My First Murder (Maria Kallio Book 1)

This book was recommended by a friend. A very quick read and only $2.99 as an e-reader. While looking up the author, I found this first translation from the Finnish mystery is over twenty years old! That explains a great deal.The novel is categorized as a mystery, and it really is not. The plot line is easy to guess. A young woman, Maria Kallio, short, red headed with impossible hair, but by all accounts, very attractive is the lead detective. Now, this is surprising. The woman is a temporary detective, trying to figure out if the law or police work is her calling. This is her first murder, and it has come to her because of two reasons. 1. Her boss is an alcoholic and cannot be counted upon for much. 2. Her immediate superior is ready to start vacation. By all accounts this would not fly in any other police station, but, here we are.A group of choir singers meet to practice at the summer house of the family of one of them, Tommi. As the book opens, Tommi is found dead. Maria tells the story in her own way, she interviews the singers, some of whom she knew when they were students together. Now, this should disqualify her from the get go, but, no, off she goes. Maria spends the rest of the book trying to investigate them. She is also very interested in the victim and his colleagues and family. Each chapter is headed with a line from the poem quoted in the preface, and, as we come to find out, they are relevant to the murder case. This part of the novel was very clever, but easily missed.Maria is not a good detective from the start. First, she allows all of the singers to congregate together before she interviews them. After an initial, very primitive interview, she allows them all to leave and to take their belongings before the investigation of the house is complete. No mention of using gloves and any method of removing clues and artifacts. Her interviewing techniques are not good nor solid. The singers are patronizing, and to be frank, I did not find Maria to be an interesting protagonist. Too young and immature in my opinion.I did enjoy the glimpses into,Finnish life, the food, the culture, and the lifestyle. This is not a true mystery but one of who committed this crime? Maybe, because I am a true mystery/police procedural aficionado, I did not appreciate the simplicity of this novel. It seems amateurish to me. There may be more to this series, but I am not sure I would continue with it.Recommended with reservations. prisrob 01-14-13

This is a light, enjoyable read that gives some insight into Finnish society, or at least the part occupied by young adults in the capital. I bought it partly because I used to live in Helsinki, and I enjoy revisiting the place in fiction. The descriptions of people and places did bring a pleasant nostalgia for one of my favorite places.The heroine is a likable young woman with a severe case of ambivalence about her career. She might want to be a lawyer, a prosecutor, or a police officer. For the moment, she is a summer replacement, having left the force to go to college and been hired back to fill a shortage of cops. Her career ambivalence is credible, and typical of a lot of young Europeans. She's basically a pretty upbeat sort - don't buy this book expecting a female Wallander. (By the way, the name Maria isn't pronounced in the English/Spanish/Italian way we say it, with the accent on the middle syllable. Finnish is always accented on the first syllable, no exceptions, so the name is more like MAR-e-yah. Similarly, the city is HEL-sink-e, not Hel-SINK-e.)The story is kind of a cross between a police procedural and an English country house murder. Not great literature, but enjoyable enough. I have two criticisms:1. Maria knows several of the suspects from college. She is much too close to the people involved, I cannot imagine a big-city police department, even one suffering from a severe shortage of detectives, keeping her on the case. That's what makes it like an English country house murder.2. The translation is in a way too good, i.e. too American. The Finnish language has some quirks that I find quite enjoyable, and I'd have liked the dialogue better if it sounded more like Finns speaking English.I also gave the book to a female friend for Christmas; she liked it too.This is a light piece, ideal for the beach or an evening alone in your hotel room (which is how I read it). It's not great literature, but it's a pleasant couple of hours to read.

I have put off reviewing this first book in the series because I honestly didn't know how I felt about it. Went on to volume two, liked that one better and am circling back to think about this one again. I didn't like the lead character, Maria, because I couldn't get a handle on her personality and found her quite cold blooded. Her romance towards the end and into Book Two has shed new light on her and she is human after all, just very dedicated. Too many characters and too convoluted a plot kept me permanently confused during my reading of it. And I didn't really care for any of them. I am on to Book Three and think there is hope for this series after all. Just needed to get used to the author's style. Will be going to Finland next year and am motivated to find out more about the culture...and try some pulla!

Helsinki 1993. The body of Tommi Peltonen is found floating in the sea near his parents' summerhouse.Tommi was there with seven other members of a choir to practice for a concert. The pólice officer investigating the death is Maria Kallio, who knew Tommi and other members of the choir when he was her flatmate's boyfriend. It is soon a murder investigation and the obvious suspects are the fellow choir members. As the investigation procedes it appears there is more to Tommi than the rich, succesful, superficially friendly serial womaniser. As the title suggests the story is a first person narrative by Maria. She is a 28 year old redhead with a snub nose and freckles, 2 inches smaller than the mínimum requirement, who seems to be both a student at law school and a student at the pólice academy, yet she is lead investigator, simply because her boss is drunk somewhere, As it is summer everyone is on holiday or sick and Violent Crimes Unit is run solely by Maria and another person,Koivu. Poor Maria isn't sure if she wants to be a pólice officer or criminal lawyer, or even something else, but her student debt is such that a change of career would be too much. She, of course, solves the crime. There is little to like in this first novel by Leena Lehtolainen, the first person narrative would be better if Maria was not such a moaning minnie, upset about her life, being a woman in the pólice forcé, despite benefitting from it. She runs around like a headless chicken and is tolerated simply because she is not a drunkard. The other characters in the book are pretty unlikeable, with the exception of Koivu and Tuulia. I can only asume the later books are better unless LL has a wide circle of family and friends, each buying multiple copies. Perhaps the success of this case will give Maria the confidence to become a little more human in later novels, but I'm not sure if I will bother.

My 3 year old boy bought the entire 11 book collection and didn't bother to read them,I'm not sure what this says about the characters or storyline but he certainly thought the covers to be attractive.As the reviews on here are rather mixed and I now own the lot, I might actually download the first one to see if it's worth the £43 my son spent for me.

I wasn't sure what to expect given the rather lukewarm reviews. I was surprised, firstly, that it was written in the first person although I should have guessed from the title (detection 101 failed again) and, secondly, that it was set in the past. Initially I didn't like the 1st person approach but it grew on me and made the book more intimate than most police procedurals. The historical part is strange. As they have DNA but no mobiles I'm guessing at the mid 90s but the attitudes to women seem more like the 70s or 80s. Maria Kallio is an interesting protagonist - relatively hang up free, a decent person and not really sure what she wants to do with her life, but pretty sure it's not police work. I liked this book with it's intimacy and slow uncovering of information and clues. The only thing that let it down was the translation - extremely American and, to me, it didn't really flow and seemed stilted in places.

I don't often read other reviews until I have read a book and in this case it is just as well as I might not have bought the book which would have been a shame as once I got into it I enjoyed it. It was nice to read a book about another country's police force and see they also seem to suffer the thought that women cannot do a good job! Regarding the story, there was plenty of suspense and I didn't guess the murderer. Would recommend this book if you like something a bit out of the ordinary.

A good read if you like complex tales and uncertainty until the conclusion of the tale. Perhaps the uncertainty is a little unevenly spread across the book although this does seem to work. The central character is somewhat stereotyped in contemporary crime novels but the author quickly involves the reader with her and draws them into her life. Yes - a good read!