New publisher in the works

A new Finnish publisher announced its first three books just before the holidays. I had something to do with all of them, so I'm a bit obliged to say something about them, even though the books are in Finnish. The new publisher is called Putki Kustannus (never mind the translation, it doesn't make much sense) and it works only via Lulu. The books are print-on-demand, which is still a novelty in the Finnish book industry, but it's a bit cumbersome to make the books in Lulu, since they don't offer Finnish ISBN codes (or any ISBN codes for that matter), so they are a bit invisible and won't automatically be catalogued in the Finnish National Library system.

But on to the books! Remember my 12-hour novel I wrote some years ago? I thought initially I wouldn't publish the book, but when Jukka-Pekka Kervinen e-mailed me about his idea to publish pulp-styled literature in print-on-demand and asked for help, I thought immediately about my manusript. It fits here perfectly, and the story was actually better than I remembered. The book is called Älä soita sinivuokoille, Joe Novak, which translates roughly as "Don't Call the Coppers, Joe Novak" (Novak being the private eye hero of my one previous novella and various short stories).

I also put together a small anthology of crime and horror stories, some of which were previously published, mostly in my fanzines Isku and others. Some of the stories were previously unpublished, though, for example Harri István Mäki's wonderful story about Edgar Allan Poe's relationship with Annabel Lee. The book is called The Last Shot according to Tuomas Saloranta's sleazy story of a revenge falling over a porn dealer. The first line: "Start jerking off."

The third book is Petri Hirvonen's short story collection Kuolevan jumalan yö ("The Night of the Dying God" in English) that I put together from the stories I've published in various mags through years. There are some western stories, a pirate story with horror overtones, some eighties-style action, some revenge stories, all told with energy and a good eye for violent action. Petri is a little-known pulp writer who's done some Finnish Jerry Cotton stories and the FinnWest western series. Putki Kustannus is also putting out his novella Kalmankylväjä ("Deathsower" or some such) that takes place somewhere in the Central America. The body count is massive in just 100 pages. Both Petri's and my book have forewords or afterwords that explain what's going on.

There are other books coming out from Putki Kustannus: a criminous short story collection by Teemu Paarlahti, a collection of my Mikko Jarmo short stories that mix private eye genre with silly alternative history themes, a collection of flash fiction crime stories I ran in my mag, Ässä, and a collection of my reviews and articles on American hardboiled fiction. I've been also working on a small collection of obscure Finnish pulp short stories from the thirties and fourties, but there are some copyright problems I'll have to resolve. There's possibly also a western short story collection coming from Sami Myllymäki.

Here's more in Finnish on my other blog.

A new book out: the crime stories of Kari Suomalainen

I was just told that my new book is out: the collected crime stories of the famous Finnish cartoonist and illustator Kari Suomalainen. The book features three short stories about inspector Wilson that were published in the Finnish pulp magazine, called Lukemista Kaikille (Reading for Everybody; not the best title imaginable, right?), in the 1930s, and a short juvenile crime novel called Yhdeksästoista askel/The 19th Step Kari Suomalainen wrote as by Jasper in the late 1940s. I also wrote the foreword; there's a longer version available here. (In Finnish again.)

I can't say I'm pleased with how the book looks. The lettering is inept and the wordplay in the title drives me nuts. (It's untranslatable.) The illustration in the cover has nothing to do with the stories. What bugs me most is that my name is not mentioned in the book as the editor. Okay, I didn't really edit the stories (there wasn't much to edit), but I wouldn't hesitate calling me the editor in this case, since no one at the publishing house this came from knew about Kari Suomalainen's early stories, so I don't think I'm way off thinking they should've given more credit. My name is only in the end of the foreword. I'll go on making this one of my publications.

Marton Taiga's SF stories

Posted a little bibliographic piece on a Finnish pulp writer, Marton Taiga, and his science fiction stories on another blog of mine here.

Finnish writer Taavi Tuokkola

I posted a working bibliography for a Finnish writer called Taavi Tuokkola in Pulpetti's bibliographic section here. He wrote some pieces for the Finnish pulp, Seikkailujen Maailma, and then thirty years later he penned three adventure novels for a religious publisher. Life of a writer can be weird. (This is part of my on-going research on Finnish pulp fiction, but stemmed from the book I'm compiling from Finnish war stories.)

