Publishers Weekly
American-born Thompson, who's lived in Finland for the past decade, offers a bleak look at the ravages of that country's long, dark winter as well as intriguing glimpses of Finnish culture in his solid U.S. debut, the first in a new crime series. Shortly before Christmas, Kari Vaara, the police chief of the Lapland town of Kittilä, gets a phone call informing him that the body of Sufia Elmi, a Somali refugee and minor film star, has been found in a snowfield on a reindeer farm. The victim has also been mutilated, perhaps raped, and a racial slur carved into her flesh. When Kari's ex-wife's lover becomes the prime suspect, Kari spurns the chance to recuse himself and presses on. The winter hazards of alcoholism, suicide and murder all play a part as Kari uncovers more suspects. Sufia's imperious father, Abdi Barre, who was a doctor in his native country and now runs a cleaning service, puts added pressure on Kari. Tangled smalltown relationships and lust also fuel this noirish thriller. (Jan.)\
USA Today
The bitter cold and seasonal darkness of a Finnish winter provide the haunting atmospherics for this latest entry in the popular Nordic noir genre. Here's the twist: Author James Thompson is an American expat who has lived in Finland for the past decade. He effectively captures the genre's signature elements as he lays out Inspector Kari Vaara's search for the killer of a Somali celebrity found horribly mutilated in a snowy field. The case puts a strain on his relationship with his pregnant new wife, his odd parents, who blame him for the death of his sister, and his repulsive ex-wife and her bizarre husband, who keep popping up during the investigation. Don't miss this one.
Los Angeles Times blog
James Thompson's "Snow Angels" (Putnam: 265 pp., $24.95) is a debut on American soil, but the author (using the byline "Jim Thompson" — not to be confused with the late, great noir master) has published two other books in Finland, his expatriate home and where this new book is set. Like other examples of the Scandinavian crime invasion, there's a tortured cop (Inspector Vaara), a gruesome murder of a Somali immigrant acting as blunt metaphor for the erosion of society, and humdingers of plot twists that, in hindsight, play as they should.
But "Snow Angels" is memorable as much for the reverse expatriate subplot — Vaara's pregnant American wife, Kate, is the outsider barely managing with the country's never-ending darkness around Christmastime — as it is for the wonderfully lurid quality of both the prose and revelations behind the initial and later murders. Vaara cautions his wife that "what you perceive as silence, we perceive as solitude," but it's the mix of both that provides the necessary ingredients for this stark page-turner.
Boston Herald
His third novel, "Snow Angels," is a grisly murder set in the arctic climes of his new homeland. It's his first book published in the U.S. and comes with words of praise from top crime novelist Michael Connelly on the book jacket: "It took me right in, dropped me into a strange new world, and kept me captivated from first to last page."
Library Journal
Lapland: the name conjures up cheery stereotypes of reindeer and Santa Claus, but in reality December in northern Finland means kaamos, a time of extreme cold and unrelenting darkness that takes its toll on the residents of Levi, a small ski-resort town near the Arctic Circle. "That's the way things are in the winter," says local police inspector Kari Vaara. "A bunch of depressed hard drinkers freezing in an endless night." Called to investigate the mutilation murder of a beautiful Somali actress, Vaara finds his probe turning personal when clues point to the rich man for whom his ex-wife left him for years ago as the prime suspect. The case also threatens his new marriage as his young, pregnant American wife struggles to cope with the depressive effects of the long polar night. VERDICT Despite a contrived plot twist involving a barely developed character, this is a promising new series. The stark Nordic setting will appeal to fans of Scandinavian crime fiction, but Thompson, a ten-year resident of Finland, adds an American noir sensibility that will remind readers of Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park.—Wilda Williams, Library Journal
