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Cruel Is the Night
Prizewinning Finnish author Karo Hamalainen's English-language debut is a literary homage to Agatha Christie and a black comedy locked-room mystery about murder, mayhem, and morality in our cynical modern world.
Three cell phones ring in an opulent London apartment. The calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead. Earlier that night, four Finnish friends meet for dinner. It's been ten years since the host, Robert, has seen his once-best friend, Mikko. The two had an ideological falling-out because Robert, a banker, made millions off of unethical (but not illegal) interest rate manipulations. Mikko, meanwhile, is an investigative journalist who has dedicated his career to bringing down corrupt financiers and politicians.
Also along for the evening are Mikko's wife, Veera--with whom Robert once had a secret affair--and Robert's young trophy wife, Elise. Mikko has arrived in London with an agenda and thinks he's about to get away with murder, but he has no idea what's on the menu for the night: not only does every diner have a bone to pick with another, but there's an arsenal of deadly weapons hiding in plain sight. And by the end of the night, there will be only one survivor.
Three cell phones ring in an opulent London apartment. The calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead. Earlier that night, four Finnish friends meet for dinner. It's been ten years since the host, Robert, has seen his once-best friend, Mikko. The two had an ideological falling-out because Robert, a banker, made millions off of unethical (but not illegal) interest rate manipulations. Mikko, meanwhile, is an investigative journalist who has dedicated his career to bringing down corrupt financiers and politicians.
Also along for the evening are Mikko's wife, Veera--with whom Robert once had a secret affair--and Robert's young trophy wife, Elise. Mikko has arrived in London with an agenda and thinks he's about to get away with murder, but he has no idea what's on the menu for the night: not only does every diner have a bone to pick with another, but there's an arsenal of deadly weapons hiding in plain sight. And by the end of the night, there will be only one survivor.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
April 11, 2017
Think I'll avoid dinner parties for a while.....
This has to be one of the more bizarre books I’ve ever read. Described as a “black comedy”, the story unfolds over the course of one evening as 2 couples have dinner in London.
Mikko & Veera have come from Finland at the invitation of Robert. These 3 have known each other since high school & have an intricate & contentious history. Also present is Robert’s new bride Elise who seems the epitome of a trophy wife.
We know early on Mikko plans to kill Robert but his motive is not immediately clear. As the dinner progresses, old grudges are revealed as their entire shared history is relived in flashbacks. In alternate chapters, we follow an anonymous character as he flees London after the dinner party. One of them has survived the carnage but we won’t know who until the final chapters. It's an effective device that kept me reading to discover his identity.
These are not nice people & you may end up thinking them lucky to have found each other as no one else would have them. Long internal passages make us privy to what each is thinking as conversation around the table continues.
Mikko is a self righteous investigative journalist who hates everything the wealthy Robert represents. They have heated debates about everything from the financial crisis to who should sit in which chair. Veera is a nurse whose love for her husband doesn’t stop her from finding pleasure outside the marriage. And Elise is best described as beautiful & heavily medicated. Spending time in her head is like being in a Fellini movie.
The evening gradually descends into a horrific battle as all 4 have competing agendas. It’s difficult to describe the ensuing mayhem except to say it’s over the top & bloody. Nothing goes as planned & it’s more like survival of the “luckiest”.
I’m a huge fan of black humour but it can be a tricky genre because it’s so subjective. I think this will be a very polarizing book. Either you’ll love it or not. Sadly, I fall into the latter camp. I can only describe it as surreal or perhaps as the love child of existential angst & horror.
But hey….not every hat you try on fits. I’m glad I read it as it’s very well written & the author obviously has extensive knowledge of the business world. Possibly something was literally lost in translation for me & no doubt others will find this a perfect fit.
This has to be one of the more bizarre books I’ve ever read. Described as a “black comedy”, the story unfolds over the course of one evening as 2 couples have dinner in London.
Mikko & Veera have come from Finland at the invitation of Robert. These 3 have known each other since high school & have an intricate & contentious history. Also present is Robert’s new bride Elise who seems the epitome of a trophy wife.
We know early on Mikko plans to kill Robert but his motive is not immediately clear. As the dinner progresses, old grudges are revealed as their entire shared history is relived in flashbacks. In alternate chapters, we follow an anonymous character as he flees London after the dinner party. One of them has survived the carnage but we won’t know who until the final chapters. It's an effective device that kept me reading to discover his identity.
These are not nice people & you may end up thinking them lucky to have found each other as no one else would have them. Long internal passages make us privy to what each is thinking as conversation around the table continues.
