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WORK TITLE: Cruel Is the Night
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 6/11/1976
WEBSITE:
CITY: Tampere
STATE:
COUNTRY: Finland
NATIONALITY: Finnish
https://sohopress.com/authors/karo-hamalainen/ * https://www.ahlbackagency.com/author/karo-hamalainen/ * https://litreactor.com/reviews/bookshots-cruel-is-the-night-by-karo-hamalainen
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born June 11, 1976.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and journalist. Parnasso, Finland, managing editor; Arvopaperi, Finland, managing editor; Kiiltomato website, editor-in-chief. Hosts a radio show. Previously, worked as an economics reporter.
AVOCATIONS:Reading, running.
AWARDS:Tampere Literary Prize, 2012, for The Buyout; Savonia Prize, 2016, for Alone.
WRITINGS
Also, author of The Buyout, The Bailout, and Alone.
SIDELIGHTS
Karo Hamalainen is a Finnish writer and journalist. He worked for many years as an economics reporter before becoming a managing editor at the Finnish publications, Parnasso and Arvopaperi. Hamalainen is also the editor-in-chief of the literary website, Kiiltomato, and the host oaf a radio program. He has published books in the Finnish language.
In 2017, Hamalainen released his first book in the United States, Cruel Is the Night. It finds two college friends from Finland coming together to have dinner at the London home of one of the friends. Robert, the host, is married to Elise, a beautiful woman whom he seems not to appreciate. Mikko, the college friend, brings along his wife, Veera, who also attended college with the two men. It is revealed that Elise is having an affair with Mikko, and Rob has also had a romantic relationship with Veera. Mikko considers killing the pompous Rob. Each of the four characters narrates a section of the book.
Max Booth III, critic on the Lit Reactor website, suggested: “The book is narrated in first person and every chapter switches POV. Every narration seems to take eighty steps back from where the last one left off. The exposition here reads like the author’s character background outline accidentally got copied into the manuscript and nobody editing it was sober enough to realize it.” Reviewing the volume on the NewsOk website, James Basile remarked: “Hamalainen is a capable writer, but perhaps a shorter length and a stronger focus on the present would have injected this story with more urgency; as it is, there just isn’t that much.” However, other assessments of Cruel Is the Night were more favorable. Booklist writer, Christine Tran, asserted: “Hamalainen initiates a nail-biting shell game of poisons and allegiances.” Tran also noted that the book featured “clever storytelling.”A contributor to Publishers Weekly described the volume as “a darkly humorous, carefully crafted Finnish take on the classic British locked-room mystery.” The contributor stated that the book offered “thrilling surprises.” Discussing the genre of the novel on the International Noir Fiction website, Glenn Harper remarked: “It’s a very dark comedy, sometimes witty and sometimes wildly farcical. Forget the slim thread connecting the book to the mystery genre and enjoy the ride.” “Pick this one up for the challenge of a puzzle mystery,” urged a writer on the Kingdom Books, Mysteries—Reviews website. The same writer suggested that the book provided “plenty of page-turning dialogue and action.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2017, Christine Tran, review of Cruel Is the Night, p. 42.
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of Cruel Is the Night, p. 47.
ONLINE
Elina Ahlback Literary Agency Website, https://www.ahlbackagency.com/ (October 20, 2017), author profile.
International Noir Fiction, http://internationalnoir.blogspot.com/ (March 16, 2017), Glenn Harper, review of Cruel Is the Night.
Karo Hamalainen Website, https://booksbykaro.wordpress.com/ (October 20, 2017).
Kingdom Books, Mysteries—Reviews, http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/ (May 18, 2017), review of Cruel Is the Night.
Lit Reactor, https://litreactor.com/ (April 7, 2017), Max Booth III, review of Cruel is the Night.
NewsOK, www.newsok.com/ (June 11, 2017), James Basile, review of Cruel Is the Night.
Soho Press Website, https://sohopress.com/ (October 20, 2017), author profile.*
Karo Hämäläinen
Karo Hämäläinen (b. 1976) has two passions: literature and the stock market, and has a 15-year background as an economics reporter. He works as the managing editor managing editor of Parnasso, Finland’s best-known literary publication. Hämäläinen’s novel The Buyout was shortlisted for the Savonia Prize in 2011 and received the Tampere Literary Prize in 2012.
