murha liikenaiset Moskova, keinottelu kiinteistöt, suojelu poliitikot, traumat lapsuus, ilves, yksineläjät, venäläiset, henkivartijat naiset

I like Leena Lehtolainen's Maria Kallio series, so when I had gone through all of that series that's available in English, I decided to give another Lehtolainen series a try. For me, this did not work -- I got about a third of the way through the book, and abandoned it. I did not like the characters, notably the central character, and I didn't understand her at all. Had I had the patience to stick with it, I probably would have understood her some by the end of the book, but the game was decidedly not worth the candle. It's an interesting notion, and takes one into an unusual world, but it's not really one I want to visit.
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Leena Lehtolainen is a Finnish author, best known for her series featuring Policewoman Maria Kallio. THE BODYGUARD is the first in a new trilogy, featuring bodyguard Hilja Ilveskero. According to her website:

"The underlying theme of the trilogy is a series of questions about identity and concealment. Who is each person really? What disguise is each person using? What does it mean to be family? What language does each person speak and understand, and what is each person’s secret language? Finnish is a good secret language—few people understand it — and Finland as a country is a safe haven for many an international criminal. Who is on whose side? Who can be trusted? What is each person’s price? Who is each person willing either to betray or to save?"

Which is something this reader should possibly have read before undertaking this book as there were so many aspects that just didn't make sense.

Starting out in Russia where Ilveskero (she from the blurb who rarely loses her cool), loses her cool immediately when her client, a wealth Finnish woman, insists on buying a Lynx fur coat and Ilveskero quits on the spot. Her objections to this particular fur coat are eventually explained, but immediately the reader is presented with a weird discordance - for somebody who rarely loses her cool - she's let it rip early on. Who's wrong here - the blurb or the character. Unfortunately a sneaking suspicion of understanding creeps in about the time that the wealthy client is shot dead in Moscow, and Ilveskero is questioned by the police. In what starts out as a "clearing her name" storyline, things rapidly progress to another client, a very odd ongoing discussion with herself in the disguise of a male character, a lot of backstory of childhood, and time in bodyguard / security school in the US, and a lurking threatening male who, of course, our heroine promptly falls for, and into the bed of.

The danger of using first person like this is that the reader has to have a connection with the central character. Even if they are selectively viewed, unreliable, odd, self-obsessed, or whatever other failings there are in the protaganist, the reader must want to spend time in that head / those thoughts. For this reader that was a very difficult proposition in THE BODYGUARD. Ilveskero isn't necessarily unreliable, and whilst she's definitely a bit odd, the offputting bit was definitely obsession, slow reveals and repetition. Reading the explanation from the website now makes some sense of some of Ilveskero's obsessions - but just reading the book - they seem like simply character traits, behaviours, with no particular reason. Obviously the use of the slow reveal to explain the Lynx obsession, the difficult childhood, is meant to raise tension - but when it's in the main character's own head - it's just came across to this reader as odd, selective memories. And the constant repetition of elements of the past, of the security school, what her tutor says / thinks, and the location of the cabin, and the bike, and and and - made it feel like you were spending way too much time in the head of somebody with an OCD problem.

None of this was helped by some really odd motivations at points - if you believe the ex-partner responsible for ordering the killing of your boss has sent an underling in pursuit of you - is it even vaguely possible that your first choice would be to fall madly in lust? Even while telling yourself that you can't trust this bloke. Okay so some women might be daft enough but should a trained bodyguard be that stupid? Careless? Whilst attaching trackers to clients and supposedly hiding your location from the same man?

The repetition, the odd motivations, the oversharing of the central character in THE BODYGUARD bogged the reading down to the point where the book felt like it was about 1/3rd longer than it needed to be and the ending seemed constantly in the distance. Even when much of the action had been wrapped up - the final twist was so corny alas it was the straw that broke this camel's back.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-bodyguard-leena-lehtolainen ( )

Leena Lehtolainen is best known for her award-winning series of detective novels featuring Mario Kallio. "The Bodyguard" introduces Hilja Ilveskero. The story begins when Hilja's employer, Anita Nuutinen, is murdered within hours of Hilja's angry resignation. Of course now everyone believes that Hilja was bought off by Anita's enemies or that she is the murderer.

Hilja starts to backtrack Anita's life and is unexpectedly hired by Helene Lehmusvuo, one of Anita's friends, an important politician who is being threatened by her ex-husband and some Russians who want her to soften her stance on Finland's relationship with Russian. She also meets a mysterious and dangerous man… dangerous in several ways.

The story moves along at a lively pace. It is refreshing that Hilja is not a superhero. She is competent at her work and we are impressed with her professionalism. She works hard to keep her clients safe but she is human and believable.

The translation from Finnish has been done by Jenni Salmi. It is gracefully done, for the most part, although I have some reservations about Ms Salmi's decision to use miles and cups instead of kilometers and decalitres. There are a couple of odd slips in the text, but the only real blunder I noticed was when Hilja pays for a hotel room with money she did not have 3 pages earlier.

I received a review copy of "The Bodyguard" by Leena Lehtolainen (AmazonCrossing) through NetGalley.com. ( )

The Bodyguard (The Bodyguard series Book 1) by Leena Lehtolainen
I am not sure, if it is the translation from Finnish to English that is making this book so difficult for me to read and enjoy, or if it just not that well written in the first place. I normally love books that are set (well at least to me) in exotic places, but this book is not doing it for me.

This book is written in first person and for a mystery, that is normally a very good thing, but getting and staying inside of Hilja Ilveskero’s head is a creepy thing for me. She has the personality of a 14-year-old sexual predator with an obsession for lynx’s. Yes, you heard me correctly – the part of the first chapter is spent on this; as are many other parts of many other chapters. As I got to the 75% mark, I had still not understood what the importance of the lynx was and I am bored enough at this point to not care.

The mystery aspect is interesting enough and the up to date background is quite interesting, politically speaking. Unfortunately, most of the book is not really spent with Hilja trying to solve the murder…it is spent on so many other things, thoughts, brooding moments and secondary characters.

The author seems obsessed with certain aspects of Hilja’s life and personality. For example, most an entire chapter of us has to learn that Hilja had to undergo an internal exam when she was about six or seven due to a mistake on her teachers’ part. Very detailed description I might add…and just in case you missed the description the first time, you get to experience it a second time too! In addition, it came to nothing.

A lot of what is thrown into this book was repetitive (I wanted to scream if I had to hear about the New York Bodyguard school she went to, one more time and that is just one example). Perhaps the repetitiveness will make further books in this new series make more sense, but I can say that it makes THIS book to be a difficult read.
The chapters that bring us to the conclusion and explanation of the crimes, is so unbelievable that I very nearly laughed at what I felt the absurdity of it all.

Again, all of this might be from the translation: stilted dialogue, cardboard characters, clichés…but I think not. I think I just don’t get Scandinavian authors and that is unfortunate because I was so looking forward to something different. ( )