Mikko is a self righteous investigative journalist who hates everything the wealthy Robert represents. They have heated debates about everything from the financial crisis to who should sit in which chair. Veera is a nurse whose love for her husband doesn’t stop her from finding pleasure outside the marriage. And Elise is best described as beautiful & heavily medicated. Spending time in her head is like being in a Fellini movie.
The evening gradually descends into a horrific battle as all 4 have competing agendas. It’s difficult to describe the ensuing mayhem except to say it’s over the top & bloody. Nothing goes as planned & it’s more like survival of the “luckiest”.
I’m a huge fan of black humour but it can be a tricky genre because it’s so subjective. I think this will be a very polarizing book. Either you’ll love it or not. Sadly, I fall into the latter camp. I can only describe it as surreal or perhaps as the love child of existential angst & horror.
But hey….not every hat you try on fits. I’m glad I read it as it’s very well written & the author obviously has extensive knowledge of the business world. Possibly something was literally lost in translation for me & no doubt others will find this a perfect fit.
March 20, 2018
Three phones ring in a deserted flat. Mikko and Veera, a Finnish couple, go to London to spend an evening with Robert, an old friend, and his wife Elise. Mikko is a journalist, an idealist, faithful to its principles and convinced that his work will serve to make the world a better place. Robert is a successful man, rich, knows what he wants and how to get it. A dinner with friends, a time to meet and reinforcing an old friendship, degenerates into an act of violence with three bodies.
From the beginning, the author present the story starting from the crime perpetrated, but without specifying who the murderer is. I believe that the author plays a bit too much on this mystery. In fact, during dinner the reader become aware of the problems existing between the characters, shameful secrets, but the story wanders often in tedious dissertations between the two men, so different, for ideologies and character. Half of the book is lost in conversations at the table between the two, reflections of the individual characters and only part of the story captures the reader's interest. Some flashbacks add useful information to understand the past.
Even the final, after learning all the facts, it seems to me, however unsatisfactory. I can’t give more than two stars.
Interestingly, each chapter is told from the point of view of a character and some parts from the point of view of the killer, without details that allow the recognition.
From the beginning, the author present the story starting from the crime perpetrated, but without specifying who the murderer is. I believe that the author plays a bit too much on this mystery. In fact, during dinner the reader become aware of the problems existing between the characters, shameful secrets, but the story wanders often in tedious dissertations between the two men, so different, for ideologies and character. Half of the book is lost in conversations at the table between the two, reflections of the individual characters and only part of the story captures the reader's interest. Some flashbacks add useful information to understand the past.
Even the final, after learning all the facts, it seems to me, however unsatisfactory. I can’t give more than two stars.
Interestingly, each chapter is told from the point of view of a character and some parts from the point of view of the killer, without details that allow the recognition.
April 10, 2017
From a fantastic prologue featuring unanswered ringing phones, Cruel Is the Night quickly became a chore for me to read-- despite an added incentive of trying to recognize the Agatha Christie references. The reason why reading this book was such a chore may make some of you sit up and take more notice: it had a cast of characters straight out of Gone Girl. I only lasted twenty-five pages into Gillian Flynn's novel because I wasn't going to waste any more of my life on such repulsive main characters. The cast of Hämäläinen's novel is almost-- but not quite-- as bad as Flynn's, which must be the reason why I was able to finish reading the book.
In addition to the cast, the pace was glacially slow, inviting readers to decide which character was the sole survivor through acres of backstory, but I really didn't care who walked out of there alive. Cruel Is the Night was just not my cup of tea. Your mileage may vary-- and I hope it does.
In addition to the cast, the pace was glacially slow, inviting readers to decide which character was the sole survivor through acres of backstory, but I really didn't care who walked out of there alive. Cruel Is the Night was just not my cup of tea. Your mileage may vary-- and I hope it does.
June 15, 2019
RATING: 3 STARS
2017; Soho Crime/Soho Press
(Review Not on Blog)
I requested this book as it had the the tagline "homage to Agatha Christie" and I am a big fan of classic or classic-esque mysteries. Maybe I was too excited at the prospect and it just fell short of those expectations. I listened to this one on audio and raised the star level by one. The production was done really well - it felt like a play and i really enjoyed the start of the novel - the way the plot was set up. Then I lost a bit of interest in which character lived or died (which is so mean to say, I know). And, the end just made me bring it down a star, so thank gawd I listened to it on audio. I think had I read this novel, I would have given up on it or felt like the ending wasted my reading time. For me it was the style and the twists seemed more important than the story...but I was not a fan of Gone Girl so if you enjoyed that book you may like this one.