The Best of Isku out

The collection of short stories published originally in Finland's only crime fiction fanzine, Isku, is out. We had a launch party earlier today - okay, it was actually for the sea story book by Veikko Hannuniemi I mentioned earlier, and I got to talk about Isku only briefly.

The book sure feels and looks nice: it's classic paperback size and has only 99 pages. How's that for vintage cheap paperback feel? The cover by Jukka Murtosaari is a delight - you can spot some vintage Finnish pulp and other magazines in the racks, including the real Isku magazine, with the same masthead used in the book and (in black&white) in my fanzine.

The book consists of ten short stories, of which only one, Tarja Sipiläinen's chilling "The Collector", is over 3,000 words. Others are somewhere between 1,000 and 2,500. The best-known writer in the bunch is my friend, Tapani Bagge, with a nice short-short about a loser down on his luck, but aficionados (at least real ones) can recognize names like Petri Hirvonen, Helena Numminen, Petri Salin and Timo Surkka. Others include Teemu Paarlahti, Heikki-Antero Laurila and Sami Myllymäki.

I'm also there, with the first Joe Novak story published in Isku. I read the story earlier today and wasn't entirely satisfied with it (and I found a glaring error in there!), but I guess that's how it always turns out.

Mind you, there's also this, which is the actual first Joe Novak story. I wrote it in the late eighties, while still in school, and published it in a small pamphlet (eight pages, I think, covers included) with the same title (Joe Novak pinteessä in Finnish). It came out retrospectively in 1997. The other stories in the pamphlet had other private eye heroes for which I had developed cool names, like Sam Odessa. In one of the stories Sam Odessa meets the Finnish rocker Mike Monroe who's gone to Amsterdam... [This is a bit of inside joke amongst the Finnish people.]

[Edit: at Todd Mason's proposition I removed the word "pulpish" and replaced it with "cheap paperback". The small number of pages in the book makes one think of a sleazy sex paperback of the sixties. I also added the publishing year of the Joe Novak pamphlet. Now, that's a collector's item. I think the print run was 20 or 25. I seem to remember that I did a reprint two or three years back, but I'm not so sure about that.]

And hey, anyone wants the book, I sell it! Feel free to comment or e-mail me!

Mika Waltari writing as Kristian Korppi

(Now, finally to something I've promised almost a week ago. Well, maybe it was only last Wednesday.)

The world knows Mika Waltari as the writer of The Egyptian and some other historical novels that mix adventure, philosophy, occasional overwriting and literary themes. When Waltari published his The Egyptian (originally titled Sinuhe egyptiläinen) in 1945, he had been writing fiction (and drama and poetry and some non-fiction) for exactly 20 years. His first short stories came out in an otherwise forgotten magazine called Juttutupa/Story Shackle in 1925. He published short stories under the pseudonym Karl Detmold (it was sometimes typeset wrong, for example as Kaarlo Detmold). Some of the stories are already in the horror mold, some of them are pure adventure, while some are whimsy love stories. He wrote in his memoir that the publisher of Juttutupa paid better for the love stories.

In 1925, Waltari also published his first book, Jumalaa paossa/On the Run from God, which is a religious adventure story (of novella length, some 70 pages). Waltari was later ashamed of it, for a good reason - the story is clumsy and full of naïve religious propaganda. (It may've been the hand of the religious publisher. Waltari has only said that he had to rewrite the original manuscript to get the thing published. What I'd pay to see the first draft!)

In 1926, he published a collection of short stories under the byline of Kristian Korppi. He'd used the nom de plume also on some poetry he'd published in a collection of young poets, and he would use it for a year or two in short stories he wrote for the fictionmags of the time. It translates as "Christian Raven" and shows a direct Poe influence.

The collection is titled The Dead Man's Eyes, with the subtitle Stories From the Threshold of the Unknown, and in the book there are eleven stories some of which are quite readable even today - though Waltari later said he hoped the book would remain forgotten, and it remains unreprinted, save for three stories.

Those three stories are the best in the bunch. "Auringonlaskun saari" has even come out in English - in the book Johanna Sinisalo edited in 2005, The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy. "The Isle of Setting Sun" could've very well been published in Weird Tales or Adventure or some other pulp magazine of the period, and it might be reminiscent of, say, Clark Ashton Smith, if it were not for the fact that it precedes Smith's work by some years. Waltari's story is strong sword and sorcery, with fantastic overtones.

