Review of THE RABBIT FACTOR by Antti Tuomainen

 3 Stars

I’m not sure how to categorize this novel; perhaps it’s best identified as a darkly comedic Nordic noir crime caper with romance elements. 

Henri Koskinen, an insurance actuary, inherits an adventure park, YouMeFun, near Helsinki after his brother’s death.  Along with the park come some peculiar staff members and an enormous debt to dangerous criminals.  Henri’s carefully ordered life is turned into chaos, and his emotions after meeting one of his staff, Laura Helanto, leave him totally discombobulated.  (Am I the only one who thought of The Rosie Project when Laura is introduced?)  Will Henri be able to save the park as his brother wished?  Since the criminals are willing to go to murderous lengths to collect their money, will Henri be able to save himself? 

I liked the protagonist.  At times he reminded me of Spock in the Star Trek series.  Henri relies on reason and logic:  “I just wanted things to occur in a good, logical order and that I based all of my actions on rational thinking.”  For him, the application of mathematics provides “Happiness, comfort, hope.  Sense and logic.  And above all:  solutions.”  He’s social awkward, unwilling to engage in ordinary pleasantries:  “’I don’t need to know how other people are doing.  I don’t want to know what they’re thinking, what they’ve done or how they experience things.  I don’t want to know what they are planning, their hopes and aspirations.  So I don’t ask.’”  He even uses logic to choose a restaurant:  “’Given the average rating review, the distance from our respective bus stops, the prevailing weather, the day of the week, the time of the year, your predilection for spicy food, and the fact that the point of a date is to try and make an impression on the other person, this seemed like the optimal choice.’” 

Of course Henri, the man who sees math and logic as the solution to all problems and so wants to calculate everything, is presented with situations and emotions that do not lend themselves to easy computation.  So he is very much a fish out of water, a purely logical man in an emotional world full of illogical and irrational behaviour.  In the course of the novel, he learns that it’s not just “calculations that tell us what is beautiful and what is not” and that it’s possible and perhaps desirable to live “’with less of a focus on probability calculus.’”

Though it relies on the “love conquers all” trope, I can accept Henri’s emotional growth, but I had difficulty with his transformation from a meek and mild actuary to a take-charge hero who successfully bests professional criminals.  Even for someone who dismisses emotional responses, his lack of a reaction to some of what he witnesses doesn’t make sense. 

There are parts I found humorous.  I liked Henri’s comments about management psychobabble, and his mathematical perspective on everything certainly amused.  Unfortunately, some of the scenes are too far-fetched for my liking.  The opening scene with Henri battering a man to death with a giant, plastic rabbit ear was my first indication that the book with this type of humour was probably not for me.  Other events just require too much suspension of disbelief.  And though the book is described as a “dark thriller,” I found it lacked tension and suspense.  Given the book’s tone and that Henri is the narrator, it’s obvious that he will emerge victorious and all will end well. 

I feel like I’m breaking up with someone when I state that it’s not the book.  I am the problem.  Offbeat stories with absurd plots are not to my taste.  It’s an easy read, but I didn’t engage with it, finding it more contrived that funny.  Others will undoubtedly love this book, but the combination of dark and silly didn’t work for me.  The book is followed by The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, but I think I’ll not read these.  My sense of humour, or lack thereof some would claim, is not a good fit for this trilogy.