There’s a paradox surrounding comic thrillers. They are hard to get consistently right, and yet the pursuit of consistency can in itself be a problem for readers. We need stuff that’s fresh. Antti Tuomainen’s new novel, The Winter Job, confounds all expectations. Tuomainen continues mining his rich seam of achingly ordinary people put in farcical conditions. This time he explores shared objectives while calling on classic travel movie themes. It’s uproarious and warm. It should be schmaltzy as a Christmas carol but it’s anything but. I loved it.

The premise is that Ilmari, a postman, wants to buy his daughter a piano for Christmas. To raise the money, he’s taken on a delivery job involving an expensive sofa and a vintage Thames van. But before he leaves Helsinki he’s joined in his quest by Antero, a guy he’s not seen since school, but who’s down on his luck. Ilmari and Antero are the classic road-movie couple. There’s tension arising from a misdemeanour dating back to their schooldays, and from the fact that they’re being chased by two other vehicles, hot in pursuit of the coveted sofa.

Tuomainen creates worlds in which chaos arises through coincidence and happenstance but also because of the ludicrous decisions made in earnest or through sloppiness, in good faith and/or by fools. His previous novels have made great stock of the interplay between the individual and the community. And I’m half-way through this novel before I realise that I’m missing that interplay. There are just five key characters – Ilmari, Antero and their three pursuers, and when they come together there’s action rather than greater understanding. But as the five continue their journey, Tuomainen opens up their inner thoughts. The guy acting on his own is a calamity, to those around him but also to himself. For the other four, the two couples, there is tension, there is misunderstanding, but also trust and reconciliation, to themselves and to those around them. Relationships don’t always need the background of a community or a workplace (the locations of Tuomainen’s previous novels) to thrive. Sometimes a van in a storm is a good place to start.

With David Hackston’s witty translation, the pages fly by, and the ending is perfect.

The Winter Job shows Tuomainen finding new meaning in the comic thriller. It’s a pre-Christmas treat.

Thanks to Orenda Books for the review copy and to Anne Cater for the blog tour invitation.