Inspector Kari Vaara Books
A Booklist Best Crime Novel Debut “Don’t miss this one.”— USA Today "A masterful job." -Michael Connelly It is called kaamos--two weeks of unrelenting darkness and soul-numbing cold that falls upon Finnish Lapland, a hundred miles into the Arctic Circle, just before Christmas. Some get through it with the help of cheap Russian alcohol; some sink into depression. This year, it may have driven someone mad enough to commit murder. The brutalized body of a beautiful Somali woman has been found in the snow, and Inspector Kari Vaara must find her killer. It will be a challenge in a place where ugly things lurk under frozen surfaces, and silence is a way of life.
From the acclaimed author of Snow Angels comes a new novel featuring Inspector Vaara. Inspector Kari Vaara has left the Arctic Circle and returned- reluctantly-to Helsinki, where headaches and sleeplessness plague him. But he must work through the pain. He has two cases on his plate: the brutal murder of a Russian businessman's wife, and-more secretively-an investigation into an elderly Finnish national hero who may have played a darker role in World War II than the public knows. Vaara's past has turned him into a haunted man. The questions he's asking now may turn him into a hunted man as well...
Inspector Kari Vaara, recovering from brain surgery, is back to doing police work—under circumstances most cops only dream of. Reporting directly to the national chief of police, Kari and his partners Milo and Sulo have been granted secrecy and autonomy for their new black-ops unit, and plenty of cash to work with, including whatever they can steal from Helsinki’s mobsters. But Kari's team is too good, and their actions have unintended consequences...The president of Finland wants the team on a new case: the vicious assassination of a prominent immigrants' rights activist. Against a backdrop of simmering hatred spreading across the country, Kari must solve a case that involves the kidnapping of a billionaire’s children, a Faustian bargain with a former French Legionnaire—and his own wife.
James Thompson's incomparable Inspector Vaara is back in a new chilling Nordic mystery. An Estonian woman begs Inspector Kari Vaara to find her daughter, Loviise, a young woman with Down syndrome who was promised work and a better life in Finland… and has since disappeared. One more missing girl is a drop in the barrel for a police department that is understaffed and overburdened, but for Kari, the case is personal: it’s a chance for redemption, to help the victims his failed black-ops unit was intended to save, and to prove to his estranged wife, Kate, that he’s still the man he once was. His search will lead him from the glittering world of Helsinki’s high-class clubs to the darkest circles of Finland’s underground trade in trafficked women and straight into the path of Loviise’s captors, who may be some of the most untouchable people in the country.
In the stunning new thriller from the Edgar Awardnominated author, Inspector Kari Vaara has gained the top position in the Finnish police, and all the power it entails. . . . As the new national police commissioner of Finland, Kari Vaara, along with his team Milo and Sweetness, now has the keys to the kingdom. With his vast collection of dirt, Kari purges the police ranks of the corrupt and undesirable, and he assigns the newly open job of commissioner of SUPO, Finland’s secret police, to Milo. Milo goes to work with the SUPO archives, having them scanned and organized for his analysis. As he digs deeper into the immense body of records, the evidence points to alarming conclusions. It’s a commonly held belief that there are no serial killers in Finland. Milo is about to prove that theory to be disturbingly wrong. Meanwhile, Kari is called to the scene of a bizarre and gruesome murder. A man is found hanging upside down from his left foot, his right leg bent at the knee and tied to the left. His hands are tied behind his back. There is no forensic evidence in the house. And the only clues at the crime scene include an odd assortment of goods: robes, a wand, a dull dagger, and a deck of tarot cards . . .