Book Review | Actress Jenni Kokander’s new novel is a murder mystery in which fear, shame and death intertwine suspects

Culture|Book review

Novel

Jenni Kokander: One in a Million. Oak. 251 s.

Actor-author Jenni Kokanderin repeat the novel One in a million marketed as a “incredibly beautiful” work on “loss of control and the randomness of life”.

I will sign the latter characterizations but instead of being incisively beautiful I would speak of a laconic realistic novel. About the waterfall the familiar comedian was already serious about his debut The planet of the extinct (2020) at the time of writing.

Now he deals with fear, shame, and death:

“It’s absurd to fear an airplane will crash. Not that it has squeezed the knuckles on the white bench to save it if the machine catches fire. There is no room for grief or loss. It is equally absurd to say that probabilities are on our side. However, someone is one of a million. ”

Two women discusses on a plane: Can a professional show his fears? Is it not the job of the flight attendant or the police to forget themselves and reassure others in a crisis situation?

After a day, one of the women is lying in a pool of blood and the other is involved in investigating this death. One in a million is therefore a crime novel.

The pansy, the flight attendant, is found murdered in the wheel cellar of his home. He is the basic character of that profession with its knitters, perfumes and pilot lovers.

But the profession is his shield. Behind his role is also another of the interlocutors, criminal psychologist Kaisa, who wanted to get out of child protection because he could not stand the children’s worries.

The plot meanders and wraps the suspects together. In interrogations, the backgrounds of the persons are set, and in the retreats, childhood is plagued.

Under examination is, among other things, the father of eight – year – old Michael. The boy had gone to fetch his bike from the basement, but a dead woman had leaned on it. The child disappeared without a bike.

More about Mikael will be found soon. This has long cared for her depressed mother, and the father has left the duo, starting a new family. The boy fears God and authorities. In this order.

Sectarian parents have ruined Michael’s life, but this is not the only victim. Adults have been children too.

Against the background of Orvok can be found a grandfather who was traumatized in the war, a peacetime father in peacetime and a brother, Kuisma, who went to Afghanistan as a peacekeeper according to the model of his family. He committed suicide.

“That’s how people covered up problems to protect themselves from shame, it was creepy. ” writes Kokander.

Despite such summaries, the portraits do not deepen and therefore do not touch either. I find myself waiting for information on who murdered Orvok.

I can’t catch all the thought costs.

An anxious child hardly thinks like Michael, “that those who conceal their true feelings and hide their lives will perish. To oblivion. And eventually they disappear. ” Despite his sectarian background.

Kokanderin One in a million reaches out towards the multidimensionality of the psychological novel but sneaks into a simple murder mystery.

Estimated supplemented on 26.2. at 2:18 p.m. The last five missing paragraphs have been added to the text.