***I received an eARC from EDELWEISS***
2017; Soho Crime/Soho Press
(Review Not on Blog)
I requested this book as it had the the tagline "homage to Agatha Christie" and I am a big fan of classic or classic-esque mysteries. Maybe I was too excited at the prospect and it just fell short of those expectations. I listened to this one on audio and raised the star level by one. The production was done really well - it felt like a play and i really enjoyed the start of the novel - the way the plot was set up. Then I lost a bit of interest in which character lived or died (which is so mean to say, I know). And, the end just made me bring it down a star, so thank gawd I listened to it on audio. I think had I read this novel, I would have given up on it or felt like the ending wasted my reading time. For me it was the style and the twists seemed more important than the story...but I was not a fan of Gone Girl so if you enjoyed that book you may like this one.
***I received an eARC from EDELWEISS***
April 29, 2017
The story sounded really intriguing but there was nothing really very special here. The ending is foreshadowed pretty early in the story and the four characters are all pretty one dimensional, pretentious and unlikable. There's also a lot of aimless philosophizing about Agatha Christie and Vincent Van Gogh which does little to advance the story.
In the absence of people to care about or any suspense, it's not much of a mystery in the (quite implausible) end.
In the absence of people to care about or any suspense, it's not much of a mystery in the (quite implausible) end.
August 25, 2017
Boring, unbelievable, featherbrained storyline of 2 sets of married couples at a dinner party. The book is narrated in first person and every chapter alternates among the 4 diners. Unfortunately, much of the characters thoughts, ideals and feelings are repeated over and over again. The characters’ actions don’t make a lot of sense, one guest brings a strychnine capsule to the party with a plans to sneak it into a drink at some point during the evening, in the hopes of "killing" the host / best friend. The host brings cyanide pills to the party. Another guest attempts to kill the host with a sword! This story becomes sillier and stupider with every page. OOOH- spoiler - one person survives the night!!!!! What a colossal waste of time.
.
.
June 3, 2017
There's a lot of over-the-dinner-table mystery happening lately, right? The Fallout. The Dinner. Oh, and what about that other book that takes place over a dinner?
In the way of locked room mysteries, if you want one that's done right, go back to the 1940s and read John Dickson Carr, AKA Carter Dickson. He wrote some amazing tiny little novellas.
I skimmed to finish this...no shame. I just half-read another book, so I consider "skimmishing" this one an accomplishment.
In the way of locked room mysteries, if you want one that's done right, go back to the 1940s and read John Dickson Carr, AKA Carter Dickson. He wrote some amazing tiny little novellas.
I skimmed to finish this...no shame. I just half-read another book, so I consider "skimmishing" this one an accomplishment.
September 11, 2017
I found two issues with this novel that were extremely distracting.I had a hard time getting past the amount of alcohol the characters consumed. Seriously, they should have all died of alcohol poisoning. It also seemed to me that a lot of action took place in a very short time frame. In one evening there is drinking, dinner, more drinking, sex,drinking, sauna, more drinking, more sex,more drinking and some smoking, desert, more drinking, a murder, probably more drinking but by then I lost interest.
May 15, 2025
A “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” style terrible drunken dinner party devolves into a nonsensical grand guigonol in which even the characters think that they don’t understand why they’re doing things. If there were one moment when a character acted recognizably like a human being, it would have died of loneliness. Cynical, bloody and profoundly dumb.
January 11, 2018
If you do not want spoilers, you should probably stop reading now.
On paper, this book has everything that I like in books.
It is written by an awardwinning Finnish author, and I’m constantly looking for new Finnish crime to read. The book is set in London, rather than in Finland, but after the Nordic countries, UK is one my favourite settings.
It has a locked-room murder mystery with lots of Agatha Christie references. One of the main characters even reads Murder on the Orient Express on the flight to London.
The general plot idea is great: four Finnish friends–Robert and Mikko, and their wives Elise and Veera–meet for dinner. Three cell phones ring, but the calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead.
Unfortunately, that is where the good things end.
The flow is extremely erratic and it does not help that the chapters alternate between being told by one of four friends, and the single one of them who is still alive at the end of the night. It is quite confusing who is the narrator of each chapter and several times I had to go back and reread passages to understand who was saying or thinking what.
