Death Spiral (35 page)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2011 Tomas Whitehouse

Leena Lehtolainen was born in Vesanto, Finland, to parents who taught language and literature. As a child, she made up stories in her head before she could even write. At the age of ten, she wrote her first book, a young adult novel, which was published two years later. Besides writing, Leena is fond of classical singing, her beloved cats, and—her greatest passion—figure skating. She attends many competitions as a skating journalist and writes for a Finnish figure-skating magazine,
Taitoluistelu
.
Death Spiral
is the fifth installment in the bestselling Maria Kallio series, which debuted in English in 2012 with
My First Murder
and continued with
Her Enemy
,
Copper Heart
, and
Snow Woman
. She is also the author of the romantic suspense Bodyguard trilogy. Leena lives in Finland with her husband and two sons.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Photo © 2012 Pekka Piri

Owen F. Witesman is a professional literary translator with a master’s in Finnish and Estonian area studies from Indiana University. He has translated more than thirty Finnish books into English, including novels, children’s books, poetry, plays, graphic novels, and nonfiction. His recent translations include the novels
My First Murder
,
Her Enemy
,
Copper Heart
, and
Snow Woman
from the Maria Kallio series by Leena Lehtolainen, the novels in
the Snow White Trilogy
by Salla Simukka, the satire
The Human Part
by Kari Hotakainen, the thrillers
Cold Courage
and
Black Noise
by Pekka Hiltunen, Risto Isomäki’s ecothriller
Lithium-6
, and the 1884 classic
The Railroad
by Juhani Aho. He currently resides in Springville, Utah, with his wife and three daughters, two dogs, a cat, and twenty-nine fruit trees.