The Rabbit Factor - Antti Tuomainen

   2019; 324 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Rabbit Factor” series.  Genre : Nordic Noir; Finland; Suspense; Dark Humor.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Henri Koskinen has been having a tough time lately.  He’s just been fired (well, requested to resign, technically) from his actuarial job, despite his stellar number-crunching performance.  The reason: his boss felt Henri wasn’t a team player.  Oh well, so what.  There’s lots of other places that will hire him.

 

    Apparently not.  After a week of job hunting, Henri is still unemployed and the bills need paying.  And then, some good news and some bad news arrive.

 

    The bad news is that Henri’s brother, Juhani, has passed away.  That’s sad, but in truth Henri and Juhani weren’t all that close.  The good news is that Juhani has bequeathed his earthly assets to Henri.  Actually, just a single asset.  It’s not a bunch of money; it’s an adventure park called YouMeFun.  Henri is now its owner.

 

    That’s not exactly the sort of job Henri is trained for, but at least it’ll pay the bills.  Hmm, maybe not.  The accounting books indicate Juhani has borrowed heavily to keep the park open, and now Henri is responsible for those debts.

 

    And he’s going to be astounded at the interest rate on those loans.

 

What’s To Like...

    Some sites call the genre of The Rabbit Factor “Nordic Noir”, and I kinda like that choice.  There are killings, but this is not a murder-mystery.  “Suspense” is also a good description, then throw in a bit of Romance, and sprinkle some lighthearted Wit throughout.  Overall, the book’s tone reminded me of Die Hard 1, if you remember that old movie.

 

    I loved that the protagonist is an actuary.  Henri tackles all his challenges analytically and mathematically.  Sometimes this works to his detriment, much like Sheldon’s cogitations on The Big Bang Theory.  Gradually, Henri starts to broaden his thought processes, thanks both to an appreciation of Monet’s paintings (that happened to me as well!), and a girl who addles his brain whenever he’s near her. 

 

    The book’s original language is Finnish, and was translated into English by David Hackston.  I think he did a superb job; just keep in mind we’re talking about “Across-the-Pond English”, and not “American”.  So Yanks will run into some weird spellings (storeys, yoghurt, whingeing), and odd phrases (zebra crossings, nappies, humming and hawing) along the way.  I loved that my favorite British expression, “and Bob’s your uncle”, shows up here, although I wonder what the original Finnish expression was.

 

    I chuckled when Scrooge McDuck was mentioned.  Are Disney characters popular in Finland?  The book’s title stems from a giant metal rabbit sign at the park that impacts the storyline.  The park features all sorts of rides/attractions that will appeal to young and old alike.  Each one comes with a catchy name, such as Komodo Locomotive, Crazy Coil, Banana Mirror, Trombone Cannons, and Furious Flingshot.  Again, I’m in awe of the wordplay here, and wonder what they were called in the original Finnish.

 

    The ending is good, and includes a couple of plot twists that explain how the park can be entertaining lots of customers and still be heavily in debt.  Henri’s life is on the upswing, as is YouMeFun, and there's a promise of more adventures involving both in the next book in the series, The Moose Paradox.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jaffa (n.) : a popular carbonated drink made in Finland.

Others: Chicane (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,928 ratings and 105 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.79*/5, based on 4,451 ratings and 635 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I just realized I haven’t asked what you do for a living.”

    Laura’s words brought me back to the office.

    “I am an actuary,” I said.  “Well, I gave my notice two weeks ago.”

    “Because of YouMeFun?”

    I shook my head.  “I didn’t know about this park at the time.  I resigned because I couldn’t stand watching my workplace turn into a playground.   Then I inherited one.”  (pg. 47)

 

    “Can you embrace the gift of your team’s unique emotional success story?”

    “What?”

    “It’s an essential part of working life these days,” I say and, disconcertingly, I can almost hear Perttila’s voice.  “Your strength might lie in an area where a weaker person might become swept away.  That makes you a safe emotional harbour.  When strength and weakness combine, a collective synergy emerges from within both, creating successful, empathetic prosperity.”

