Play with Fire

A chilling psychological thriller in the spirit of Erik Axl Sund and True Detective!

Ambitious star director Muska Meriläinen is in the middle of preparations for the most important premiere of her career, an adaption of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 at the National Theatre in Helsinki, when she suddenly starts to receive disturbing messages by someone calling himself the Firefighter of the Soul.

Soon a raw death case is revealed in the capital, and ex-police officer Kaarle Meriläinen fears that there is a connection between the act of violence and his daughter’s harassment.
When stressed out and overworked Muska is racked with guilt for neglecting her son, old habits seem to relieve, and she slips back into addiction. 

Just before the premiere of her play, Muska disappears and Kaarle is convinced that the mysterious events around his daughter reach further back to his last case, which threw his life off the tracks and led him through a mental hospital to becoming a priest.

Suddenly, Kaarle’s struggle with the past reawakens and he needs to find Muska before time runs out.

Play with Fire is the fast-paced opening of the thriller series Deadly Sins, set around the Meriläinen family. It takes the reader straight to Helsinki’s cultural scene and nightlife, into a world of addicts, occultism and revenge as it forces one to the core of evil, the mind of a psychopath.