It does not take many chapters before the storyline goes straight into crazy land. There are multiple capsules of cyanide. There are frequent flashbacks to events happening years before. There is a suicide. Lots of internal monologues, and lots of arguments are had. And there is more sex than you would expect from what is described as a “closed room mystery”.
One of the dinner guest, while attempting to kill one of the others with a sword, dies by falling and hitting her head on a suit of armor, and consequently being pierced in the head by the spikes of the armor. If that was not enough to kill her, the sword she was holding launched out of her hand, rotated around its center of mass in the air, and then plunged into her chest.
I quickly found myself wishing for all of the characters to just die so the book would end.
There were great little pieces, like:
“My attention kept getting stuck on the Finnish translation, and I found myself trying to guess how each sentence went in the original English.”
and
“…I had learned the dialect of today’s youth relatively well, but this was my first time hearing someone use the acronym OMG in speech. No principle of economy could justify the expression, as it could in a text message, because pronouncing the three letters took just as much effort as three one-syllable words. So it was nothing more than a corruption of the language.”
Unfortunately, the gems were few. Too much of the text was painful to read. Especially the descriptions.
“The high-backed chair was from the same set as the bookcase. It had leather upholstery. The springs bounced nicely when you sat on it. The two couches and two other armchairs matched each other. They had hefty lines. As if Rubens had turned furniture designer. Sometimes I felt like I was sitting in the lap of an ample matron. Between the bookshelves was a fireplace. A light burned in it. It looked like a perfectly real fireplace. There was a poker and a shovel.”
Several times I found myself wondering what the original text in Finnish sounded like, and if part of my issues with this book is just due to bad translation.
The saving grace is the sentence “Oh Jesus’s ecumenical testicles” that Veera says at one point during the dinner. I feel it pretty much sums up my opinion about this book.
(1.5 stars)
On paper, this book has everything that I like in books.
It is written by an awardwinning Finnish author, and I’m constantly looking for new Finnish crime to read. The book is set in London, rather than in Finland, but after the Nordic countries, UK is one my favourite settings.
It has a locked-room murder mystery with lots of Agatha Christie references. One of the main characters even reads Murder on the Orient Express on the flight to London.
The general plot idea is great: four Finnish friends–Robert and Mikko, and their wives Elise and Veera–meet for dinner. Three cell phones ring, but the calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead.
Unfortunately, that is where the good things end.
The flow is extremely erratic and it does not help that the chapters alternate between being told by one of four friends, and the single one of them who is still alive at the end of the night. It is quite confusing who is the narrator of each chapter and several times I had to go back and reread passages to understand who was saying or thinking what.
It does not take many chapters before the storyline goes straight into crazy land. There are multiple capsules of cyanide. There are frequent flashbacks to events happening years before. There is a suicide. Lots of internal monologues, and lots of arguments are had. And there is more sex than you would expect from what is described as a “closed room mystery”.
One of the dinner guest, while attempting to kill one of the others with a sword, dies by falling and hitting her head on a suit of armor, and consequently being pierced in the head by the spikes of the armor. If that was not enough to kill her, the sword she was holding launched out of her hand, rotated around its center of mass in the air, and then plunged into her chest.
I quickly found myself wishing for all of the characters to just die so the book would end.
There were great little pieces, like:
“My attention kept getting stuck on the Finnish translation, and I found myself trying to guess how each sentence went in the original English.”
and
“…I had learned the dialect of today’s youth relatively well, but this was my first time hearing someone use the acronym OMG in speech. No principle of economy could justify the expression, as it could in a text message, because pronouncing the three letters took just as much effort as three one-syllable words. So it was nothing more than a corruption of the language.”
Unfortunately, the gems were few. Too much of the text was painful to read. Especially the descriptions.
“The high-backed chair was from the same set as the bookcase. It had leather upholstery. The springs bounced nicely when you sat on it. The two couches and two other armchairs matched each other. They had hefty lines. As if Rubens had turned furniture designer. Sometimes I felt like I was sitting in the lap of an ample matron. Between the bookshelves was a fireplace. A light burned in it. It looked like a perfectly real fireplace. There was a poker and a shovel.”
Several times I found myself wondering what the original text in Finnish sounded like, and if part of my issues with this book is just due to bad translation.
The saving grace is the sentence “Oh Jesus’s ecumenical testicles” that Veera says at one point during the dinner. I feel it pretty much sums up my opinion about this book.
(1.5 stars)
February 2, 2018
I was a little leery about this one: the mediocre reviews almost scared me off. I am so glad I went with my gut and gave this weird, offbeat, strange book a try, because it was superb and a real treat.
