Random Things Blog Tour – Book Review – The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen – #thriller #crime #mystery

“I’m looking the rabbit in the eye when the lights suddenly go out.”

Genre: Mystery/Crime/Thriller

Number of Pages: 300

Date of Publication: 28 October 2021 (Hardback)

Publisher: Orenda Books

Rated: 4.5/5

My Review Summary: An entertaining book that had me gripped from the beginning.

📖PLOT SUMMARY FROM GOODREADS📖

An insurance mathematician’s carefully ordered life is turned on its head when he unexpectedly loses his job and inherits an adventure park … with a whole host of problems. A quirky, tense and warmly funny thriller from award-winning Finnish author Antti Tuomainen.

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal.

And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters … and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.

But what Henri really can’t compute is love. In the adventure park, Henri crosses paths with Laura, an artist with a chequered past, and a joie de vivre and erratic lifestyle that bewilders him. As the criminals go to extreme lengths to collect their debts and as Henri’s relationship with Laura deepens, he finds himself faced with situations and emotions that simply cannot be pinned down on his spreadsheets…

Warmly funny, rich with quirky characters and absurd situations, The Rabbit Factor is a triumph of a dark thriller, its tension matched only by its ability to make us rejoice in the beauty and random nature of life.

💭THOUGHTS💭  

I was immediately attracted to the bold front cover, and, together with the description, resulted in me signing up for the Tour. 

I am pleased to say that the story lived up to the cover and description, and I really enjoyed it. The writing was engaging in an interesting way, it was quite to the point and intellectual. The main character himself was very black and white and used intellectual language, but it was done in a fairly clear, and at times, amusing way. 

The writing was descriptive and was narrated from the main character’s point of view. Due to the uniqueness of his personality this made for an interesting read. I loved seeing how he viewed the world and how things just seemed to keep happening to him, despite his best efforts to keep his life plain and simple. The story had a great flow to it and was cleverly controlled by the length of the chapters and the subject matter. When the story needed to slow down there were little bits added to prolong what was going to happen. They didn’t feel forced and actually gave a more rounded picture of what was ultimately going on. It was all cleverly brought together and I felt like I had closure. 

The chapters were all fairly long and, as I said above, the length and subject matter was used effectively to control the pace of the story. Lots of little details and questions were woven in and cleverly all came together at the end. The longer chapters were split with a little bunny which I thought was interesting. 

The only downside to the writing was that as the character was so exact and worked in a mathematical and then later, financial world, it took me a little while to follow exactly what it was that he was doing to save the park. Even now I’m not 100% sure I understood all of it. I did however, understand enough that it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book, it just took me time which I wouldn’t normally spend on trying to understand what was going on in a book. This is why I gave it a 4.5 rating instead of 5.

The characters were excellent. The main character who narrated the story was very exact in everything that he did. I enjoyed learning a bit about his family history which resulted in him ending up the way that he was. I also enjoyed all the other staff members at the park, the criminals and the Police Officer. You didn’t know who to trust and little hints were dropped that made you question the characters. The Police Officer was a kind character who I think knew more than he let on. 

There wasn’t one character who let the story down. Altogether they created an excellent story that was well thought out and, at times, humorous.

Lastly the settings. I loved the adventure park setting. It was something I hadn’t read before and it allowed for all sorts of things to happen naturally. The descriptions were excellent and really made you feel like you were there. Whilst there was a lot of detail, it never felt overbearing, it contributed well to the storyline. 

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book. It was funny, entertaining, dark in places and had a bit of romance thrown in too. 

I recommend it to mystery/thriller fans. 

⭐Rated 4.5/5⭐

📖THE AUTHOR📖

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