Book Review | The ridiculousness of the usual customs of detective stories is visible – Valtteri Mörttinen is a skilled newcomer in the field

Culture|Book review

Novel

Valtteri Mörttinen: But the biggest of them is money. Crime Time. 346 s.

“I am exhausted the clichés, ”he says Valtteri Mörttinen from his debut novel itahelsinki.fi website in a recent interview. True, but what Mörttinen has done with clichés is a completely different thing.

Mörttinen has worked in many professions, including journalism, and has previously written a biography for a basketball player. Teemu from the Coast. But the biggest of them is money is Mörttinen’s first novel and detective story. Above all, though, it’s a black-speaking satire about the clichés of detective stories.

Mörttinen’s Helsinki is like a nest of evils like any other American city, and the protagonist of his protagonist, Ailon Rajakari, is like the Finnish equivalent of Dirty Harry.

Mörttinen’s weapon against the clichés of detective stories is hyperbola, an exaggeration, and through it he creates a story that both acts as a detective and brings to the surface the wear and tear of the detective clichés.

Twilight Rajakari, who has a spy past and is disgusted by his superiors and co-workers, is tasked with investigating the murder of a young street drug trafficker who was found shot dead in the Kalasatama construction site. At the same time, Matti Virtanen, a taxi driver ravaged by the corona and taxi reform, throws himself into the drug trade and soon becomes emperor of Helsinki’s heroin.

Antti Karppanen, who has moved from Oulu to Helsinki as a police boss, sees a clear rise in the crushing of the drug league, but he also encounters both Rajakari and the circumstances.

Ailo Rajakari is a woman, but it doesn’t matter, because Mörttinen doesn’t emphasize her femininity in any way. In fact, all he says about Rajakar is that he has a ponytail, a leather jacket and landing boots.

Mörttinen takes one detective, a lonely, stubborn and efficient police officer to the extreme, stripping him of almost all other traits. Rajakari is almost a caricature, and it’s a lot of fun.

The action of the novel is overstated and completely cheeky considering he is in Helsinki. By moving the most common features of stereotypical American action films and detective stories to the streets of a Finnish, world-small town, Mörttinen emphasizes their ridiculousness and artificiality.

Despite all the black and bubbly humor bubbling beneath the surface But the biggest of them is money also acts as a social detective. Those who have nothing need not care about anything, and those who have can buy themselves free from almost anywhere, so only the middle class should be law-abiding, philosophizing the drug Mule in the final stages of the story.

Here, too, there is humor involved in simplification, but also the seed of truth.

Valtteri Mörttinen blows new winds into the Finnish detective field with his firstborn. Pretty bad smelling, but still fresh.

This is where the series is supposed to come from. It will be interesting to see how well Mörttinen manages to keep his firstborn in a good mood.

Helsingin Sanomat’s award for the best debut work of the year will be presented in November.