I honestly don't understand the bad reviews. I will admit that all of the details with the poisons (cynanide vs. strychnine!) and where they were at any given time was a little much to keep up with. Plus, the infidelity between these two couples was a joke; they were practically swingers. That was a little gross and offensive. However, at the end I could see that there was a point and it was relevant. And aside from this, there were many redeeming qualities.
There is some really depraved human behavior here. But then in the middle of it there will be a joke and you find yourself laughing at this author's strange and unique Finnish humor. It's great.
I am not a mystery fan, but this wasn't a regular mystery. It all takes place during one night and in one place. The author's style, wit and sense of humor all combined with a great story and I loved it. Plus, it was translated from the Finnish and I can't help but appreciate his use of "crapulous" and wonder how you say that in Finnish.
I really dug this bizaare and excellent book and highly recommend you try it. It's not for everyone, evidently, but the best books never are! You know how there are those books you'll have your eye on for a while, and you just feel compelled to read them? This was one of those for me. So glad I gave it a chance.
(Recommended!)
I honestly don't understand the bad reviews. I will admit that all of the details with the poisons (cynanide vs. strychnine!) and where they were at any given time was a little much to keep up with. Plus, the infidelity between these two couples was a joke; they were practically swingers. That was a little gross and offensive. However, at the end I could see that there was a point and it was relevant. And aside from this, there were many redeeming qualities.
There is some really depraved human behavior here. But then in the middle of it there will be a joke and you find yourself laughing at this author's strange and unique Finnish humor. It's great.
I am not a mystery fan, but this wasn't a regular mystery. It all takes place during one night and in one place. The author's style, wit and sense of humor all combined with a great story and I loved it. Plus, it was translated from the Finnish and I can't help but appreciate his use of "crapulous" and wonder how you say that in Finnish.
I really dug this bizaare and excellent book and highly recommend you try it. It's not for everyone, evidently, but the best books never are! You know how there are those books you'll have your eye on for a while, and you just feel compelled to read them? This was one of those for me. So glad I gave it a chance.
(Recommended!)
May 27, 2017
The premise of this book is great - four people go to a dinner party and only one survives. I'm not sure if the translation was clunky, but the book moved way too slow. Also, with the possible exception of Veera, the characters were all two dimensional, almost stereotypes. It was very hard to care about or empathize with them.
The alternating, short chapters made the book digestible, and I think I would check out books by this author in the future, since there was some promise here - it's just poorly executed.
The alternating, short chapters made the book digestible, and I think I would check out books by this author in the future, since there was some promise here - it's just poorly executed.
October 20, 2017
This book was intriguing as you knew 3 people were dead at the beginning (not a spoiler) and then the book unraveled the story told through the 4 characters involved. The plot unfolds during a dinner party. Each of the 4 characters had chapters told from their perspective, their internal thoughts or their conversational interaction during the party. The various topics discussed during this party were interesting and ran the gamut from financial banking to game show questions. The ending was appropriate. If you asked me what I thought, yes I liked it, but it was weird!
June 26, 2017
I love Nordic writers-Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, and now Finnish. I look forward to reading another story by this writer. This one gave me the creeps. I had just finished this book and went on vacation and stayed in a hotel with creaking floor boards just like the house in this story. I kept waking during the night and hoping I wouldn't see a spectral shape in the dark.
June 29, 2017
Quirky, violent and philosophical
Liked the pace and first person voice of four characters. You'll think you have it figured out but you won't until the end. Well constructed and written.
Liked the pace and first person voice of four characters. You'll think you have it figured out but you won't until the end. Well constructed and written.
April 28, 2024
If a book could be dreaded I guess this would be it. Cruel is the night is a questionable genre. At no point in the book does it seem like a thriller, a mystery, or even a tribute to Agatha Christie. The whole narration could have been completed in just the epilogue and the last two chapters. There is a lot of unnecessary banter that doesn't really stick to the story and seems to just be around for the reader to read. The whole plot is just a disappointment. Though I don't always like to criticise authors knowing how much hardwork it takes to even author a novel, this book has been a huge let down. At certain points of the book, it just felt like the story was unnecessarily dragged. The characters seem to be having a dinner night together, but so much of unnecessary drama that's put in that it just feels like the night would never end (when you just wish it would). The character development is pretty absurd and boring. Halfway through the book, all the characters just seem to act rather dumb and clueless, with one forgetting about things, the other suddenly switching sides, another realizing everything would turn out for the bad. The ending is also quite abrubt that it leaves the reader just wondering was it really worth going through this novel at all. Nevertheless, two stars just for the author and the translator and the work put in.
