Free (Kindle/Kobo UK) Snow Angels by J. Thompson [Award-Nom Finnish Crime Thriller]

[ATDrake]

Snow Angels by the late long-term Finland-resident US expat author James Thompson (SYKM, Wikipedia) is the 1st in his Inspector Vaara series of "Nordic noir"-style Finnish crime thrillers set in Lapland and Helsinki, starring the eponymous increasingly morally compromised police officer, free courtesy of publisher HarperCollins' Avon imprint.

This was a 2011 Finalist for both the Edgar and Anthony Award for Best First Novel, according to SYKM.

Currently free @ Amazon UK, & Kobo (most likely only available to the UK), and may possibly drop @ B&N UK & iTunes UK in another few days (linked for your price-drop check convenience) if the typical pattern of HC UK multi-store freebie-ization holds.

Unlikely to cross the pond, as this is a different edition than the North American one.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because even though you're all probably sick of me telling you that I have this inordinate fondness for cultures which produce dragon boats, I really do. And thus I absolutely love it when we get free stuff involving the Nordic regions (and East Asia), so today is a happy day over here in Canada.

Enjoy!

Description
The first thriller in a new series featuring Inspector Kari Vaara: the haunted, hardened detective who must delve into Finland's dark and violent underbelly.

Kaamos: Just before Christmas, the bleakest time of the year in Lapland. The unrelenting darkness and extreme cold above the Arctic Circle drive everyone just a little insane . . . perhaps enough to kill.

A beautiful Somali immigrant is found dead in a snowfield, her body gruesomely mutilated, a racial slur carved into her chest. Heading the murder investigation is Inspector Kari Vaara, the lead detective of the small-town police force. The vicious killing may have been a hate crime, a sex crime-or one and the same. Vaara knows he must keep this potentially explosive case out of the national headlines or else it will send shock waves across Finland, an insular nation afraid to face its own xenophobia.

The demands of the investigation begin to take their toll on Vaara and his marriage. His young American wife, Kate, newly pregnant with their first child, is struggling to adapt to both the unforgiving Arctic climate and the Finnish culture of silence and isolation. Meanwhile Vaara himself, haunted by his rough childhood and failed first marriage, discovers that the past keeps biting at his heels: He suspects that the rich man for whom his ex-wife left him years ago may be the killer.

Endless night can drive anyone to murder.