Kuka murhasi rouva Skrofin?

Who Killed Mrs Skrof? is a detective novel written by Mika Waltari (of Sinuhe fame) 1939.

The detective is Inspector Palmu, who is scruff, grumpy old man, with not so certain grip of “loan words”. He knows what they mean, but doesn't quite remember how to put the letters together to form the word. The book is narrated by his subordinate Virta, who is from a rather rich family, has university education, and is going to surpass Inspector Palmu in rank, but will always have the mentor - son relation with him. He is sort of Palmu's Watson, though Palmu is not Sherlock Holmes.
He solves the crimes with his knowledge of human nature, sort of mix of miss Marple and Poirot :-D

Mrs Skrof is a religious old rich woman and as the title says, she gets killed. The book begins with her body being found. It is set to look like an accident, but there is one detail in the scene that Palmu spots that makes it impossible to have been an accident. The primary suspects are a religious cult leader who had gotten his claws on mrs. Skrof; mrs. Skrof's stepdaughter who lived with her; and mrs. Skrof's nephew. All these three had a claim on her vast fortune. During the story more suspects are being introduced, the expected red herrings are thrown into the soup, and the killer is revealed in the last chapter, where Palmu explains how the murder happened.

It is an excellently written (of course, I don't think Mika Waltari could write badly even if he tried :-D), has well enough mystery, is interesting to follow and try to solve (I did :-D), and there is plenty of humor to make it an enjoyable read. Why I gave it only 4 stars is that it felt a little sketchy every now and then. I would have wanted a little bit more depth to the story. But, it's only a little bit more than 200 pages, just a “pulp fiction”, written to entertain the reader during a train journey or something similar, so I suppose that would have been quite unnecessary. Even this short this book does its job and does it well.

To this day, Mika Waltari's detective novels are among the best Finland has to offer. Quite enjoyable.