Popel a sníh – Rautiainen Petra (2022)

This gripping historical novel is set in the exotic, almost mystical environment of the northern wilderness, swept by the so-called Lapland War at the turn of 1944 and 1945. The conflict scarred the beautiful landscape with hundreds of prisoner-of-war camps and left lasting wounds on the souls of local people. In 1947, journalist Inkeri Lindqvist arrives in the north to write a report on Lapland’s recovery after the war. At the same time, she investigates the fate of her husband, who disappeared somewhere here during the fighting, under unclear circumstances, in a prisoner-of-war camp. Although she is closer to the past than she would dare imagine, she repeatedly encounters people who remember the recent events but refuse to reveal anything. Combining historical fiction with detective and espionage elements, the novel follows a heroine facing not only the silence of witnesses, but also false leads and false identities. It became a Finnish literary sensation, won the Savonia Literary Prize and was nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Prize and the Book of the Year award from the Suomalainen Kirjakauppa bookshop chain. The book is in Czech.