What Finnish crime writers should be translated?

I ran across a blog post over at Rap Sheet talking about Finnish crime writers who should be translated in English. Linda L. Richards, who wrote the post, mentioned Reijo Mäki who has just received the Vuoden Johtolanka (The Clue of the Year) prize from the Finnish Whodunit Society. Richards writes: "This recent win has likely (hopefully?) already put into motion the forces that will change that [Mäki being unknown in the US - JN]. Still, it seems at least a little inexplicable that we haven’t heard much about Mäki before, because he’s kind of a big deal in his home country. Eight of his nearly 30 novels have been adapted for the screen. Four of the resulting films have opened in Finnish theaters and another four are still to be released."

Mäki is indeed very popular in Finland and his popularity doesn't seem to be fading in the near future. His books are slightly parodic hardboiled private eye books that usually don't do well in the US or UK markets nowadays, and the large sociological and political questions, not to mention questions regarding to gender and minorities, that characterize most of Scandinavian crime fiction are largely missing from his work. The films based on his work have also been popular, but also very much criticized for being sloppy and clichéd. This is not to say someone shouldn't try translating them in English; maybe that would help some other writers break the barrier.

There are some Finnish crime writers, though, who really should be translated in English. Antti Tuomainen is breaking good in seemingly anywhere in Europe and the US, and I can heartily recommend his work: it's good, solid noir. I'm sure many who are into hardboiled crime might like Harri Nykänen's Ariel Kafka novel Nights of Awe out from Bitter Lemon Press (I haven't read it myself). Many seem to like Marko Kilpi's serious police novels, but I didn't like his first one, Jäätyneitä ruusuja ("Frozen Roses"), which I found deeply over-written and pretentious.

Here are some names for you, though. Mind you, I'm not interested in cozies or huge international thrillers. Both have their writers and their fans in Finland, though.

Tapani Bagge writes hardboiled action like no other writer in Finland. His long series of career criminals and sore losers of cold small towns of Finland is very good. Bagge (who's a personal friend of mine) is well-read in hardboiled crime and noir, and he sure knows how to spin the plot. He can also create memorable characters: they are touching, fragile and capable of violence at the same time. Bagge really cares for the people he writes about. Tapani also has a four-part series of historical crime, set in the 1930s and 1940s and the political mischief at that time, but I've only read the first in the series, so can't really comment on that. Tapani's been popular in Germany.

(As some of you might remember, I tried to translate Tapani's first crime novel Puhaltaja into English (with the tentative title The Jack), but it didn't work out so well in the end. Tapani's well-represented by his agent, though, so I don't mind.)

Marja-Liisa Heino is one of the most original Finnish crime writers, whose four books differ greatly from each other. I just finished her latest novel, called Astuit väärään autoon ("You Stepped into a Wrong Car"). It's an absurd Dostoyevskian play of guilt, written in prose that's both diffuse and clear at the same time. Lots of things go by unexplained. The story of a rapist who gets out from the prison and moves in with one of his victims (and makes renovations in the woman's house!) is pretty weird, but also very engaging. There's also some police procedural stuff, but I thought the parts with the rapist were better.

Of the other Finnish private eye writers than Reijo Mäki, Markku Ropponen might be an interesting one, but I'm not sure if his work translates well.

Many readers of this blog are into very dark and tough hardboiled fiction. They might want to try Juha Seppälä's Super Market. It was already published in 1991, but many of its pieces still feel relevant. Some of the more absurd stories set in the Finnish army might not work in English, but some of his violent ultra-short stories about criminals and other lowlife could very well resonate with someone who likes to read ThugLit or Flash Fiction Offensive. Seppälä's first novel, Hyppynaru ("The Skipping Rope", 1986) could also be seen as a non-genre crime novel. He's becoming more experimental these days, though, but his work still retains the darkness of his early work.

Harri V. Hietikko's first novel in years (he wrote a trilogy of supernatural private eye novels for a very small publisher in the 1990s), called Lausukaa Paranoid (the title is a joke that doesn't work in English), is, according to his own words, an update of Sergio Leone with Harley-Davidsons. I haven't read it as yet, but it seems interesting.

There are also some more marginal writers, some of which are more into horror and fantasy. Petri Salin's excellent Jim Thompson-esque short novel Toinen nainen ("The Other Woman", 2009) would work very well as an e-book. (Sadly Petri has made himself non-available for the time being.) Tuomas Saloranta is more a horror writer, but he can spin a mean crime tale any time he wants to. His horror stories, published mainly online and in anthologies, have a very, very dark edgy side to them, though they are also humorous at the same time.