    I can see Kristian doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.  There’s nothing to understand.  Even I don’t know what I’m talking about.  (pg. 133)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Rabbit Factor currently sells for $6.15 at Amazon.  The other two books in the series, The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, are the same price.  Antti Tuomainen has English translations of at least four other standalone novels for you, ranging in price from $0.99 to $9.99.

 

The most successful people are those who talk the least sense and blame everybody else for it.  (pg. 255)

    There isn't a lot of foul language in The Rabbit Factor.  I noted just eight instances in the first third of the book, although the favorite one was the f-bomb.  Later on, there are at least three occasions involving “intimate relations”, so you probably don’t want little Timmy or Susie reading this book.

 

    The quibbles are minor.  Henri’s actuarial musings piqued my interest at first, but after a while, I just wanted him to loosen up and chill.  It also takes him an irritatingly long time to figure out he might be falling in love.

 

    But these are superficial gripes.  The Rabbit Factor was my introduction to Antti Tuomainen’s works, and his storytelling, character development, and clever wit kept me turning the pages.  I look forward to reading more of his books.

 

    8 Stars.  One of Henri’s pet peeves is when people call YouMeFun an Adventure Park instead of an Amusement Park.  He feels forced to explain to several people why those are not synonymous terms.  But you know the difference, right?  If not, see the comments.

Six Days of the Condor - James Grady

   1974; 311 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Espionage; Conspiracy Thriller; Suspense; Movie Tie-in.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Welcome to the Washington D.C. branch of the American Literary Historical Society!  You can tell by its name that its purpose in life is . . . um . . . something literary, I suppose.  Or historical, maybe.  That name seems a bit vague.

 

    Actually, the Society is a CIA front for one of its very unimportant branches.  Its function is to “keep track of all espionage and related acts recorded in literature.”  In other words, its agents sit around and read spy thrillers and murder mysteries, checking to see if any author out there has written a plot with details about espionage that are too close for comfort to how the CIA conducts its business.

 

    All in all, it’s a pretty tame assignment.  Yet today, some person or persons walked in through the front doors of the American Literary Historical Society and shot everybody in the department to death.

 

     Well, not quite everybody.  One member of the group had the good fortune of being out of the office, picking up lunch for the rest of his coworkers.  Ronald Malcolm.  Now all sorts of people, some CIA, others of unknown loyalties, would like to bring Malcom in for questioning.

 

    Or kill him.

 

What’s To Like...

    James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor is the basis for the 1975 blockbuster political-thriller film Three Days of the Condor, although “loosely based” would be a more apt description, as evidenced by the length of the book’s titular chase scene being cut in half.

 

    Malcolm’s chances of staying alive are slim.  The reader may know that Malcolm has had a narrow escape from death, but his employer, the CIA, doesn’t.  They quickly realize they have a turncoat in their midst, and the Number One suspect is that oh-so-lucky employee who just happened to be out of the office when the assassins struck.  Meanwhile, the baddies too learn they’ve overlooked a victim, and are determined to correct that oversight.  Tell me, Malcolm, where do you hide when everybody is after you?

 

    The storytelling is spellbinding.  The reader knows that everything is going to turn out okay, but the bad guys are just as resourceful as the good guys, and logic tells us that a bookish nerd will not fare well against well-armed and highly-trained gunmen.  The technical details felt well-researched, especially when it came to lethal firearms.

 

    Six Days of the Condor was published in 1974, and it was fun to re-experience that era.  At one point, Malcom avails himself to a “battered Corvair”, which I happened to have one of back then, and in battered condition as well.  Later, Malcolm hides out at a “homosexual hangout”, which the author informs us can also be called a “gay” bar.  Soon afterward, he hitches a ride with a driver looking for nubile girls who will do anything, and he means anything for some marijuana.  Even later, the action takes place at an airport, where security is so lax that evidently anyone and everyone can enter with a handgun hidden under their jackets.

