Finnish Whodunnit? Society Journal, October, 2004
Book Description
The novel employs a daring component of fact within the mainstream crime thriller story line. In each 'symphony-chapter', there is one murder, and one 'lecture' (a few pages long) about Sibelius and the correspondingly numbered symphony. The lectures are given at Helsinki’s Sibelius Music Academy by the Welsh musicologist father of the central character: Detective Inspector Miranda Lewis (who is Finnish born, in spite of her name).
A key concept throughout the novel and especially towards the end, where we are allowed into the mind of the killer, is the dangerous, potentially corrupting power of the male sex-drive. (And, to some extent, the differences between the male and female sex-drives). The novel also explores the moral questions of guilt & accountability.