Hämäläinen has studied both in the humanities and in economics. Following stints in Helsinki, Munich and Berlin, he now lives in Tampere, Finland. He is a popular lecturer and guest commentator, and has had his own radio show. In his professional work, he uses Finnish, English, German and Swedish. In his spare time, Hämäläinen likes reading and running; his record marathon time set in 2010 is 3:04:04.
KARO HAMALAINEN
Karo Hämäläinen spent 15 years as an economics reporter and currently works as the managing editor of Parnasso, Finland’s leading literary publication. His novel The Buyout was shortlisted for the 2011 Savonia Prize and received the 2012 Tampere Literary Prize. His second novel, Alone, won the 2016 Savonia Prize. Following stints in Helsinki, Munich, and Berlin, he now lives in Tampere, Finland. In his spare time, he likes reading and running; his record marathon time is 3:04:04.
About
Karo Hämäläinen
Karo Hämäläinen (b. 1976) has two passions: literature and the stock market. He works as the managing editor of the leading Finnish investment magazine, Arvopaperi (“Securities”), and as the editor-in-chief of the online literary criticism magazine Kiiltomato, which is supported by a long list of Finnish professional literary associations.
Hämäläinen’s novel The Buyout (2011) combined his two passions for the first time, got critical praise and was awarded with the Literary Prize of Tampere. In The Bailout (2012) he dives into sovereign debt crisis.
Hämäläinen has studied both in the humanities and in economics. Following stints in Helsinki, Munich and Berlin, he now lives in Tampere, Finland. He is a popular lecturer and guest commentator, and has had his own radio show. In his spare time, Hämäläinen likes reading and running; his record marathon time set in 2010 is 3:04:04.
Contact
Media (interviews etc.): karo.hamalainen(at)arvopaperi.fi
Publishers (foreign rights, sample translations etc.): elina(at)ahlbackagency.com
QUOTED: "Hamalainen initiates a nail-biting shell game of poisons and allegiances."
"clever storytelling."
Cruel Is the Night
Christine Tran
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p42.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Cruel Is the Night.
By Karo Hamalainen. Tr. by Owen Witesman.
Apr. 2017. 320p. Soho, $25.95 (9781616956813); e-book, $14.99 (97816169568201.
A tense, irony-laden, not-so-cozy ode to cozies, award-winning author Hamalainen's English-language debut begins
innocently enough as Finnish college friends Mikko, Rob, and Veera reunite in Rob's London penthouse. But the story
quickly darkens as it becomes evident that Mikko plans to murder Rob in a plot entangling Veera and Rob's wife, Elise,
who have their own motives for murder. Rob's ethically flexible financier lifestyle couldn't be more different from his
best friend Mikko's, a journalist world renowned for outing finance's biggest cheats. Mikko is disgusted by Rob's
rampant entitlement and his treatment of Elise, whose covert relationship with Mikko is slowly revealed. And Veera,
Mikko's wife and Rob's occasional lover, harbors a simmering rage over Rob's role in his college girlfriend's death. The
quartet dance around failed and aborted murder attempts as Hamalainen initiates a nail-biting shell game of poisons
and allegiances. It's clear early on that only one of them will survive the night, but clever storytelling masks
Hamalainen's secrets until the final pages.--Christine Tran
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Tran, Christine. "Cruel Is the Night." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 42. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689497&it=r&asid=8ddcd87656ae5094f6d188fa37b1b51a.
Accessed 7 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A488689497
QUOTED: "a darkly humorous, carefully crafted Finnish take on the classic British locked-room mystery."
"thrilling surprises."
10/7/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1507420762565 2/2
Cruel Is the Night
Publishers Weekly.
264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p47.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Cruel Is the Night
Karo Hamalainen, trans. from the Finnish by
Owen Witesman. Soho Crime, $25.95 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-61695-681-3
Hamalainen makes his English-language debut with a darkly humorous, carefully crafted Finnish take on the classic
British locked-room mystery. Telegraphing the ending first--no one is alive in millionaire banker Robert's London
apartment--Hamalainen rewinds to the events of a dinner party, to which Robert has invited his old school friend
Mikko, whose sense of righteousness as an investigative journalist fighting financial corruption leads him to take the
occasion as an opportunity to poison Robert for the good of the world. Mikko's wife, Veera, who is fiercely attached to
him despite a long secret affair with Robert, and Robert's beautiful wife, Elise, whose simplicity hides a complex
background, round out the group. Hamalainen is at ease with using the four distinct character voices to shift the
apparent power balance constantly over the course of the evening, providing both thrilling surprises and the dread of
inevitability, all in the context of some truly delightful dinner dialogue. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Cruel Is the Night." Publishers Weekly, 6 Feb. 2017, p. 47. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480593832&it=r&asid=be9ee2865b3f873110715a4286c5437d.
