Snow Woman (33 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
.
Snow Woman
is the fourth installment in the bestselling Maria Kallio series, which debuted in English in 2012 with
My First Murder
and continued in 2013 with
Her Enemy
and
Copper Heart
. 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 first three novels in the Maria Kallio series, the satire
The Human Part
by Kari Hotakainen, the thriller
Cold Courage
by Pekka Hiltunen, and the 1884 classic
The Railroad
by Juhani Aho. He currently resides in Springville, Utah, with his wife and three daughters, a dog, a cat, and twenty-nine fruit trees.