by Antti Tuomainen
When I started writing The Winter Job – out today in the UK – I knew it was going to be a standalone. But how did I know that? I think there are at least two bigger reasons. First, it was my second standalone after The Rabbit Factor trilogy, and I think I still felt that it was too early to start another trilogy or series. Second, and probably more important, I felt that the story itself required that it be completed in one book. Thus, in hindsight, I think I can say that it was an instinctive decision based on the nature of the original idea.
After fifteen novels, anyone would think that I would have developed a better, perhaps more scientific method than instinct – and the abstract nature of an idea – to decide whether to write a standalone or to embark on a series, but I must admit that I haven’t. I realise there are potential commercial advantages to series – they are often easier to market, and readers tend to find them easier to approach, especially in genre writing, like crime fiction. But I have also come to learn that writing a book demands so much work for such a long period of time that I really need to take the only possible short-cut available: write what I want.
Case in point: when I was writing The Rabbit Factor (the first book in the trilogy of same name) I hadn’t planned a trilogy. I was near the end of the first draft when I suddenly – and yes, instinctively and based on the nature of the original idea – knew that this story isn’t over yet, that there is more to this character and his journey. So, I suggested to my agent that I write a sequel, and he asked could it be a trilogy. I answered immediately because I already knew the answer: Yes, it could be, and happily. I was indeed thrilled to continue writing from this character’s (a highly rational actuary) perspective and to see him achieve his goal: love and happiness and the end of solitude. It was a longer journey because it, well, needed to be.
The Winter Job, then, was a natural standalone. As I said, I knew this from the beginning, and I think I knew it when I had the first inkling of the idea some years ago. The biggest reason for that seems, at least to me, to lie in the very nature of the story. It is a road-trip movie in the form of a book, and once a journey is completed – no spoilers here, I’m not telling how it is completed – and the story of a friendship is told, the most important goals were achieved. I loved the characters and saw potential in their subsequent adventures and could have gone on with them, but something just told me that they would be alright without me and that I should continue to the next story.
And that’s what I am doing, following my instinct and listening what the story is trying to tell me. Standalone or a series – that is the question, again.
The Winter Job, by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston, is published by Orenda Books on 23rd October 2025.
