Humour In Crime Fiction
Featuring – Mark Billingham and Antti Tuomainen

This was a highly humorous panel that also made thought-provoking points.

Antti Tuomainen lives in Finland and is  known has written several books. His latest trilogy begins with The Rabbit Factor, then there is The Moose Paradox and then The Beaver Theory. Prior to this, he wrote very dark noir and felt he needed to make the change of adding in some humour into his crime writing. Prior to writing books he was writing for other people as a copywriter.

The series is humorous, full of crime and originality with The Rabbit Factor taking place in an adventure park.
The main character  being an insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen. He looks at people square-on and says what he thinks, whatever that may be. I’ve read and reviewed the book, it is honestly quirky and a wonderful read. This first book in the trilogy is optioned to be made into a film and so far still has Steve Carell attached to it. Having read the book, it would be brilliant on-screen.

Mark Billingham, lives in the UK, used to do stand-up comedy and acting (Maid Marion and Her Merry Men, including writing some episodes and other shows) and now writes series and stand-alone books. He has found a good place to pause his Tom Thorn series and has a completely new book out – The Last Dance.

The Last Dance is set in Blackpool. Miller’s back, defined by grief and doesn’t care what he says or thinks as a result.
Billingham talked about Blackpool, and divulged it was saved from devastation by Hitler who ordered no bombing there because he had a soft spot for it. This book is on my review list.

The discussion was interesting and thought-provoking about how humour and seriousness are not mutually exclusive and illustrated the point of life being full of light and dark points, sometimes at the same time, through jokes.
I thought, quite sad in a way, they told the audience about how it can be hard to get humorous books published, so that’s why you don’t see many around.

They made the interesting point of humour being subjective and how it can sometimes be tricky for the solitary reader to always see the humour and how, when people in groups, for a split second before they laugh, they glance at their neighbours, almost to check that it is funny and okay to laugh at whatever is being said.

What was fascinating too, was the discussion about the differences in the UK and Finland when it comes to writing and how the writers have sensitivity readers in the UK, whereby they don’t so much in Finland, preferring a much more free approach to their writing and their thoughts on this.