 

    The ending is both exciting and twisty.  All the plot threads get tied up, the good guys prevail, and the bad guys are foiled.  There are some sequels, but they appear to be limited to six short stories and a novella.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 1,853 ratings and 328 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.09/5 based on 16,761 ratings and 448 reviews

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    [The man], slightly wounded in the neck, desperately reached for the gun in his back pocket, but his pants were around his ankles.  (loc. 2714)

 

Excerpts...

    That morning at 3:15 Heidegger unlocked his door to the knock of police officers.  When he opened the door he found two men in ordinary clothes smiling at him.  One was very tall and painfully thin.  The other was quite distinguished, but if you looked in his eyes you could tell he wasn’t a banker.

    The two men shut the door behind them.  (loc. 688)

 

    The terminal was beginning to fill with the bustling people who would pass through it during the day.  A wheezing janitor swept cigarette butts off the red rug.  A mother tried to coax a bored infant into submission.  A nervous coed sat wondering if her roommate’s half-fare card would work.  Three young Marines headed home to Michigan wondered if she would work.  A retired wealthy executive and a penniless wino slept in adjoining chairs, both waiting for daughters to fly in from Detroit.  A Fuller Brush executive sat perfectly still, bracing himself for the effects of a jet flight on a gin hangover.  (loc. 2672)

 

Kindle Details…

    Six Days of the Condor sells for $8.99 at Amazon right now.  James Grady has seven other e-books available at Amazon, including two that have tie-ins to Six Days of the Condor.  They range in price from $1.99 to $11.99.

 

“I Imagine there are many who frown on the U.S. government pushing dope.”  (loc. 2560)

    The quibbles are minor.  The cussing, frankly, was a lot less than I expected, just 12 instances in the first 25%.  OTOH, there were also a half dozen rolls-in-the-hay.

 

    Each of the twelve chapters starts out with a quote.  Some are by US presidents about the CIA, and those were quite applicable.  Others were from Fred Reinfeld’s The Complete Chess Course and left me scratching my head, despite the fact that I’m an avid chessplayer.

 

    Last of all, it surprised me that in the one or two gunfights betwixt nerdy Malcolm and the ruthless killers, our hero fares rather well.  Of course, I admit it would’ve been a short, forgettable tale if the Malcolm had been blown away in the first hour of the chase.

 

    But I pick at nits.  For me, Six Days of the Condor was an intense, exciting, fingernails-biting story, and it’s easy to see why it was picked up and developed into a big-budget movie featuring big-budget stars like Faye Dunaway, Robert Redford, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow.  Despite all the changes they made to James Grady’s original story, including renaming most of the characters (Ronald Malcolm becomes Joe Turner) and relocating the setting (Washington DC is replaced by New York City), I may have to see if Netflix carries this movie.

 

    8½ Stars.  At the beginning of the e-book is a “Confession” section wherein James Grady gives the background to his writing Six Days of the Condor, a short biography of his life pre- and post- the book being published, and his experience as a technical adviser on the movie.  This takes up 15% of the e-book.  I suggest reading it after you’ve read the story, not before.

City of Endless Night - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

   2018; 374 pages.  Book 17 (out of 21) in the “Agent Pendergast” series.  New Author? : No, and No.  Genres : Suspense; Thriller.   Overall Rating: 8½/10.

 

    The body of a young women has been found in an abandoned garage in New York City, under a pile of leaves.  Well, that’s not so unusual, there are some rough neighborhoods there, and Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta knows this is one of them.

 

    Unfortunately, the young lady has been identified, and she’s a well-known, rich, young, spoiled socialite.  Great news fodder for the local tabloids.  That’s going to put a lot of pressure on the NYPD to solve this quickly, and in particularly on D’Agosta, who’s in charge of the investigation and has just arrived at the crime scene.

 

    He’s not particularly surprised when his friend, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast also shows up.  Pendergast has some amazing deductive talents, and D’Agosta welcomes any help he can get.  Maybe it was a mob hit.  Maybe drugs were involved.

 

    Let’s just hope it’s not the work of a serial killer.  Because whoever did this also decapitated the corpse.  And took the severed head away for some unfathomable reason.

 

What’s To Like...

