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Against the Wall, by Jarkko SipilaJarkko SipilaFinnish journalist and author. He has written 11 crime novels since his debut 1996. His protagonist is Lieutenant Detective Kari Takamaki, chief of the Helsinki Police Violent Crimes Unit.Takamaki, unlike most Finnish fictional police characters, is not a boozing wildcat, but the ultimate professional who directs his team to track down criminals in an organized fashion. He is also a family man who strives to spend any extra time with his family, sometimes to no avail.  Jarkko Silila Jarkko Sipila is a Finnish journalist / author, and one of the most read crime fiction authors in Finland. He is 45 years old. He has been reporting Finnish crime news for MTV3 TV News and the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper for almost 20 years.
He has written 11 crime novels. Some of his books have been translated into German, but this is the first translated into English. Sipila's style is somewhat noir and hard boiled. His writing is direct with little commentary. He has good knowledge about modern police methods and the stresses of police work. The main character in Sipila’s books is Lieutenant Detective Kari Takamäki. He is the head of the Helsinki Police Violent Crimes Unit. He is professional and team oriented in his work. In this book, most of the police work is done by on e of his team members, the undercover policeman Suhonen, who goes undercover using the name Suikkanen and posing as a hardened criminal. The action in the book starts immediately. A man is killed by a hitman. Later, in an abandoned house in Northern Helsinki, his dead body is found in the garage by the police. Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki’s homicide team gets the case from a snitch that reports it to Suhonen. The case has all the markings of a professional hit. Even so, some traces are found at the murder site. And clearly the police informant knows more than he has told the police. The book describes a hard and tough underworld in Finland, with organized crime, gangs, and connections to the Russian underground. The story moves in a world of gangsters, prisons, snitches, corrupt officials, undercover police and hardworking detectives. Against the Wall is very well plotted. It is written is a slow-moving and direct style. Pieces of the puzzle and the larger plot become visible gradually, and this serves to build the excitement towards a plausible and interesting ending. As well, the characters, while not being fully drawn, are realistic and very interesting. I enjoyed reading it, and strongly recommend it. Vengeance, by Jarkko SipilaThis is the second book in the Helsinki Homicide series by Finnish author Jarkko Sipila Suhonen, the undercover detective who runs surveillance of the criminals and the crime gangs in Helsinki, by chance witnesses a meeting between one of the high ranking criminal operators and an unknown man. The meeting seems important, and Suhonen decides to track down the other man. He turns out to be a Russian gangster operating out of Lithuania, a man high up in a Russian gang there. Something is about to happen, but nobody seems to know exactly what. At the same time, Tapani Larsson, the vice president of the violent and criminal motorcycle gang The Skulls walks out of prison after having finished his sentence. It was Suhonen, working undercover, who had placed him there. Now the president of the gang is behind bars as well, serving a life time sentence, and Larsson is the boss, controlling all the resources of the gang. He has big plans for expansion, and wants to rebuild the gang and restore it to its former glory after all their recent losses in their ongoing war with the police. But foremost in his mind is revenge. Vengeance. He is determined to take down Suhonen. Suhonen and his colleagues in the Violent Crimes Unit led by Lieutenant Takamäki in the Helsinki Police do all they can to stem the tide of crime, but they are seriously understaffed. And when the situation provides them with an unexpected opportunity to insert an undercover agent into the headquarter of the Skulls – a snitch, a friend of Suhonen who is a very difficult tangle and can be used – they grab it. However, bad luck strikes them a severe blow when the undercover agent is seen meeting with Suhonen by someone who knows the value of such information. The undercover agent’s cover is blown, and the Skulls use that valuable piece of information to set a deadly trap. Vengeance is a truly chilling and extremely dark crime fiction book – a real Helsinki noir. We meet drug addicts, snitches, ex-cons, gang members, gang bosses, drug couriers, and all sorts of people from the thriving, throbbing and ever expanding world of crime in Helsinki. We also meet the tired, disillusioned and overworked cops, whose resources are stretched far too thin. I loved it. Vengeance is suspenseful, exciting, fast paced, and written in a crisp style, full of cynicism and dark humor. It simply doesn’t get any better than this. An excellent book, strongly recommended. "A thrilling, captivating story." - Helsingin Sanomat |
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Against the Wall (Finnish title Vasten seinää) - the 2009 Winner of the Best Finnish Crime Novel, 
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that has been translated into English. The previous book, Against the Wall, was the winner of the 2009 Best Finnish Crime Novel award. In Vengeance, the dark story from the violent underbelly of Helsinki continues more or less where it ended in Against the Wall.
