Dans Mon Catalogue

236 pages

English language

Published May 16, 2014 by Hot Key Books.

ISBN:: 9781471402463
OCLC Number:: 881022601

(1 review)

Seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson is hardly your average teenager. She lives by herself in the city of Tampere, Finland, and has a firm rule to mind nobody's business but her own. But that rule is put to the test when she happens upon five hundred washed euro notes hanging up to dry in her school's darkroom, and it is shattered once Lumikki realises who owns them. Caught in an increasingly tangled web of deception, corruption and danger, Lumikki finds herself navigating Tampere's dark underbelly in her quest to expose its shocking connection to the international drugs trade. Lumikki is smart, but is she smarter than a master criminal? Can she bring down the infamous 'Polar Bear' - or will she become another one of his victims? The first part of a thrilling new Nordic crime series, 'As red as blood' will have you on the edge of your seat until the …

Seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson is hardly your average teenager. She lives by herself in the city of Tampere, Finland, and has a firm rule to mind nobody's business but her own. But that rule is put to the test when she happens upon five hundred washed euro notes hanging up to dry in her school's darkroom, and it is shattered once Lumikki realises who owns them. Caught in an increasingly tangled web of deception, corruption and danger, Lumikki finds herself navigating Tampere's dark underbelly in her quest to expose its shocking connection to the international drugs trade. Lumikki is smart, but is she smarter than a master criminal? Can she bring down the infamous 'Polar Bear' - or will she become another one of his victims? The first part of a thrilling new Nordic crime series, 'As red as blood' will have you on the edge of your seat until the last page is turned ... and then some.

7 editions

nerd teacher [books] reviewed As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka

Not What I Expected

3 stars

I am going to preface this with a few things: I'm not a fan of the weird pro-police and pro-justice sentiment toward the end (particularly with the inclusion of a dirty cop as one of the antagonists); I feel like the stance on drugs is a bit archaic and fails to really reckon with something one of the characters mentions (recreation vs. addiction, among other aspects like how some people will prey on the poor); and I sort of have this mixed feeling on the presentation of the teenagers in the story (for the record, I know it's not super uncommon for teenagers to live alone and near their schools, especially for those who are older and have to travel long distances; it's more just... their behaviour in this situation because it felt like they didn't need to be teenagers).

That said, I don't think it's bad. I think there …

I am going to preface this with a few things: I'm not a fan of the weird pro-police and pro-justice sentiment toward the end (particularly with the inclusion of a dirty cop as one of the antagonists); I feel like the stance on drugs is a bit archaic and fails to really reckon with something one of the characters mentions (recreation vs. addiction, among other aspects like how some people will prey on the poor); and I sort of have this mixed feeling on the presentation of the teenagers in the story (for the record, I know it's not super uncommon for teenagers to live alone and near their schools, especially for those who are older and have to travel long distances; it's more just... their behaviour in this situation because it felt like they didn't need to be teenagers).

That said, I don't think it's bad. I think there are areas where it spends a lot of time conflicting with itself; in some cases, that works (the framing of "Lumikki never asks for help" actually works well in this manner), but there are others where it feels like the contradictions are the result of an external worldview that definitely doesn't gel with mine and is one that I commonly find myself questioning.

As for the resolution of the story, I feel like it also contradicts with itself. There is this feeling of quasi-relief, where some people are "where they belong" while others aren't. And it's just peculiar. But that contradiction is probably what enables this to be a series.

Places

Finland