July 14, 2019
I liked the suspense building but by the last third I just wanted the character to die already.
April 25, 2024
Ugh! Leaving the book at 60%. Not sure what the point of the book was. The suspense is not even enough to make me want to complete it.
April 19, 2024
3.5 stars
November 27, 2017
Four unlikeable people meet for dinner and some of them end up dead.....but you won't mind. Being privy to the thoughts of such a bunch of selfish jerks doesn't inspire sympathy, but laughter. Heavy topics but light reading.
September 12, 2017
The book takes place over a dinner and the course of one evening - two couples, three of whom are old friends and one younger wife. The book starts well, yet as the alcohol flows, the evening and the characters become more unpleasant. The quality of the writing gradually slides, and the plot becomes more unbelievable. Most outlandish is the The characters are fiendish, but also shallow, self-centered and boorish.
February 21, 2018
I begin with a quote from Sir Walter Scott's poem, "Marmion (1808)" - "O what a tangled web we weave/when first we practice to deceive".
I Finnished (sorry) reading this one while watching my recording of today's Finland/O.A.R. Olympic Women's Hockey Bronze Medal game, which I found fitting.
The dust cover likens it to an homage to Agatha Christie, which is fitting, since she is name-checked at various times. It also refers to the book as a "locked-room mystery" which is imprecise.
What would be more precise is likening it to a movie with multiple p.o.v.s, jumping back & forth from one to another. In this case, there are four, each imbued with its own sense of deviousness. Each is out to get another for variegated reasons.
It was a quick read & I would recommend it for other crime fans.
I Finnished (sorry) reading this one while watching my recording of today's Finland/O.A.R. Olympic Women's Hockey Bronze Medal game, which I found fitting.
The dust cover likens it to an homage to Agatha Christie, which is fitting, since she is name-checked at various times. It also refers to the book as a "locked-room mystery" which is imprecise.
What would be more precise is likening it to a movie with multiple p.o.v.s, jumping back & forth from one to another. In this case, there are four, each imbued with its own sense of deviousness. Each is out to get another for variegated reasons.
It was a quick read & I would recommend it for other crime fans.
September 3, 2019
First English-translation of a Finnish novel by Karo Hamalainen.
You know from the publicity about the book that 4 friends get together for the first time in 10 years and before the weekend is over, 3 of them are dead. Three of the four were friends from school days, the fourth is the wife of the one living large in London where they meet. He's a power in banking and very well off from taking advantage of a number of unethical practices. The story is told from the points of view of each of the four. It plays out as a locked-room murder mystery, and not until almost the end do you understand who is left alive. And why. At times black comedy, at times melodrama, at times a bit confusing, but still I couldn't stop reading!
Soho Crime published the book on April 11, 2017. Reading the ebook from Overdrive.
You know from the publicity about the book that 4 friends get together for the first time in 10 years and before the weekend is over, 3 of them are dead. Three of the four were friends from school days, the fourth is the wife of the one living large in London where they meet. He's a power in banking and very well off from taking advantage of a number of unethical practices. The story is told from the points of view of each of the four. It plays out as a locked-room murder mystery, and not until almost the end do you understand who is left alive. And why. At times black comedy, at times melodrama, at times a bit confusing, but still I couldn't stop reading!
Soho Crime published the book on April 11, 2017. Reading the ebook from Overdrive.
September 21, 2016
Finnish Agatha Christie ... dark, mysterious and murderous! Love the cynical world of mystery :)
January 10, 2020
Mikko, Veera, Robert and Elise are meeting up for dinner, we begin from the end of the evening with a phone ringing and no one to answer it, because 3 are dead and 1 has fled. Then we return to the beginning to review the evening from each person's perspective, and a fifth unlabeled perspective presumably our murderer fleeing the scene.
The plot plays out to me very much like the indie horror The Invitation, where we have this extremely drawn out dinner party. Things become increasingly strained, revealing major conflicts and hidden motives across all the characters. In particular, the initial simplest conflict we find is that while they are friends from youth, Mikko is effectively an ultra-progressive who basically would have been an Occupy Wall Street sort were he American, while Robert is a banker who has been involved in a rate fixing scheme with a golden parachute out of it and is pretty extreme capitalist - their competing world views make for the major conflict through line while we also progress to uncovering deep dark secrets.
