REVIEWS OF LUCIFER’S TEARS
“Stellar…. Thompson elegantly threads Finland’s compelling national history with Vaara’s own demons in this taut, emotionally wrought novel.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An impossible-to-put down read. Thompson’s second book, even better than the first, will surely be one of the best Nordic mysteries published in 2011. Essential reading for all fans of Arnaldur Indridason, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, and Jo Nesbo.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Nazi collaboration, government cover-ups, kinky sex, a baby daughter waiting impatiently to be born and a vigilante-minded hero who talks back to his boss more irreverently than Dirty Harry. What more could you want?”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“ Intriguing insights into Nordic cultures… [a] hard-boiled sensibility. Give this to readers of gritty procedurals both international and domestic.”
—Library Journal
Hamlet has always been Shakespeare’s most popular play, and some of our best contemporary writers and filmmakers, from Martin Scorsese to Cormac McCarthy, have found a large audience without sacrificing their ability to view violence as something other than an excuse for easy heroics. To take a noteworthy recent example, the superb new crime novelist James Thompson has written two books – Snow Angels and Lucifer’s Tears – that combine his extraordinary skills as a stylist and storyteller with his mature and moving sense of the costs that violence exacts from individuals and from society as a whole… The poet had a keen understanding of violence and its place in culture, and I think what Yeats writes here is imbued with meaning. From “Meditations in Time of Civil War,” 1923. “We had fed the heart on fantasies. / The heart’s grown brutal from the fare.”
–The New Haven Review
courtesy of WSOY
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MORE REVIEWS OF LUCIFER’S TEARS
New York Journal of Books, by Sam Millar
The Goddess Bettie Page
Pittsburgh Tribune Review, by Rege Behe
REVIEWS OF SNOW ANGELS
“. . .Snow Angels is memorable as much for the reverse expatriate subplot as it is for the wonderfully lurid quality of both the prose and revelations behind the initial and later murders . . . it’s the mix of both that provides the necessary ingredients for this stark page-turner.”
—Los Angeles Times “Dark Passages” Blog; February 7, 2010 Read
“The bitter cold and seasonal darkness of a Finnish winter provide the haunting atmospherics for this latest entry in the popular Nordic noir genre. Here’s the twist: Author James Thompson is an American expat who has lived in Finland for the past decade. He effectively captures the genre’s signature elements as he lays out Inspector Kari Vaara’s search for the killer of a Somali celebrity found horribly mutilated in a snowy field. The case puts a strain on his relationship with his pregnant new wife, his odd parents, who blame him for the death of his sister, and his repulsive ex-wife and her bizarre husband, who keep popping up during the investigation. Don’t miss this one.”
—USA Today; February 18, 2010 Read
“James Thompson’s Snow Angels has the bracingly clean prose you’d expect from a book set above the Arctic Circle . . . Thompson, an American who has lived in Finland for years, writes vividly of a place he clearly knows and loves.”
—Seattle Times; January 10, 2010 Read
“. . . worth a pounce, especially the stark vignettes of daily life in near or total darkness. The American-born author, who lives in Finland, doesn’t flinch from portraying his characters in various stages of drunkenness, truculence and madness, and some of these portraits are hard to take — harder, even, to shake.”
—New York Times Book Review; January 24, 2010
“A major new talent…. If you like Scandinavian mysteries (Henning Mankell, Arnaldur Indridason, et al.) and the first-person narratives of American detective fiction, Snow Angels should be right up your alley. Thompson is hard at work on the sequel, and I will be among the first in line to read it.”
—BookPage Read
PRAISE FOR SNOW ANGELS
“The laconic voice of inspector Kari Vaara is at the same time dangerous and human, his world cold, barren, yet intriguingly exotic, his story fast, brutal, yet told with a sort of laid-back calm.”
—Peter Hoeg, author of Smilla’s Sense of Snow
“This book is wonderful. It took me right in, dropped me into a strange new world, and kept me captivated from first to last page. James Thompson has done a masterful job with Snow Angels!”
—Michael Connelly
“Snow Angels is a raw-edged noir thriller. Thompson keeps it foreign and darkly exotic, yet his protagonist, reminiscent of Spade, Marlowe, Hammer, and Archer, is warmly recognizable. A classic American feel in the Arctic Circle—an incredible feat.”
—Lou Manfredo, author of Rizzo’s War
From the cover of Corpse Culture. The magazine of Finland's crime novel society.
Los Angeles Times
The Globe and Mail
Booklist Online: The Year’s Best Crime Novels
as Hunter S. Thompson
The Week’s Most Talked About Books
The Mystery Reader
The Game’s Afoot
Bewildered in New York
