Helsinki White [Hardcover]

Even in the world of Scandinavian crime thrillers, this book stands out for its dark view of the world of policemen and criminals. In 2010 Newsweek picked Finland as the best place in the world to live but the Finland described in this harsh, bleak policier is far from idyllic. Its politicians are uniformly corrupt. With porous frontiers, the trafficking in drugs and women is out of hand. Short on personnel and hampered by the laws, the police can't stop it. Unemployment is rampant and with it, hatred of the foreigners who have entered the country and compete with Finns for jobs. The fastest growing political party in Finland is the True Finns, who are campaigning on a platform of the deportation of non-natives. Behind them lurks the specter of a growing neo-Nazi fringe.

Kari Vaala is the only policeman in this increasingly fractured country to have been shot twice in the line of duty. He is close to a national hero as a result. Now Kari is approached by the national chief of police: he wants Kari to head a covert black ops group. It will operate outside the law, robbing criminals and using their money and drugs to finance its further operations. Kari hesitates and the chief reminds him that he's not "some kind of a Good Samaritan in a white hat." He's "a rubber-hose cop, a thug and a killer... You'll do anything to get what you view as justice... You're frustrated because you can't make a difference... With our limited ... resources, we can't possibly make even a dent in the human slavery industry. Picture all those victims and how many ... you could save from abject misery." Kari gives in. He handpicks his team. One member is "a violent nutcase with an IQ of 172," the other an amiable giant of a sociopath.

But for a year Kari has suffered terrible headaches. He finally goes in for an examination. The examination discloses a large, aggressive tumor which must be removed at once. The operation is a success but there is an unfortunate side effect: Kari is cancer-free but no longer feels anything inside. He's become a sociopath, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. He tries to hide his lack of emotion from his wife and his partners in the black ops unit, but it becomes harder when he is called back to investigate two high profile cases: the torture death of an immigrant rights activist and a kidnapping case with racist overtones.

Corruption surrounds and contaminates Kari. His boss makes him take a share of the money he has taken from the criminals because otherwise how can the powers that be (who also take a share) trust him? His team engages in one illegal activity after another -blackmail, robbery, threats, torture, killings. His wife is drinking more and more: he has to buy baby formula because her breast milk is contaminated with alcohol. By the time he solves the cases, the damage to his own life and hers may be irreparable.

This is a very dark novel but also an exceptionally good one. The action never flags, and although the general direction of Kari's investigations is clear as the plot progresses, the author never telegraphs what will happen. The characters are compelling and clearly drawn. Thompson was born and raised in Kentucky but has lived in Finland for the past dozen years. He writes about his adopted country with authority. I haven't read the previous two novels in this series, but if they are as good as this one, I most certainly will.

What has happened to Kari Vaara, the hero of the Helsinki police force? "After being shot twice in the line of duty and being decorated for bravery both times - and especially since Milo and I stopped a school shooting and were glorified in the press for saving the lives of children - I'm a nationally respected figure." He has fallen a long way since Thompson's two previous Vaara novels. In this noir and bleak novel, Kari is morally corrupt and bankrupt

Without any spoilers, the novel starts out with Kari and his wife becoming parents for the first time. Kate gives birth to a lovely girl, Anu. Shortly after this, Kari is asked to join a black ops division which reports directly to the chief of police. The idea is that Kari and his two henchmen (one a crazy genius and the other an alcoholic dimwit) will steal from the bad guys, keep part of the proceeds themselves, give some to the boss, and use the rest to fund the unit. Kari rationalizes to himself that he can make a positive difference by getting pimps, dealers, and all-around bad guys busted. He can do it high-tech, too, without violence - or so he thinks, despite both of his colleagues having a penchant for violence. However, Kate, his wife, says to him "That makes you a dirty cop." And she is right. However, in Kari's mind 'We're not going to war with the criminals of Helsinki, we're going to steal them broke and put them out of business."

Another problem that Kari has is that he has a brain tumor that needs immediate surgery. First there needs to be a biopsy and then the actual surgery which comes with many risks, some quite severe. Kari's brother is a neurologist and he speeds up the process at the hospital so that Kari gets first priority. In Finland, there is no cost for medical treatment and this whole surgery is free!

On the country's political side, a dark horse party is quickly gaining ground. This is called the Real Finn party, "like a more virulent strain of American Teabaggers." However, Real Finns practice hatred toward immigrants. "Other than hate, their agenda wasn't clear." Finland is in dire financial straits with nearly 20% of the population living below the poverty line. Jobs are being outsourced to other countries, inflation is high and wages are stagnant. It is a good petrie dish for a hate agenda.

