrop but as part of the tension.
As always, and something that has become something of a trademark for this author; there’s a dark humour throughout. Some moments that are absurd, ironic, or wry and these balance the threat and keep things from becoming unduly grim. It helps the characters feel more real, even sympathetic.
As well as the crime thriller story, The Winter Job looks at responsibility (especially fatherly), morality (does the end justify the means?), trust, friendship, and what sacrifices people make. It’s these deeper human questions that lift the book beyond a mere chase or road trip thriller.
The Winter Job is a highly enjoyable thriller that does more than just deliver thrills. If you like road-trip stories, rugged landscapes, and characters who are flawed but sympathetic, this one is for you. The emotional heart; what a father is willing to do, what friendship means, the cost of promise adds depth.
Highly recommended by me
Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007
as a suspense author.
In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award.
In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published.
Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards.
Palm Beach, Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. It was released as a Netflix film in 2025.
The Rabbit Factor, the first book in a trilogy that includes The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, is now in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell. The Moose Paradox was a Literary Review and Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award. The trilogy was followed in 2024 by The Burning Stones.
Antti lives in Helsinki with his wife.
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