Holy Ceremony, by Harri Nykänen
The narrative goes straight in on the first page with our detective contemplating the body of a young woman laid out in an apartment. Her back is inscribed with a biblical text, prompting immediate assumptions about this being one of those cultish ritual stories. I'd think if you were one of today's very many noir murder mystery addicts, you'd be putting this scenario into a certain familiar box. Myself, I've only read the Stieg Larsson trilogy, but it feels as if I've read many more of this genre, because so many have been televised.
So, does Holy Ceremony stand out in any way? Is it worth one's while to read?
Well, Nykänen does subvert some of those initial expectations, and he does surprise the reader now and again. A nice detail in that opening scene is that when the medical examiner comes in, he immediately declares that he was only examining this self same body at the morgue the previous evening. Events and revelations in the story follow various twists and turns, and I couldn't honestly say I predicted the villain. Mind you, the final reveal is presented largely by infodump, and some might feel a little cheated by that.
As for his detective - apparently now established in three earlier books - there is the usual set of quirks, with his main 'signature' feature being that he's one of only two Jewish detectives on the Helsinki city police force. And his name, 'Ariel Kafka', is almost cartoonish, but thankfully it's not flaunted at us. I like the fact that he's not always on top of the situation, and although at the end he seems to come up with his solution somewhat glibly - he has a lot to thank his two long suffering and very hard working assistants for, they do most of the tedious footwork through the files and the internet - it's sort of satisfying in a grim way that he doesn't manage to get there in time to save certain lives.
I haven't read a book so quickly in a very long time. The main reason was that the story is almost entirely driven by dialogue. On the downside - for me - there's very little scene setting. I guess this is a matter of taste, but I like atmosphere, being drawn into an imagined world. The world of the book is that time of year which in Finland can be uniquely depressing: at the end of winter, when the snow has gone, apart from the ugly banks of grey stuff piled up at the side of the road; the land hasn't warmed up yet, it's cold, and the landscape uncovered by the departed snow is grey brown with little sign of green. The funny thing is that Nykänen clearly can deliver on all that when he wants, as when he does near the end when things are coming to a head.
Kafka himself is quite well characterised, as are many of the others, though the subplot of his subordinate who goes off the rails is a little uneven, I felt. The author is effective at using small details of description to flesh out people, provoking sympathy or dislike as appropriate.
Does this measure up well against other Scandinavian crime fiction? I've already said I haven't read enough of it to say, but I have read detective fiction and I think this could be fairly placed in the second league if that makes sense. However, it's still a decent story. One factor is that it's translated; quite well in a literal sense, but I sensed that the translator may be a better translator than a writer. Another factor is the Finnish language which remains, in the place names. Some readers may feel a bit lost there, and I wonder if a simple glossary would have been in order. But to be honest, it's why I picked the book up on that occasional trip to the library, when I saw that it was set in Helsinki, because after some visits there I'm somewhat familiar with many of those places and enjoyed bringing it all to mind. The only caveat is that Holy Ceremony may give a very misleading impression of the amount of violent crime taking place in one of the most law abiding countries on the planet!
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