Fadi

Trace of Terror.

Winner of the Clew of the Year award in 2023! Nominated for the Glass Key award in 2025. Kale Puonti’s fifth detective novel Fadi takes the detectives of the Pasila Poison series undercover for drug trafficking and terrorism, where every available option is the wrong one.

Captagon, known as a combat drug, is caught in the police nets. In conjunction with the incident, the police discover a drug trafficking chain that travels to Russia through Finland. The drug trade leader in the Nordic countries is Iraqi-born Fadi Mohammed, who keeps a barbershop in Helsinki’s Kallio neighborhood.

Mohammed’s name also appears on the list of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service. Fadi is a suspect for the 1982 Paris terrorist attack. However, he has kept a low profile for decades, and the police find it challenging to slip into his inner circles to collect evidence. An infiltrator is needed for the job.

In the fifth part of the Pasila Poison detective series, police are recruited from detective chief inspector Kaartamo’s group. Fresh police academy graduate Ali Yasin is assigned to work undercover for the operation. The opponent is Fadi Mohammed, the experienced killer and drug lord, but also a father and grandfather, who feels the weight of regret from his past.

Kale Puonti (born 1962) worked for more than thirty years in the Helsinki Drug and Organised Crime Unit. He has held a front-row seat for witnessing international drug crime make its way to Finland and worked with several cases that received high publicity. Puonti has pulled in readers with the convincingly realistic Pasila Poison detective novels. He won the Finnish Whodunnit Society’s Clew of the Year award in 2023 for Fadi, the fifth book in the series. Based on the crime novels that have become readers’ favourites, a TV series has also been made.