Interview: Martta Kaukonen, author of the psychological thriller BUTTERFLY - Longanesi

Dear friends,

today our blog guest is Martta Kaukonen, the Finnish author of BUTTERFLY, one of the most interesting psychological thrillers of 2025, published in Italy by Longanesi.

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1) Dear Martta, welcome to Il Giallista!

What prompted you to deal with such a complex psychological pathology as obsessions?

My mother was a psychologist (she’s already retired) and that is the reason I have always been interested in psychology. I even thought that I would start studying psychology in university but when I saw the first exambook of the psychology course I changed my mind. It was a 1000 pages long book on brain structure. So I started to study cinema instead because I was going to cinema at least three times a week anyway.

2) How did you research to delineate the psychology of the main characters, seemingly so different, a murderess with obsessive thoughts on the one hand and a psychologist on the other?

When I started to write my book in 2016 (oh god, it’s almost 10 years already!) I had worked as a film critic for over 16 years. As a film critic I always had to research so many things so that my reviews were informative. So when I started to write Butterfly I promised to myself that I only write about subjects I already know about. I didn’t want to do any research at all. As I already told you I’ve always been interested in psychology. I have read everyting that I have been able to found about what I might call ”psychology of evil”. For example I’ve been very intrested in psychopathy. At one point I thought Ida could have been a school shooter not a serial killer because I had read so many books on school shootings. 

3) Who’s the first person you gave the first draft of BUTTERFLY to read?

My husband. I didn’t tell anyone that I was writing Butterfly. It took me four years to write the book and my husband was the only one who knew I was writing it. I thought it would be unbearable embarassing if I told everyone and his dog that I’m writing a book and then it wouldn’t get published. He was also the first one I told that an American-German production house Legendary Tobis TV is making a tv series based on the book.

4) When did you decide to turn to writing?

I had always thought that I would never write a book. As a film critic I knew that writing is hard. And I thought that I couldn’t invent an interesting plot that goes on for 400 pages, or characters that would feel real or suprising twists and so on. But then one evening when I was laying in bed waiting to fall asleep I heard a voice in my head speaking to first lines of my book. I got up and dictated those lines on my iPhone and the next morning I started to write Butterfly.

5) How and how much did your previous work as a film critic help shape your writing career?

I have seen more films than it is healthy for a one person to see in a one lifetime. So when I wrote Butterfly I didn’t have to consciously think about writing a psychological thriller because the format, the structure, all the stylistic devises of the genre came to me automatically. Everything was really easy. So I owe everything to cinema, especially to my favourite genre film noir. Clarissa is the femme fatale of film noir movies and Arto the drunken journalist who usually ends up floating in the pool dead.

Thank you for this interview! 

Thank you for accepting our invitation!

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Writer:

MARTTA KAUKONEN lives in Helsinki. Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a film critic for major national newspapers. Her debut novel, Butterfly, was a great success with the public and critics in Finland and throughout Europe: translated in 16 countries, topped the Spiegel charts in Germany, and will soon be made into a TV series.