#NordicFINDS23 The Rabbit Factor (Finland)

JANUARY

by Antti Tuomainen

Genre: Dark crime comedy
Rating: A+++
Review: The Rabbit Factor (ISBN: 9781913193850)

Quick Scan: An hilarious quirky thriller by the Finnish author about an insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen, who knows most of life’s answers because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal. Everything changes when he suddenly loses his job…and unexpectedly inherits an adventure park! It has seven quirky employees, none of whom could function for even a day in the real world. Of course, to make things interesting, the park is up to its veritable eyeballs in debt and a bunch of nasty hoodlums are demanding interest payments.

Good news: Classic structure: chapter one is the hook with an absurdly funny chase scene between narrator and a ‘bad guy” wielding a knife through a children’s park. Chapter two…flashbacks…how this whole story started. I loved the ‘shocker’ first sentences in many chapters.

Personal: Strong point is the comic effect of the main character who is lives by rigorous logical probability (mathematician)…is suddenly thrown into the chaotic aftermath of his dead brother’s shady “business deals”. Character development drips from the pages b/c the poor man must learn to act on gut feeling which he has never had! We feel so much empathy for Henri as he overcomes his fears, obstacles and make changes to survive! #Bravo Antti Toumainen