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Jan Costin Wagner
Eismond
(Ice Moon)
Eichborn, July 2003. 308 pp. Sanna Joentaa dies silently and gently from cancer in the night. At her side, feeling the last faint throbbing of her pulse, is Kimmo Joentaa, her young husband, a detective at the police headquarters in the Finnish town of Turku. Kimmo's sense of loss, uncertainty, fear and pain are almost palpable. The only way that he can cope is to withdraw internally, adopting an outwardly collected public persona to conceal the turmoil of the stricken man within. He goes back to work and is confronted with the first of three murders. Like Kimmo's wife, the murderer's victims die peacefully in their sleep. Investigating the case, Kimmo feels that he understands and knows the type of person that he's looking for. The reader follows the movements of the murderer and the detective, witnessing the emptiness with which they are both afflicted. Soon the murderer has suffocated a suburban housewife, a young father and a friendly local girl. He works quietly and efficiently, with a gentleness that is almost perverse. It takes some time before Kimmo, with his intuitive understanding of the murderer's character, begins to solve the mystery. But by then it is too late. The murderer has disappeared, until he reappears one morning on Kimmo's doorstep. What is he doing there? What had he wanted? And how is Kimmo Joentaa involved?
Writing in beautiful, often poetic language, Wagner skilfully evokes complex psychological and emotional states. This is a story about the hunt for a murderer, but also an insightful evocation of love and loss. Eismond is a truly out-of-the-ordinary crime novel.
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