Accessed 7 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480593832
QUOTED: "The book is narrated in first person and every chapter switches POV. Every narration seems to take eighty steps back from where the last one left off. The exposition here reads like the author’s character background outline accidentally got copied into the manuscript and nobody editing it was sober enough to realize it."
Bookshots: 'Cruel is the Night' by Karo Hamalainen
REVIEW BY MAX BOOTH III APRIL 7, 2017
IN: BOOKSHOTS KARO HAMALAINEN REVIEW
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Bookshots: 'Cruel is the Night' by Karo Hamalainen
Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review
Title:
Cruel is the Night
Who wrote it?
Reading this book is like taking out the trash and having the bottom of the bag rip halfway down the driveway.
Originally written in Finnish by Karo Hamalainen then translated into English by Owen Witesman.
Plot in a box:
Four friends have dinner together, and by the end of the night all but one of them will be dead.
Invent a new title for this book:
Exposition City
Read this if you like(d):
Temazepam
Meet the book’s lead(s):
The four friends: Robert, Mikko, Veera, and Elise.
Said lead(s) would be portrayed in a movie by:
I think it would be funny if James McAvoy played all four characters in the same spirit as his turn in M. Night’s Split.
Setting: Would you want to live there?
London? I would be okay with that.
What was your favorite sentence?
The following is not a well-written passage, but I feel like I can’t write this review without including it somewhere, so here you go:
As I lathered up, I squeezed my arm muscles and my boobs. I massaged my hips and buttocks. I imagined Mikko’s tentative hands. Soon I had to pee. Bending at the knees, I aimed at the drain. Dark yellow urine pierced the soap bubbles. So I would mark my territory this way.
The Verdict:
There are many negative aspects that could potentially be found in a book that I might forgive. Maybe there are a few awkward sentences. Maybe the characters’ actions don’t always make a lot of sense. These flaws won’t always make me stop reading. Sometimes imperfection is okay. Sometimes a rough reading experience can enhance a person’s overall enjoyment. If you disagree, then you’ve never heard of punk rock music.
However, what I cannot forgive is a book that is boring, and Cruel is the Night is exactly that. I embrace nineteen hours of consciousness a day. These days are not infinite. Eventually a black cloud will fall upon me and suck me into its abyss. Until then, I aim to make my time worth while. I want to enjoy being awake. I want to go to sleep each day convinced I have not wasted a single second. While reading Cruel is the Night, I couldn’t help but fear I was wasting my life with every new page.
This is a book about four shitty people having a dinner together. At the end of the night, only one of them will still be alive. The reader is supposed to guess the survivor as they read along, but really, who gives a shit. The real challenge here is even finishing the goddamn thing without falling asleep. Reading this book is like taking out the trash and having the bottom of the bag rip halfway down the driveway.
The book is narrated in first person and every chapter switches POV. Every narration seems to take eighty steps back from where the last one left off. The exposition here reads like the author’s character background outline accidentally got copied into the manuscript and nobody editing it was sober enough to realize it.
Maybe this is simply the case of a bad translation, given the novel was originally written in Finnish by Karo Hamalainen and translated to English by Owen Witesman. I don’t know. I think in this case it would be like comparing the experience of getting bashed in the head by a wooden baseball bat and an aluminum one. Either way, you’re still getting pretty fucked up.
QUOTED: "Hämäläinen is a capable writer, but perhaps a shorter length and a stronger focus on the present would have injected this story with more urgency; as it is, there just isn't that much."
"Cruel Is The Night" by Karo Hämäläinen, translated by Owen Witesman (Soho Crime, 320 pages, in stores)
Finnish authors seem to have a particular style and favorite topics (those translated for an international audience, at any rate), and this, the first English translation of a Karo Hämäläinen novel, doesn't stray too far from the mark. It is both simple and complex, with the surface imagery battling the nuances of the underlying layers. That can be a risky approach and, as seen here, not always easy to pull off.