The other two stories that have been reprinted are "Muumio/The Mummy" and "Punainen kolmio/The Red Triangle". The former one is pretty standard fare, but still effective story-telling about a curse of a mummy a Finnish archeologist finds in Egypt. "The Red Triangle" is much stronger: it tells a story of a young student who buys a skull and a dagger from an auction and finds himself getting drawn into a mystery that involves a beautiful woman. The story is ripe with S/M eroticism, with the young student fantasizing about decapitated heads.

Both "The Red Triangle" and "The Isle of Setting Sun" have a mysterious triangle in them - in the latter Vikings find a mystery woman in a room in the shape of a triangle, and in the former the student gets obsessed with drawing a perfect triangle. One might notice there's influence of H. P. Lovecraft, but it's 99 % certain that Waltari never knew Lovecraft's name. (Someone should take up the Red Triangle and form a mythology around it...)

Other stories in the book are more standard. The most horrific is "Kirotut silmät/The Cursed Eyes" in which the protagonist drowns a newborn baby in a bog and afterwards chops the mother by axe. In a manner reminiscent of Poe, the protagonist narrates his own story with a maniacal tone.

Also adventurous is "Oopiumihoure/The Opium Dream" in which a strange man tells about his adventures in India, becoming a yogi and then falling in love with a beautiful woman... "Mustat orkideat/The Black Orchids" features a huge black dog, which seems to possess mysterious forces - this might also be the work of Lovecraft ("The Hound", 1924), but it also brings The Hound of the Baskervilles into mind.

As I said, only three stories of the bunch have been reprinted in Finnish (in a book called Lukittu laatikko ja muita kertomuksia/The Closed Box and Other Stories), but I don't see why the whole book has to remain unread. Some of the stories could've been written by many American or English authors, and in comparison Waltari has nothing to be ashamed of.

It has also been commented on as a rare entry in horror in the annals of Finnish literature, but even a quick look at some of the fiction mags of the 1920's reveals that there was lots of horror being written in Finnish. Some of the stuff made its way into books.

(Next: Waltari's humorous adventure novels as by Kapteeni Leo Rainio. Sorry, by the way, about the black and white scan of the Korppi book - I had to take a photocopy at the university library and they don't have colour copiers. The cover is, I presume, by Sylvi Kunnas.)

Jukka's Outsider

This one is from the eighties. It's one of the serials by Outsider aka Aarne Haapakoski, one of the most prolific and important Finnish pulp fiction writers (and one of the most overrated, if you ask me), that a publisher dug out from fiction magazines to be published as large paperbacks. The stories are mostly harmless humorous adventure.

(For the Finnish readers: Tämä ilmestyi alun perin Savon Sanomien viikkoliitteessä vuosina 1961-1962. Aluksi se oli radiokuunnelma, joka esitettiin vuonna 1961.)

Harry Etelää vielä toisenkin kirjan verran?

(This is about the book with Harry Etelä's 1930's horror fiction that I edited a while back.)

Sain lukijalta viestin, että Harry Etelän kauhunovelleja olisi vielä toinen mokoma lisää - ja vieläpä sellaisessa aiheen kannalta marginaalisen kuuloisessa lehdessä kuin Kylän Lehti! Tässä lukijan tekemää listausta ja kuvailua Etelän novelleista - pitää oikein tosissaan miettiä, kannattaisiko tehdä toinenkin Etelä-kirja:

Kuorsaava pääkallo. (Aimo Viherluoto). Ill. by P. Viherluoto. Lukemisto 1945:10 s. 3-5.
Kauhujen orja. (Harry Etelä). Kylän Lehti. Perhelukemista Suomen Kodeille 1938:8.
Raunioiden salaisuus. Kauhumysteerio-novelli. (Harry Etelä). Kylän Lehti. Perhelukemista Suomen Kodeille 1938:12.
Kummituksen morsian - 1 Osa. (Harry Etelä). Lukemisto 1945:02.
Kummituksen morsian - 2 Osa. (Harry Etelä). Lukemisto 1945:03.
Totorin kieli. (Harry Etelä). Ill. P. Viherluoto. Lukemisto 1945:11 s. 3, 6-7, 11, 15.
Öisen myrskyn huminaa. (Harry Etelä). Lukemisto 1945:01

