Jaakko Kaunismaa runs a small matsutake mushroom export business in a Finnish town, shipping to Japan, and a doctor tells him he’s been systematically poisoned and has weeks left. So he sets out to find out who’s killing him, which is complicated by a wife who’s sleeping with somebody, a competing mushroom outfit that has just opened across town staffed by very strange men, and his own increasing physical uselessness. Tuomainen writes deadpan Finnish comedy about death, and the joke is that Jaakko becomes decisive and rather happy the moment he has nothing left to lose.
The Man Who Died