I think you very much have to enjoy how this is written for it to be a good read, so I can see this being polarizing. For instance the prologue leads by pondering the motivation and intent of Beethoven in a particular composition, because it is a popular ringtone, which is now going off in the apartment. This is translated work from Finnish, I really enjoy nordic style in general, but I can see it not working for all readers as the writing is very brief - especially the female perspectives seem to have very little exposition, short sentences. As well, it being translated means I am not perfectly certain of the sense of humor and context implications we should read into it, however taking it as I read it I very much enjoyed the meta context implied - it is very self/genre aware and pokes at that. I could certainly be reading into it, but lots of things like the more overt ones such as scene discussing Agatha Christie or an absurd number of tells me this is the intent. I think that rounds it up in enjoyment, if you aren't aware of the meta commentary I think this is just a generally okay if drawn out murder mystery.
The plot plays out to me very much like the indie horror The Invitation, where we have this extremely drawn out dinner party. Things become increasingly strained, revealing major conflicts and hidden motives across all the characters. In particular, the initial simplest conflict we find is that while they are friends from youth, Mikko is effectively an ultra-progressive who basically would have been an Occupy Wall Street sort were he American, while Robert is a banker who has been involved in a rate fixing scheme with a golden parachute out of it and is pretty extreme capitalist - their competing world views make for the major conflict through line while we also progress to uncovering deep dark secrets.
I think you very much have to enjoy how this is written for it to be a good read, so I can see this being polarizing. For instance the prologue leads by pondering the motivation and intent of Beethoven in a particular composition, because it is a popular ringtone, which is now going off in the apartment. This is translated work from Finnish, I really enjoy nordic style in general, but I can see it not working for all readers as the writing is very brief - especially the female perspectives seem to have very little exposition, short sentences. As well, it being translated means I am not perfectly certain of the sense of humor and context implications we should read into it, however taking it as I read it I very much enjoyed the meta context implied - it is very self/genre aware and pokes at that. I could certainly be reading into it, but lots of things like the more overt ones such as scene discussing Agatha Christie or an absurd number of tells me this is the intent. I think that rounds it up in enjoyment, if you aren't aware of the meta commentary I think this is just a generally okay if drawn out murder mystery.
May 24, 2017
Cruel is the Night has some parallels with Herman Koch's The Dinner, as it's a psychological mystery developing among two sets of marrieds at dinner. While I give The Dinner 5 stars (readers either love Koch's novel or hate it), my rating is lower for Cruel is the Night. I liked the short chapters alternating among the 4 diners. While the story essentially developed chronologically in the present, there are flashbacks which provide a deeper layer upon the present. I don't always like short, alternative character chapters....but Karo Hamalainen used them to advantage in a quasi stream-of-consciousness writing style to push to light a diner's point of view and reactions to his/her spouse and the other diners, as well as smoothly into one's side-thoughts/feelings about core values, politics, etc. I found this quite effective at adding a layer to the novel and characters. What I didn't like is the above-normal suspension of disbelief necessary for the story progression. Three murders occur during the dinner, of which one was intended. Unbelievable is that ex-academic Mikko, the most pedantic and deliberative person you'll meet, undertook to murder Robert that night....yet he chose poison (he brought a strychnine capsule to the party) yet had fly-by-pants, wing-it "plan" to sneak it into a drink some point during the 8 stages of the intimate evening. Really, that's a murder plan? SPOILER ALERT: The other unbelievable aspect is the abundant carelessness of the parties when the host brought out one of his three cyanide pills from his safe that he inadvertently left ajar (and parties took the other 2 pills). Various parties carelessly handled those pills in separate attempts to kill Robert, leading to unintended events. Just unbelievable....but made for a good hypothetical quagmire. Mixed views on the book.
August 2, 2024
finished 2nd august 2024 good read four stars i really liked it kindle library loaner first from hamalainen. had i stopped at page one reviews here at goodreads i would not have read this one. many 2-star 1-star reviews one 3-star that i took more than a cursory glance at. the story is much better than those reviews would have it. didn't delve too deeply into any of them. opening three people will not be answering their cell phones. story told through the perspective of the four main characters, two couples, and like couple everywhere, they are busy fucking the other's spouse and for one cheating couple they've been doing it...since day one seems like. so one can say okay i see why you don't like these characters. but they're more than that...interesting dynamic between the two male leads, one the fabled alpha male though the other is no lightweight when it comes to mind games. alpha's wife is much younger than the other three all 37-year-old. and then there's italicized chapters with one character...doing what? fleeing? going to commit a crime...not entirely clear until later in the game. entertaining story and much better than page one reviews would have potential readers believe.