Of the horror writers, I'm sure Juha-Pekka Koskinen and Marko Hautala would find audience translated in English. Koskinen has tried his hands also in crime writing, producing one good novel, called Eilispäivän sankarit ("The Heroes of Yesterday"), and also one book related to the Spanish Civil War and the political anxieties in Finland in the thirties and fourties. (I haven't read that one, though.) Koskinen's horror stories in my anthologies have been uniformly good.

Oh, by the way, here's something I've probably forgotten to post. It's a canon of Finnish noir fiction, posted in one of my Finnish-language blogs. I compiled it with the help of some of my friends, including Tapani and Antti. (I might be a bit biased saying good things about their work, but then again, this is my blog.)

New Finnish crime literature: Bagge, Rönkä, Kilpi

I was down with flu for almost two weeks. I'm still a bit ill, but I'm so behind my work I'll have to start doing something. The architecture book I've been writing for about two years (or at least seems like that already!) is seriously late from all the deadlines and I'm hating it big time.

Okay, I wasn't going to talk about that. I was going to mention three new Finnish crime novels I read while I was sick. One of the books was work-related as I wrote a review of it for a newspaper. 

The best of the three was my friend Tapani Bagge's Kasvot katuojassa (Face in the Gutter, out from CrimeTime), a novel of linked short stories and novellas. Fast-moving, touching at best, always on the side of the losers, at times pretty violent and often funny. Very fast read even though I wasn't quite sure why it had to be done as a novel and not as a collection of short stories. The story goes back and forth in time unnecessarily. (The cover for Tapani's book is done by Lasse Rantanen.)

Matti Rönkä's Väärän maan vainaja (Dead in a Wrong Country, Gummerus) is the new entry in Rönkä's series about Viktor Kärppä, the Russian ex-soldier working as a building contractor in Finland and helping out other Russians, dealing even a bit for the Russian mob. Mediumboiled, always on the side of the losers, usually well written, good descriptions and snapshots of the Russian way of life, but still a bit lukewarm. 

Marko Kilpi is one of the most revered crime writers working now in Finland. He was even nominated for the  prestigious Finlandia literature prize. I can't begin to understand why: his first novel Jäätyneitä ruusuja (Frozen Roses, 2007, reprinted now by his new publisher) is a clumsy and over-written piece of pretentious stuff trying to act as high literature. People say Kilpi has improved as a writer, I seriously hope this is the case. 

Tapani Bagge's Kasvot tuulilasissa

My friend Tapani Bagge's newest book is a little paperback called Kasvot tuulilasissa/The Face in the Windshield. It came out from Turbator (the same publishing outfit that did my Sherlock Holmes book) and carries a brilliant cover illustration by Anssi Rauhala - who also did the Holmes cover.

Kasvot tuulilasissa is about Onni Syrjänen, who's a lawyer down on his luck and willing to take almost any job. Hence he gets to search for a missing daughter of a known crime boss. Syrjänen finds her pretty easily, as corpses don't much walk... The book speeds on like a bullet and Syrjänen visits almost every city in Finland, in search for a missing cocaine loot. There's lots of violence and black humour and also a feel for common man, like in all the books by Tapani Bagge. I recommend this highly, if you want to spend an entertaining hour. Reading the 15,000 words (thereabout) doesn't take much longer. This is what paperbacks are supposed to be like!

As a reminder: Onni Syrjänen can be read also in English, as Thrilling Detective has two stories of his escapades in translation. Check out here and here!

Tapani Bagge's The Jack finally finished!

Some of you may remember that I've been translating Tapani Bagge's first crime novel, Puhaltaja (2002), into English for the past few years. Now the first version is finally complete. I might even say "finally fucking complete", since I've been at this at least for the last five years. The book was supposed to come out as "The Jack" from JT Lindroos's Point Blank Press, but Point Blank Press is no more. I'm sure we'll come up with something.

In the meantime, here and here are two stories by Tapani for your reading pleasure.

Once I manage to get some editing done, I'll post some excerpts of Tapani's novel.

A book Tapani Bagge was supposed to be in

Here's a review from Bookgasm for a book my friend Tapani Bagge was supposed to be in. Maxim Jakubowski had picked up Tapani's story "The Face in the Concrete" for the book, but it was dropped out at last minute - the book was getting too thick! But you can still read the story from Thrilling Detective. And you should, too.

Tapani wrote to me just a minute ago that his story should be in part two, if such a book gets made. Here's hoping it will!

The new issue of Ässä ready

The cover of soon-coming third issue of Ässä, my flash fiction magazine. This issue contains stories by James McGowan, Joe R. Lansdale (two!), Sandra Scoppettone, Patti Abbott, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Paul David Brazill and Greg Schwartz plus Finnish stories by Tapani Bagge (previously unpublished funny story "The Mustache" [sic]), Harri Erkki (five word horror story, with very black comedy and almost pornographic content - try to beat that!) and someone called Mikael Ylinen and myself, with a Joe Novak story which I thought turned out to be very good.