The premise of this novel is a simple one: Some old friends get together in London for an evening of dinner and revenge. Calling them friends, however, is stretching things a bit.
Robert, the host, has known Mikko for years, but it's safe to say that at best their relationship is contentious. Robert is a successful businessman, an alpha male secure in the knowledge that he is always right, and Mikko is an investigative journalist with the attendant indignities of the self-righteous. Veera, Mikko's wife, has her own particular history with Robert, and Robert's wife Elise, a “standard-issue blond,” is feeling trapped by her husband and is looking for a way out.
Sound like a prose version of "God of Carnage"? Not quite.
This is, in a sense, a sort of “locked room” mystery, but given the approach it reads more like a character study masquerading as such. The two couples have — or think they have — secrets from and with each other, and at least one of them blatantly has murder in mind before the evening is through. That is what drives the action; sadly, that action is too often buried under countless flashbacks and conversations that border on the somnolent.
The tension is also dulled by brief interlude chapters that manage to remove fully half the possible outcomes prematurely, which is an odd choice in a novel predicated on the construction of suspense.
Hämäläinen is a capable writer, but perhaps a shorter length and a stronger focus on the present would have injected this story with more urgency; as it is, there just isn't that much. You know bad things are going to happen before the night is over, but you may stop caring before you reach the denouement.
— James Basile, for The Oklahoman
QUOTED: "It's a very dark comedy, sometimes witty and sometimes wildly farcical. Forget the slim thread connecting the book to the mystery genre and enjoy the ride."
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Karo Hämäläinen: Cruel is the Night
There is a locked-room mystery quality to Finnish author Karo Hämäläinen's first novel to be translated into English, Cruel is the Night, along with an homage to Agatha Christie, toward the end. But the best part of the novel is a black comedy told from the varied points of view of the 3 participants, two couples, Robert and Elise and Mikko and Veera, at a dinner party in the London high rise occupied by Robert and Elise.
The first two monologues, by boyhood friends Robert and Mikko, and pompous and self-absorbed, qualities that are immediately punctured by Veera's monologue, from outside their self-centered maleness. The Rashomon quality continues with an additional thread about the survivor of the reunion that has brought the couples together (we aren't supposed to know, presumably, who this survivor is, but the language hardly leaves any doubt). So we don't know who the survivor is, or how the presumed deaths of the other 3 occurred, but the mystery isn't really maintained as a driving force of the book, which remains a fairly static series of interrelated blackouts that reveal the interrelationships, obvious and not, of these 4.What draws the reader on is more the comic but emotionally loaded interplay, revealed not only through the dialogue at the party but also through flashbacks to their past, some of which deal with the death of Robert's girlfriend, in their youth (Mikko and Veera became a couple almost by default, as friends of Robert and the doomed girl).
So this is a novel about murder, but not a mystery really. Instead it's a very dark comedy, sometimes witty and sometimes wildly farcical. Forget the slim thread connecting the book to the mystery genre and enjoy the ride.
Posted by Glenn Harper at 6:10 PM
QUOTED: "Pick this one up for the challenge of a puzzle mystery."
"plenty of page-turning dialogue and action."
Did you enjoy the plot, characters, twists, and finale of Gone Girl? If so, race to your favorite book-buying route and get a copy of the CRUEL IS THE NIGHT. It's translated from the Finnish, and struck me as closer to Chicago crime than to the usual form of Scandinavian noir that I've read lately ... but the moment I compared it in to Gillian Flynn's runaway success, I knew why this new book from Soho Crime seemed hauntingly familiar in a sort of parallel-universe way. Here's the publisher's synopsis:
Prizewinning Finnish author Karo Hämäläinen’s English-language debut is a literary homage to Agatha Christie and a black comedy locked-room mystery about murder, mayhem, and morality in our cynical modern world.
Well, yes, now that you mention it, "black comedy" and "cynical modern world" effectively tag CRUEL IS THE NIGHT as noir. It's also highly entertaining, as the author's multiple points of view reveal the frictions, resentments, and "frissons" of attraction and repulsion among four people -- two couples reconnecting after years of estrangement, ostensibly to celebrate one couple's striking success.
Pick this one up for the challenge of a puzzle mystery. It's quite an effort to work out the ending before the author takes you there! Hats off to translator Owen Witesman, who propels plenty of page-turning dialogue and action onto the English-language pages.
From Soho Crime, where international crime fiction thrives.