Rabbit Factor

Henri Koskinen is an actuary and treasures rational, mathematical thinking. So he's thrown into a new world when he inherits an adventure park (not an amusement park) from his much-less straight-laced brother. He certainly doesn't expect to have to defend his life from a violent mobster by wielding a part of a giant mechanical rabbit. returnreturnAs he takes over the business and gets to know the rag-tag staff he discovers discrepancies in the books. Somehow, his brother owes a great deal of money to people who charge an unusually high interest rate and enforce loan collection energetically. He balances keeping the mobsters at bay with developing a new money-making scheme while also falling for a staff member who paints beautiful murals on the walls of the park, awakening something in Henri that he has never experienced before. returnreturnIt's a humorous (and sometimes dark) caper in an unusual setting with a narrator who shouldn't be especially winning but somehow is. Tuomainen continues to tell stories that are off the beaten path - but worth the trip. returnreturnThe translation is excellent. I admit, I'm a bit gobsmacked that this is apparently the first in a trilogy. Not sure where it will go from here...

Well this was good fun, a nice gentle comedy interwoven with little bits of violence and crammed full of fantastic characters, what more could you want? An adventure Park you say? Well it’s got one of them too. Our main character is Henri a man lost in his own little world of maths and logic, after the death of his brother he inherits an adventure park and all the craziness of his brother’s life, his own life in turn becomes flipped on its head…all logic and order is thrown out of the window the moment he sees Laura. For Henri this is going to be a real coming-of-age story.

The comedy factor of this book is not slap-stick and it isn’t over the top, it is a humour that has you chuckling to yourself the whole time…even during scenes you probably shouldn’t be…how can a scene where a kid has a broken leg make you smile? You gotta read this to find out. There are a lot of discussions about maths, Henri likes to share his workings with the reader, the bulk of this did go over my head, some of it is real life stuff like loans that I will never understand so Tuomainen was onto a losing battle there. The park employees and the gangster types are all well developed and they each get their moment to shine, and this is going to be a series of books so I’m looking forward to finding out more from the likes of Joanna, Esa and the wild marketing lady.

The whole story is pretty tidy, it is all very meticulous and it will be tough to find any plot holes and at the book’s final conclusion this reader was left pleased with how everything was played out with no loose ends, the book left me wanting more. A huge success. This book is going to be made into a movie starring Steve Carroll, not sure how I feel about that at the moment, he isn’t who I pictured Henri to be like. A fantastic start to this series.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/blog-tour-the-rabbit-factor-by-antti-tuomainen/