April 22, 2020
"Se fosse un film sarebbe scritto da Agatha Christie, sceneggiato da Alfred Hitchcock e diretto da Quentin Tarantino" recita il retro copertina.
Nulla di più falso.
Questo libro è stato una delusione totale su ogni fronte; il prologo è scritto in terza persona e promette benissimo, ma il resto del libro è scritto in prima persona, il POV cambia a ogni capitolo e i personaggi si rivolgono al lettore.
A proposito dei personaggi, sono uno peggio dell'altro: Elise è stupida a livelli disumani, Mikko è un ipocrita tirchio inetto e incapace di prendere una decisione, Veera è una stronza arrogante e Robert è la sua controparte maschile, con la sola differenza che è ancora più stronzo di lei.
Il ritmo della storia è di una lentezza agghiacciante, del tipo che i continenti si muovono più velocemente. Poco a poco si scoprono tutti i flashback dei protagonisti senza che nulla accada effettivamente fino a pagina 265, quando finalmente la prima delle tre morti annunicate a inizio romanzo avviene.
Non è nemmeno un buon mystery dato che sin dall'inizio si intuisce chi sopravviverà, sospetto che poi diventerà palese a circa metà romanzo.
Sconsigliatissimo a chiunque.
Nulla di più falso.
Questo libro è stato una delusione totale su ogni fronte; il prologo è scritto in terza persona e promette benissimo, ma il resto del libro è scritto in prima persona, il POV cambia a ogni capitolo e i personaggi si rivolgono al lettore.
A proposito dei personaggi, sono uno peggio dell'altro: Elise è stupida a livelli disumani, Mikko è un ipocrita tirchio inetto e incapace di prendere una decisione, Veera è una stronza arrogante e Robert è la sua controparte maschile, con la sola differenza che è ancora più stronzo di lei.
Il ritmo della storia è di una lentezza agghiacciante, del tipo che i continenti si muovono più velocemente. Poco a poco si scoprono tutti i flashback dei protagonisti senza che nulla accada effettivamente fino a pagina 265, quando finalmente la prima delle tre morti annunicate a inizio romanzo avviene.
Non è nemmeno un buon mystery dato che sin dall'inizio si intuisce chi sopravviverà, sospetto che poi diventerà palese a circa metà romanzo.
Sconsigliatissimo a chiunque.
November 19, 2017
Even though the broad foreshadowing unforgivably illuminates the lone survivor of the novel and the characters are somewhat unlovable, there is still goodness in this bright and quirky story.
Four friends/lovers with a past converge for a drama (and farce) that constitutes the breadth of one bizarre evening. You must suspend belief and relegate yourself to the perspective of observer and then let the tale unfold. There is something in each character to represent the dark side of any|every human psyche, but likewise there are also the moments of lovely, manic lightness that have equal weight.
The story is told from four perspectives, much in the form of memory, which round out characters who might otherwise be unknowable in such a short book. It’s the work of a night to read it, and it is the first offering from someone who could easily emerge to be quite a star in the constellation of Nordic Noir writers.
Four friends/lovers with a past converge for a drama (and farce) that constitutes the breadth of one bizarre evening. You must suspend belief and relegate yourself to the perspective of observer and then let the tale unfold. There is something in each character to represent the dark side of any|every human psyche, but likewise there are also the moments of lovely, manic lightness that have equal weight.
The story is told from four perspectives, much in the form of memory, which round out characters who might otherwise be unknowable in such a short book. It’s the work of a night to read it, and it is the first offering from someone who could easily emerge to be quite a star in the constellation of Nordic Noir writers.
October 3, 2018
“The human race had learned many things, but its leaders had never shaken off their megalomania, egocentricity, and need for attention. Rather than gods and kings, twenty-first century monuments were built with other people’s money by bankers looking to enlarge their egos. These were just a new form of personal mausoleum.”
Originally published in 2013 in Finnish, “Cruel Is The Night” is more than deserving of its belated English translation. From the opening page this is a captivating thriller, quickly hooking you into the tension. This plot moves along at a slick and efficient pace, seamlessly gliding into the action without breaking so much as a sweat.
The author creates a really clever set-up, mined with lurking unease and escalating paranoia which builds and rushes to an exhilarating showdown. Hamalainen has a crisp and sharp style reminiscent of Herman Koch. This is a lively and spikey affair, which is essential reading for fans of good, quality thrillers.
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