Kylän Lehti. Perhelukemista Suomen Kodeille -lehdessä ilmestyi 30-luvulla lehden parhaimpiin lukeutuvat kauhukertomukset jotka olivat Harry Etelän kynästä lähtöisin. Suomalaiseksi kauhukirjallisuudeksi ne käsittelivät aikakautensa oloissa varsin poikkeuksellista aihatta, vampyyriä riehumassa Suomen suviyössä.Kertomus Raunioiden salaisuus. Kauhumysteerio-novelli Kylän Lehdessä 1938:12 kertoo tarinan haamuvampyyrin ahdistelemasta naisesta.Paljon merkittävämpi on kuitenkin ihka-aito supisuomalainen vampyyrikertomus, tarina Kauhujen orja KL 1938:8. Siinä kerrotaan kuinka "räätäli", kuten kyläläiset vanhaa vampyyria kutsuvat, terrorisoi erästä maaseutupitäjää.

Stuff about Finnish pulp fiction

I posted on another blog a bunch of entries I wrote for Thrilling Detective many years ago - but Kevin Burton Smith declined these, since they didn't meet his criteria for a private eye. One of the entries has a real P.I., though (Richard Rauta) - I'll have to rewrite it for Kevin. The foreword in the post is in Finnish, the rest are in English.

The Harry Etelä book out

The collection of Finnish pulp writer and lyricist Harry Etelä's horror stories is out. The Secret Chamber of Horrors/Kauhujen salakammio that I edited features seven stories from the Finnish pulp magazines Seikkailujen Maailma and Isku (The World of Adventures and Punch), from the years 1937-1940. The stories are quite rough and contain lots of erotic sadism which begs the question: how on earth did these stories get published in the thirties' Finland? They are the best (perhaps only) equivalent of the American shudder pulps written in Finland. Some of the stuff is even rougher than anything written in the wake of splatterpunk in the eighties and early nineties. The titular story is about a man who takes young boys into his chamber, roasts them over fire and eats them. Palms first. You can order the book from the publisher by sending an e-mail to lounaisranta@pelipeitto.fi.

Here's the cover that's been made using one of the illustrations Harry Etelä's brother, Pentti Viherluoto, made for one of his notebooks. (Pentti was a composer and Harry wrote the lyrics.) (Earlier I forgot to mention that I'd posted my foreword here.)

Another book was also published at the same time. It's Harri Kumpulainen's aka Harri Erkki's collection of his weird and horrific science fiction stories he's been writing for fourty years now, starting in 1967 from a slick broadsheet magazine called Koti-Posti (Home-Post) and ending up in the present-day fanzines, like Portti. Pitkä jauntti/The Long Jaunt is highly recommendable if you're into this sort of thing. The both books are part of the M series that was started with Viides testamentti I edited. (The next book will be a collection Boris Hurtta's horror stories.)

Here's also a photo taken at the announcement party on Wednesday. From the left: me, Markku Soikkeli (whose book, Marsin ikävä/Mars Spleen in the M series is one of the contestants in the Helsingin Sanomat first book contest) and Tapani Maskula who wrote the afterword for the Harry Etelä book. He's a film critic, but also an aficionado of old Finnish popular music.

PS. You might notice the new layout. Pulpetti is closing in its 1000th post, so I thought I should spice up things a bit. Maybe I'll even do a link list.

Finished a book

Just sent a book to the publisher. I finished typing Harry Etelä's horror short stories and also wrote the introduction. We'll be asking a longer foreword from someone (mainly Tapani Maskula) who knows Etelä's song-writing career better than I do.

I'll put my foreword here. Check it out. I may yet write more about Etelä here.

Kari Valkama ja Veikko Viima

(This is about a pseudonymous crime novel that was published in Finland 20 years back.)

Lueskelin eilen uusinta Sarjainfoa ja huomasin P.A. Mannisen hauskasta Pajatso-lehteä käsittelevästä jutusta, että minulle entuudestaan täysin tuntemattomassa lehdessä seikkaili Veikko Viima -niminen sankari. Nimi resonoi välittömästi ja Simo Sjöblomin dekkaribibliografian tarkistaminen vahvisti muistikuvan: Veikko Viima -nimellä ilmestyi kirja vuonna 1987, nimeltään Psykoanalyytikon psalmi. Kustantaja oli uskonnollinen Herättäjä-Yhdistys; kirjoittajan oikeaa henkilöllisyyttä ei Sjöblom tiedä. (Kansallisbibliografia Fennica on remontissa enkä pysty tarkistamaan, onko siellä mitään mainintaa Viiman oikeasta nimestä tai hakusanaa Valkamalle.)