Will be out in a week or two. The title means "ace" and the cover is by unknown.

Tapani Bagge: Ammattimies

My friend, prolific author Tapani Bagge has a new short story collection out soon. Here are the cover by Jukka Murtosaari and the contents of the collection. The book consists mainly of previously published stories, but there are also some hitherto unpublished ones. As you can see, I've published some of the stories in Isku and other fanzines, "Kylmä tuuli/Cold Wind" having been published only in Isku.

Jukka's cover illo features Tapani's hero (or actually anti-hero) Kovanen, who's the lead character in the two graphic novels Tapani scripted to Jari Rasi's drawings.

The book's publisher is Turbator and it will come out to the Turku Book Fair in August, with the Western short story collection I've edited, with stories by Joni Skiftesvik and Totti Karpela.

Alamäki (RikosPalat 1/1988; Isku 1 (2004))
Ammattimies (1988; Pikkujuttu, Gummerus 2003)
Laukaus tehtaalla (SinäMinä 19/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Kylmä tuuli (Isku 6 (2005))
Rikoksen pyörteissä (SinäMinä 23/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Bodom, bodom, bodom… (Seura 36/2005)
Ääriviivat (Aamulehden Valo 32/2007; Ässä 2 (2008))
Salainen keksintö (1988; Usvazine 4/2007)
Aina murha kotiolot voittaa (RikosPalat 4/1988; Isku 8 (2008))
Keskiyö Rio de Janeirossa (RikosPalat 5/1988)
Varjoton mies (1988)
Kuolema joulun alla (1988)
Jälkisanat

Isku and Ässä out

Two of my fiction fanzines are out. Ässä came out just before we headed off to the cabin (more about that later) and Isku is, well, not actually out, but just leaving off to the printers. Ässä (= Ace) contains thirteen flash stories by such authors as CJ Henderson, Duane Swierczynski and Sean Chercover. Stephen Rogers wrote one especially for Ässä (so if there are any Stephen Rogers completists, they'd better ask me for a copy). I have a Joe Novak story in (well, naturally, since I'm the publisher) and there are also two archive finds: a story by Otso Kantokorpi from the Like Uutiset magazine in 1994 (published under the pseudonym Sam Tanner) and a story by Jussi Kylätasku from the Koti-Posti magazine in 1968. Apart from that, there's only one Finnish story, by Petri Laine. If there will be another issue of Ässä, I'll try to get more original Finnish stories.

Isku, the hardboiled crime mag, contains a translation of a story by Bill Crider (to whom warmest greetings) and two flash stories by James Reasoner and David Terrenoire (thanks, guys!) and several Finnish stories one of which is a reprint of the first crime short story the Tampere-based Seppo Jokinen wrote in 1990 (written at that time, but published only in 1994 in a small press magazine) . It's never been reprinted before. There are also new stories by other Finnish writers, such as Tapani Bagge and myself. I have also two lady debutantes, Laura Apell and Elina Mäenpää who both delivered great stories. Elina's story is more a horror story than hardboiled crime, but I don't really care for rigid genre rules.

The cover illos are by Henri Joela (Ässä) and Timo Ronkainen (Isku). They really delivered, too! The Ässä cover is for the story by J.D. Rhoades called "Hundred".

(For some reason I can't seem to make proper headlines. The problem seems to be with Blogger.)

Tapani Bagge's new book out

My friend Tapani Bagge has a new book out. It's a collection of criminous short stories, many of which have been previously published (and one of them also in English, at Thrilling Detective; see here). I'm very proud to be able to say that two of the stories, "Takakontti" and "Vain pikku viilto" came first out in Isku. Kasvot betonissa/Face in the Concrete has these stories (and there's also an afterword):

PIENI KERAVA-SARJA
Kasvot betonissa
Onni yksillä
Maanantai
Kevyt lomakupru

MATKALLA JONNEKIN
Vainajan veli
Ajopuu
John Lee Hooker on kuollut

PIENI HÄMEENLINNA-SARJA
Mahdoton tehtävä
Eka kerta
Vain pikku viilto
Takakontti

MATKALLA MENNEESSÄ
Musta maanantai
Etelän uni

Here's a fresh review by Kimmo Miettinen. In Finnish, understandably. If you want translations of the stories' names, don't hesitate to ask.

Congrats to Tapani

By the way, I forgot to mention that Tapani Bagge (whose novel Puhaltaja I'm translating) recently won the Clue of the Year award of the Finnish Whodunit Society.

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.