    If you like the idea of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child returning to the tried-and-true formula of FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast teaming up with Lieutenant Vinnie D’Agosta to solve a series of brutal murders, you’ll love City of Endless Night.  Connie Swanson is a no-show, and Constance Greene and Laura Hayward only make cameo appearances.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that a string of murders-by-decapitation follow the initial one described above.  Pendergast’s normally reliable Holmesian deductions are stymied by a seemingly lack of killing pattern, which opens the door to possible multiple and/or copycat murderers, or even random slayings just to blur the killer's motives.

 

    There are several secondary plotlines that bolster our protagonists’ sleuthing.  Tabloid reporter Bryce Harriman decries the lack of progress in the investigation, and comes up with a whodunit theory of his own, which even Pendergast has to admit has merit.  Harriman also coins the titular phrase “City of Endless Night” to describe a city terrified by a plethora of killings that the police seem to be unable to solve.  Meanwhile, an ex-Jesuit priest stirs the passions of the populace by reinventing the historical “Bonfire of the Vanities”.  I found it fascinating how Preston & Child smoothly blended both of those plot threads into the main storyline.

 

    As with any Pendergast thriller, the pacing is quick, plot twists abound, and our protagonists teeter on becoming the next victims.  At least one recurring character in the series fails to make it to the end of the book.  I liked that the perpetrator(s) are just as cunning and resourceful as our heroes.

    The chapters are short: 66 of them plus an epilogue to cover 374 pages.  The ending is 100 pages of excitement and thrills.  Pendergast finds himself being forced to play and badly outwitted in a deadly game where only an adjustment in his usual thought processes will keep him alive.  All of the plot threads are nicely tied up.  City of Endless Night is both a standalone novel and a part of a great series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 12,771 ratings and 1,287 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.07*/5, based on 18,763 ratings and 1,718 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Our private investigators have submitted a preliminary report on Harriman.”

    “Give me the short version.”

    “All reporters are of questionable character, so I’ll leave out the minor sins and peccadillos.  Aside from being a muckraking, ambulance-chasing, rumormongering, backstabbing journalist, the man is a straight arrow.  A preparatory school product who comes from old, old money—money that is petering out with his generation.  The bottom line is that he’s clean.  No prior convictions.  No drugs.”  (pg. 135)

 

    “We must understand the anomalies before we can understand the patterns in what followed.  Why, for example, did somebody take the head twenty-four hours after the girl was murdered?  Nobody seems troubled by this anymore, except for me.”

    “You really think it’s important?”

    “I think it’s vital.”  (pg. 237)

 

“It’s only hubris if I fail.” (Julius Caesar)  (pg. 258)

    The quibbles in City of Endless Night are minor.

 

    There’s a fair amount of cussing: 29 instances in the first 10% of the book.  I noted eight different cusswords utilized, including a couple of f-bombs and a sexual allusion.  Preston and Child will never be accused of penning a cozy murder-mystery novel.

 

    The character-building of Bryce Harriman is stereotypical, as shown in the first excerpt above.  Just once I’d like to see a tabloid reporter that turns out to be a valuable ally of a crime investigator.  Also, if you like the “is it natural or supernatural?” spin that Pendergast novels occasionally have, that’s totally absent here.  Lastly, dogs die.

 

    But I pick at nits.  City of Endless Night is a strong entry in the Agent Pendergast series, a real page-turner and a welcome rebound after what I considered a subpar previous offering, The Obsidian Chamber, and which is reviewed here.  But that was a rare exception to the fine books Preston & Child turn out.  I’ve been hooked on this series for several decades, and am still a half-dozen books away from being caught up.

 

    8½ Stars.  For those who think that the “Bonfire of the Vanities” scene is too outrageous to be believable, I once attended a “book/music/movie burning” here in the greater Phoenix area.  LPs, VHS tapes, and paperbacks were heaped into pile, battered by zealot wielding a sledgehammer, then put to the torch via a liberal helping of lighter fluid.  All in the name of the Jesus.  That was 30 years ago or so.  Today it's 2023, and we’re seeing an upsurge in book-banning.  A present-day “Bonfire of the Vanities” event seems to get more plausible each passing day.