In their review of The
Mine, Helsingin Sanomat characterises
Antti Tuomainen (1971-) as “an internationally known Finnish crime writer, special
because he is not actually a crime writer” (Link: https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/kirja-arvostelu/art-2000002848674.html).
Tuomainen himself tells us that his primary interest in all his novels is to
explore human relationships, especially within a family. He seeks moments when people are faced with extreme choices with significant
consequences and aims to show characters making choices that we, in our normal
lives, would not make. He avoids questions about his status as the “king of
Helsinki noir.” In his interview on Aamun kirja programme (link: http://areena.yle.fi/1-3029755)
Tuomainen comes across as likeable and sympathetic, thoughtful and measured. He published his first crime novel Tappaja, toivoakseni (The Killer, I Wish) in 2006. His third novel The Healer (original Parantaja,
2010, English edition 2013) won the Annual Clue Award in 2011 and his books
are sold in 27 countries.
In his fifth novel The
Mine (2016, original Kaivos
published in 2015), Tuomainen tells a story about a father and son. He
emphasises this twice on Aamun kirja. He wanted to create “changed men;” to
write about men at turning points in their lives, facing questions not only
about right and wrong as could be expected in a crime novel, but also about
what a family is and what it means to be a father or a son. The Mine is a sentimental story about
the return of an absent father, wanting to make amends, and he does so by
helping his journalist son to tackle a political scandal and a bunch of bad guys in the
snow-flurries of northern Finland.
Tuomainen is good at describing cold and snow throughout, a
handy talent for a Nordic crime writer to have. In places there is such a wealth
of explanatory detail it feels like Tuomainen struggles with exposition and
piles it on a page a little too generously. The choice of a distancing
third-person narrative for the view point of the father in contrast to the
first person narrative for the son makes the shifts between these viewpoints
clear, but it also makes the character of the father sound pompous and awkward.
The son Janne receives an anonymous email about
environmental crimes committed at a nickel mine in the far north of Finland and
the questionable dealings of the mining company with the Finnish government. The
events take place in meticulously described Helsinki with trips to the frozen
north. Part of this plot are a dead, possibly murdered, maverick
journalist (p53-4) whose notes are jealously guarded by a feisty daughter, who
is a member of a radical environmental campaign group (p124). There is much
potential here for a topical political thriller: big evil business, a local
community dependent on it, a national industry at stake. When Janne’s father Emil,
an international assassin, appears to have been hired to kill some of the
mining company’s board, crime quite cleverly becomes a family affair and the
two plot lines begin to intermingle.
The story of the family and the crime story do not gel. They
jostle along uncomfortably. The family story becomes uneventful and
heavy-handed; the crime story becomes confusing with undeveloped characters
killed for no apparent reason. Both narrative strands are valid, but the
attempt to mash them together does a significant disservice to both. When they
come together at the end, when the father steps in to save his son (very useful
to have a contract killer for a father) the ending feels flat. The bad guys are
dispatched promptly and quite effortlessly (p180), the family is reunited
without any apparent feelings of bitterness or even awkwardness (p255).
The problem lies perhaps in Tuomainen’s declared key interest:
character development. Emil returns to Finland after 30 years abroad (p11)
having abandoned his wife and 1-year-old Janne (p41) without a word of
farewell. He is now disillusioned with his killing career (p29) and has a sentimental
obsession with his son (p178, 185, 187, 189). He also wants to return to his
wife. It is not explored what has brought him to this frame of mind. There
would be much dramatic potential here for drama and
conflicting emotions. Tuomainen does little with it: Emil does not change in
the course of the story, he doggedly sticks to his maudling longing for his
family. His family’s reaction is equally disappointing. Janne’s response is “Welcome
back ... I suppose” (p62). Janne's attention is torn between the crime he is
investigating and his father’s return, this makes his character stutter between
these two main plot interests. His own broken marriage and relationship with
his little daughter become almost footnotes (pp19-20, 39 169). Emil is also forgiven
and welcomed back by his abandoned wife Leena with open arms (p121, 137, 202).
It looks like her life never moved on during the three decades Emil was
away.
The Mine is a
curious crime story, because there is a distinct lack of moral tension or moral
ambiguity. The father is not really a bad man, he only ever murdered people who
deserved to be murdered (p188). The mining company is not really evil; the CEO
is a good man (p18, 241), there were just some greedy board members who
were summarily removed by Emil in an obscure internal power struggle. There is no punishment for the wicked: the killer is never
caught. The evil big business is never prosecuted; the worst they experience is
a mild threat of exposure in the media. “Nobody has won – not even the author
of the exposé” (p246), Janne concludes in his final blog entry on the matter.
The real punch line of the novel is the final chapter of the family reunion.
This seems to suggest that neither legal nor social justice, nor the
environment matter. The only thing that does matter is the nuclear family: “family is the most
important thing we have” (p187) (although Janne’s own wife and daughter are
left aside).
In The Mine, Antti Tuomainen is just too nice: the story is killed by the sweet sentimentality of the author. Tuomainen is an interesting writer and clearly ambitious in the way he uses the crime story formula. I doubt The Mine is his best book.
