Raid ja Legioonalainen by Harri Nykänen

Second one of my holiday novels was Harri Nykänen's Raid ja Legioonalainen. I was a huge fan of the Raid TV series, but this is the first one Nykänen's books I've actually read. The story starts when two known criminals are found dead - the other one is declared as a murder and the other one as death of natural causes, but our favourite detectives Huusko and Jansson think otherwise. The assasin Raid (nick-named after the insect killer - "Kills bugs dead" or "tappaa talossa ja puutarhassa") is also involved in hunting down the killer it becomes a race of who will find the murderer first.

Nykänen's criminals seem to always the good guys while the bad guys are found in the ranks of the police and the politicians. Criminals are victims of their circumstances but are still good honest people and maintain a strict code of honour, be their killers or robbers or pimps. Police are mostly rotten and looking out only for themselves or their buddies who will help them to achieve their selfish goals. Dialog is clever and funny, but otherwise the narrative is a bit jumpy and at times confusing. There seems to be a little more plot than what is necessary or suitable for a book of 200 pages or so - in fact the plot is of the magnitude of the TV series that was around 12 hours long so there just isn't enough time to build it up and then reveal it giving it the drama it deserves.

A light entertaining summer read, but not much else. Still prefer the TV series and it's slow pace.