Cruel Is the Night

Starred review from February 6, 2017
Hämäläinen makes his English-language debut with a darkly humorous, carefully crafted Finnish take on the classic British locked-room mystery. Telegraphing the ending first—no one is alive in millionaire banker Robert’s London apartment—Hämäläinen rewinds to the events of a dinner party, to which Robert has invited his old school friend Mikko, whose sense of righteousness as an investigative journalist fighting financial corruption leads him to take the occasion as an opportunity to poison Robert for the good of the world. Mikko’s wife, Veera, who is fiercely attached to him despite a long secret affair with Robert, and Robert’s beautiful wife, Elise, whose simplicity hides a complex background, round out the group. Hämäläinen is at ease with using the four distinct character voices to shift the apparent power balance constantly over the course of the evening, providing both thrilling surprises and the dread of inevitability, all in the context of some truly delightful dinner dialogue.

March 1, 2017
A tense, irony-laden, not-so-cozy ode to cozies, award-winning author Hamalainen's English-language debut begins innocently enough as Finnish college friends Mikko, Rob, and Veera reunite in Rob's London penthouse. But the story quickly darkens as it becomes evident that Mikko plans to murder Rob in a plot entangling Veera and Rob's wife, Elise, who have their own motives for murder. Rob's ethically flexible financier lifestyle couldn't be more different from his best friend Mikko's, a journalist world renowned for outing finance's biggest cheats. Mikko is disgusted by Rob's rampant entitlement and his treatment of Elise, whose covert relationship with Mikko is slowly revealed. And Veera, Mikko's wife and Rob's occasional lover, harbors a simmering rage over Rob's role in his college girlfriend's death. The quartet dance around failed and aborted murder attempts as Hamalainen initiates a nail-biting shell game of poisons and allegiances. It's clear early on that only one of them will survive the night, but clever storytelling masks Hamalainen's secrets until the final pages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)