To understand what Stephen Hunter has built across four decades of fiction, you have to first understand what he is outside of it. Hunter spent nearly forty years as a newspaper journalist and film critic — first at the Baltimore Sun, where he joined in 1971 and became its film critic in 1982, then at the Washington Post, where he served as chief film critic from 1997 until accepting a buyout in 2008.

“Sisu,” directed by Jalmari Helander and released in 2023, is an action-packed film set in the final days of World War II in northern Finland. The story centers on Aatami Korpi, a former soldier turned prospector, who discovers a cache of gold in the desolate Lapland wilderness. As Aatami attempts to transport his newfound wealth to the city, he encounters a retreating Nazi battalion led by the ruthless SS officer Bruno Helldorf.