Review by yvo_about_books - The Burning Stones

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yvo_about_books 's review for:

The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen

3.75

funny mysterious medium-paced

Finished reading: April 5th 2025

"It was a good thing I'd already begun my own investigation, although it had got off to a jittery start. But I was a middle-aged stove retailer, not Sherlock Holmes."

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Orenda Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

Antti Tuomainen is a master at blending dark humor with the Nordic noir genre, creating a story that is both completely absurd and strangely relatable at the same time. It's one of the reasons I couldn't resist adding The Burning Stones to my shelves... I mean: a murder inside a sauna?! I just HAVE to know more about that! And while the story itself was a tad too light on the absurdness to my taste, I still had an excellent time discovering the truth behind the sauna murder.

I admit that I'm not a big sauna fan in real life, but sauna business sure does make for a great backdrop for this story and it also provides us with some pretty hilarious situations as well as crafty murders along the way. It is also something typical of Antti Tuomainen: taking a small town and a local business and turning it into something so much more. The fact that the characters in play mostly seem like ordinary people makes it so much easier to relate to them, with certain information then crossing the line to the more unique, quirky or absurd. In a way I wish there would have been more absurdness to be honest... Sure, we have Santeri's obsession with all things Formula One, Erkki's quirky behavior that disguises something more and Kahavuori thinking that he can solve the crime because he watches a lot of true crime, but it was all rather mild compared to some of his other stories.

The plot itself is basically the main character Anni trying to discover who is behind the murder before she is arrested for the crime herself. After all, she is the only one who KNOWS she is innocent after all. Since she is by no means a real detective, this of course leads to a lot of complicated situations... I do wish Anni's character would have been a little more interesting; sure, she has that dark secret of what happened 30 years ago hanging over her, but otherwise her character was rather bland for an Antti Tuomainen book. Not that I wasn't rooting for her... I could have done without the cheating element though.

This book might not be for everyone, but if you love dark humor sprinkled with a healthy dose of crime and a Finnish setting, The Burning Stones might just be the book for you. It's definitely not every day that a murder takes place inside an actual sauna! This book has reminded me that I really have to find time to return to his backlist some time soon.

Content Warnings