When the head of Lisbet Soderlund is sent to the Finnish Somalia Network, all hell breaks loose. The Finnish Somalia Network represents Somali immigrants in Finland. Soderlund is a past member of the European parliament and, at the time of her death, is the minister of immigration and European affairs. Jyri, Kari's boss, asks him to work on the murder. They want Kari specifically to work on this murder because he solved the murder of the first high-profile black person ever murdered in Finland - the Sufia Elmi murder.

The book deals a lot with Kari's conflicting feelings about what he's doing, the fall-out from the murder investigation, and the corruptness found everywhere in Finland. There is a lot of talk about weapons and technology that I found boring, and the book proceeds with uneven pacing. There is a lot missing in this book compared to Thompson's two previous novels.

James Thompson gives these words to his protagonist, Kari Varra, a detective in Finland's national police force, in the firsst book in the series, SNOW ANGELS. "Finland has a ... lot of violent crime....We kill the people we love... almost always in drunken rages.... We don't talk about hatred, we hate in silence. It's our way. We do everything in silence."

In LUCIFER'S TEARS, the silence becomes deafening. Kari is asked to investigate Finnish heroes of the German occupation during World War II. Germany wants to identify Finns who cooperated with the Gestapo in the killing of Jews. HELSINKI WHITE screams rage and greed. There is no longer any need to hide behind whispers.

Kari's life has been turned inside out. Within 24 hours, Kari's American wife, Kate has given birth to a perfect and healthy daughter. Kari has been suffering from severe migraines for over a year. His brother is a neurologist and when Kari tells him his problem, he finds himself rushed into surgery for the removal of a benign brain tumor. Kari recovers quickly but the surgery has removed those parts of his personality that allow him to feel emotions beyond that of a six year-old who wants what he wants when he wants it. Kari is intelligent and he is in love with his wife deeply enough to create a persona based on his memory of love. He practices smiling in the mirror.

Kari recognizes that without emotions, life lacks meaning. Nothing has intrinsic value. Before the brain surgery, Kari Vaara was a national hero, shot twice in the line of duty. He was a good cop who believed it was his role to do things to help the people of Finland. It is this Kari who is offered the leadership position in a new black ops unit designed to control the drug trade in Finland. He makes it clear that he will not kill anyone. When the unit becomes operational, it is the post-surgery Kari who is in charge and killing is merely the means to an end. Kari is a rogue cop without a conscience.

The global economic crisis hits Finland and the Finns react by creating a political identity similar to that in America. The Real Finns, like the Tea Party, have to blame some group for their loss of power and influence. Both countries turn on their dark-skinned immigrants. James Thompson moves from the Finland of the travel channel to a dystopian view of what a country can become when it buries its long held values and creates a society of "others".

Kari Vaara is Finland. The honest, hard-working cop, committed to helping those who need it, becomes something unrecognizable. The man who knows that he has loved his wife deeply has to pretend he still does. The moment he hold his new-born daughter he discovers a love he never knew existed and then she is no more than a stranger. Finland welcomed strangers in the good times but when those good times faded, Finland turned back to its recent past. There are still those who remember the German occupation and some still agree with the Nazi philosophy of racial purity. Kari loses himself when part of his brain is removed, leaving an empty space. Finland's empty space is created by financial upheaval and it is being filled by racism.

James Thompson has written a thriller in the sense of thriller as fear. Many of the books set in the Nordic countries that have been published recently have raised the spectra of the emerging neo-Nazi movements. Hitler capitalized on the fear and the uncertainty of the Great Depression. The current economic crisis has raised some of those same concerns about Jews and those who come into countries to steal that to which they have no right. Kari asks a leader of the neo-Nazi movement why this would be good for Finland. He replies that Naziism offers societal protection for those who have the same race, values, and beliefs. There is still enough of the real Kari left to know that that such society is a myth.

Thompson has taken a hard look at the culture of us/them and wrapped them in a police procedural that starts with the murder of a high-ranking member of the government. It is difficult to get any sense of where the author is going to go with the next book in the series but everyone who reads book three is a guaranteed audience for book four.

Kate wonders if their new status is a result of Kari being a criminal. She is told that it is the result of Kari being powerful. Thompson suggests that the words are synonymous.

As to the title, Helsinki is being destroyed by the white heroin and cocaine that is flooding the city. Helsinki and Finland will self-destruct if they embrace the racial purity policies of the Nazis.

This is an exceptional book.