Kuinka todennäköistä on, että kyseessä olisivat täysin eri henkilöt, varsinkin kun Viima on aika harvinainen sukunimi? Itse väittäisin, että Kari Valkama on laajentanut repertuaarinsa myös dekkarin puolelle. Tietääkö joku jotain Kari Valkamasta, enempää kuin että hän kustansi yhden numeron Pajatso-lehteä (ja ilmeisesti teki ainakin osan lehden sarjakuvista)?

Tässä sivu, jossa joku arvioi romaanin ja spekuloi kirjoittajan henkilöllisyydellä: http://www.netlife.fi/users/msiivola/krit/kristillista_homeopatiaa.html

Edit: Kvaak.fissä Timo Ronkainen tiesi kertoa, että Kari Valkama -niminen taiteilija asuu Teuvalla. Herättäjä-Yhdistys taas toimii Lapualla, joten samoilla suunnilla ollaan. (En olekaan ennen ratkaissut salanimikirjoittajan henkilöllisyyttä! Jippijaijee!)

Edit no. 2: Väärillä jäljillä ollaan. Timo Kokkila löysi guuglaamalla ihmisen, joka vapaaehtoisesti ilmoittautui teoksen kirjoittajaksi.

An excerpt of Harry Etelä's short story

I've been editing and typing a collection of Harry Etelä's pulp horror stories from the late thirties and late fourties, as I've mentioned some times before. I've got only one to go (I've been typing these for the last two or three months, a page or two before actual work) and it's one of the feircest stories ever published in Finnish language. It's a story about a village blacksmith who kidnaps young boys and grills them over fire and eats them! This was in 1939, in Finland, where decorum, a sense of decency, was pretty much ruling. Bad taste was something so despicable you can't even begin to describe it. (And bear in mind that Etelä also wrote some of the most revered and loved schlager tunes in Finland, such as Katri Helena's "Puhelinlangat laulaa" (which was first recorded by his big brother, Pentti Viherluoto).)

Here's an excerpt of the story "Kauhujen salakammio/The Secret Chamber of Horrors" that I've been thinking about would be the titular story of the collection. I'll translate the relevant bits after the Finnish part:

Ennen kuin poika käsittikään oli häneen tartuttu kourin, joitten hirmuinen voima oli rusentaa murskaksi hänen jäsenensä, ja hän tunsi sinkoutuvansa kammion toiseen päähän. Pudottuaan lattialle hän jäi makaamaan siihen liikkumattomana ja katseli salavihkaa käsivartensa yli, kuinka seppä hiipi lähemmäksi. Kun hän oli tullut yli keskilattian, poika nousi nopeasti ja juoksi kaartaen ovelle, jonka raskasta salpaa hän yritti kohottaa...
Mutta samassa seppä oli jo hänen kimpussaan paljastettuine puukkoineen.
- Älä rimpuile, tai pistän sinut heti! hän huusi, ja teräs välähti liekkien punertavassa loimossa. - Minun on nähtävästi sidottava sinut, kirottu penikka, kunnes kaikki on valmista.
Nurkassa oli köyttä, eikä kestänyt kauan kun seppä oli sitonut pojan kovakouraisesti.
Taas kuului heikko napsaus jostain.
Tuomela kuunteli tarkasti ja katsoi ympärilleen. Se oli jo neljäs napsaus lyhyessä ajassa. Mikä ne aiheutti? Hän katsoi kattoon ja nurkkiin, mutta unohti sitten koko asian ja meni lisäämään halkoja rovioon.
- Täytyy olla hyvä tuli, tappelukukko, hän sanoi. - On niin hauska nähdä, kun käperryt ja muutut suloisen ruskeaksi. Parhaat paikat syön sinusta tänään, loput vien jääkellariini. Tiedätkö, että kämmenpohjista nautin kaikkein eniten?
Poika kuuli ketjujen ja rautojen kalinaa. Nyt hän ymmärsi renkaitten tarkoituksen.. hänet ripustettaisiin tuleen...

- You gotta have a good fire, young hero, he [the blacksmith] said. - It is so nice to see, when you crumble in and get so sweet and brown. I'll eat the best parts of you today, the rest I will take down to the cellar. You know that I like the palms most?
The boy heard the chains and iron bars rattle. Now he understood the meaning of the rings... he would be hung over the fire...

