Lucifer’s Tears by James Thompson (2011. Putnam. ISBN 978-0-399-15700-4)
The sophomore jinx. You know, the old adage that an author’s second book is never as good as his or her first. Is it true? I can’t tell you, whether, in a general sense, that old chestnut is accurate. But in the case of Lucifer’s Tears, author James Thompson’s second installment in the Inspector Vaara series, I can say this: Thompson’s on the right track.
The playbook for the protagonist, Kari Vaara, is pretty much the same as the first go-round: A beautiful woman is found murdered. Bad people have not only killed Iisa Fillipov, wife of a Russian immigrant to Helsinki; they have, as in the first book, ritually brutalized her. In essence, Iisa was tortured to death. There’s a sex triangle involving another woman, Linda (who looks an awful like the dead woman), and the apparent framing of a bumbling Estonian, Rein, all somehow tied up in the nasty goings-on involving Iisa’s death, which Kari and his new partner, the gun-happy and tech-savvy Milo must wade through before they solve the crime.
Enter Arvid Lahtinen, a hero of the Winter War and the last surviving member of the Valpo (Finnish secret police) tied to a Nazi extermination camp located within the borders of Finland during WWII. Vaara is dispatched by the head of the national police to investigate Lahtinen’s ties to the atrocities committed at Stalag 309, the camp in question. Documents unearthed seventy years after the end of WWII have been uncovered (true story) which question Finland’s long-held internal belief that it protected the Jews under its control from the SS and the Gestapo. As the last known survivor of Stalag 309, Germany is seeking Lahtinen’s extradition to stand trial for his part in the alleged war crimes and Vaara is given the task of sorting truth from fiction through the lens of history.
Despite the depressing darkness of Thompson’s plot, characters, and setting (you really don’t want to visit Finland after reading his books), I enjoyed this tale far more than Snow Angels.
As stated in my review of Thompson’s debut effort, Snow Angels was so graphic, so barren of redemption (in the form of its characters or its plot) that I found myself regretting I had read the book. Mind you: Thompson is an excellent storyteller and the first book in the series was well crafted. It’s just that I’m not too keen on wading into a river of human suffering and depravity for the sake of entertainment. This sophomore effort by Thompson, with the inclusion of John and Mary; Kate Vaara’s (Kari’s wife’s) sister and brother, who are in Helsinki for the birth of their sister’s daughter; and the further development of Inspector Vaara’s character (to include unexplained migraine headaches) is a far better read in terms of giving Thompson’s fans a story, characters, and plot to remember after the final sentence is read. More complex, more mature with appropriate pace and twists of plot (though the twists do seem a tad predictable), Lucifer’s Tears is a compelling and quick read for the beach.
4 stars out of 5.
(This review also appears in the current issue of New World Finn. See “Links” for the newspaper’s website and subscribe!)
