Ridley Pearson in Finland

As a part of my on-going series on crime and thriller writers' reception by the Finnish publishers, here's something on Ridley Pearson (whose The Angel Maker I didn't like a bit, as evidenced below). I'd thought he would've been bigger in Finland than he apparently is.

He's had only four books published in Finland by a big house, Gummerus. These include The Angel Maker, No Witnesses, Beyond Recognition and Chain of Evidence. Two of his books, Hard Fall and The Seizing of Yankee Green Mall, were published by Kauppiaitten Kustannus which is a publishing house not specialized in translated fiction. These precede the ones by Gummerus. There are two books done abridged in the Readers' Digest collections, but they were already published by others.

1997's Chain of Evidence (Todistusketju in Finnish) was the last Pearson to be translated. While I might be able to say that this speaks for the Finnish readership's good taste, it's still a puzzle to me. The Angel Maker had two printings in 1994 and while the first one may have been a small one, it's still an evidence pointing out there could be a market for Pearson in Finland. It is no service to Finnish readers - and to the reading culture - to drop authors like this.