A book out

I just saw the first drafts of the Turku crime story anthology I've edited. It looks good, with the cover by Jukka Murtosaari. I'll post the scan and other stuff later on. The book will be out Tuesday, third of April.

Viides testamentti, Turun alueen kirjoittajien jännitystarinoiden kokoelma, julkistetaan tiistaina 3.4. klo 15 Turun Akateemisessa. Paikalla on kirjan kustantaja Harri Kumpulainen, kirjan toimittaja (c'est moi), kirjoittajia sekä haastattelijana Kari J. Kettula. Kaikki Pulpetin seuraajat ovat tervetulleita!

Kirjan sisältö on seuraava. Mikäli toisin ei mainita, novellit ovat alkuperäisiä:

Pirkko Arhippa: Välikäsi, ilmestynyt alun perin RikosPaloissa 1/1987
Boris Hurtta: Ikonipuinen arkku
Harri Erkki: Tunneli
Harry Etelä: Mustaa verta, ilmestynyt alun perin Seikkailujen Maailmassa 11/1939
Totti Karpela: Perin inhimillinen tekijä, ilmestynyt alun perin Suomen Kuvalehdessä /1974
Olavi Tuomola: Hantšungin kultainen buddha, ilmestynyt alun perin Mustassa Kuussa 1/1945
Markku Soikkeli: Viides testamentti
Sami Myllymäki: [uups, tästähän puuttui novellin nimi, pitänee kaivaa se sitten esille kun kirja ilmestyy]
Aake Jermo: Hiljainen yö, ilmestynyt alun perin teoksessa Outsider (toim.): Hiljainen yö, Lehtiyhtymä 1944
Kirsti Ellilä: Pyhän kosketus

Lisäksi mukana on toimittajan alkusanat ja kustantajan jälkisanat.

My other activities at the moment

Mentioned being busy. Well, today I submitted a new book to the publisher. It's a collection of old and new crime and adventure stories by writers of the Turku region. The oldest story is from 1939, by Harry Etelä (Aimo Viherluoto), who was also known as a songwriter, mainly specializing in schlagers. I may have to write more about him. There's a good adventure story by Olavi Tuomola, taking place in Shanghai just before the WWII.

The book, called Viides testamentti/The Fifth Testament, according to M.G. Soikkeli's story in the book, is a good collection and hope it gathers some attention. It's just no one seems to be buying short story collections anymore. So it's a bit of an experiment to the publisher. We will be doing more of this sort with the same publisher, for example a collection of Harry Etelä's horror stories that are quite spectacular given that almost no one else wrote horror stories in the late thirties here in Finland.

I'm also doing a rough translation of Tapani Bagge's Puhaltaja. Tapani, as some of you may remember, made a deal with the American Point Blank Press about his first crime novel and it was going to come out under the title The Jack. It seemed, though, that the head of Point Blank didn't have time to do the translation himself (JT Lindroos hails originally from Finland), so I suggested both to JT and Tapani that I could do the first rough version and JT could polish it.

I've done some four or five pages so far, and let me tell you that it's no small feat to translate in a language that's not your own. Especially when Tapani uses lots of slang expressions that even I don't know what they mean. There's also lots of talk about cars and stealing them, and I've been at odds with all the words. However, Tapani okayed my efforts and so I'm continuing at the pace of a page a day.

But once The Jack is out in the US, it will be a hardboiled delight: Tapani writes very sparsely and tightly and he knows his milieu of lowdown petty criminals and car thieves. There's lots of black humor and violence. (I may even up put a new blog to post the translations one day at the time, but I'll have to ask what JT and Tapani think about that.)

And before that, I have a book coming out. It was a small, but very pleasant surprise: an old friend of mine was elected a while back director of a non-fiction publishing house and the first thing he said to me was: "What if we put out your old articles as a book?" It's already in printers. The book collects nine longish articles I wrote some ten years ago about unknown Finnish poets. If it sells enough copies, there should be a sequel. Well, that won't be as easy, since I'd have to do some research for it and read the books.

Old and ugly Finnish crime paperback

Here's a rather inept cover of a Finnish paperback, a very obscure Pankkiryosto Harmassa/Bank Robbery in Harma (an area in the Western coast of Finland), perhaps written by one Aarre Gronlund, who published men's and true crime magazines from the late fifties on. This one is from 1973. (Sorry, the scandic letters don't show when I use this Picasa program.)