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Reading lists

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Winter Reads (1)

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Short stories

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Flat lay of Scandinavian fiction books against textiles.

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10 must-read Scandinavian novels

Quicksand

A fascinating memoir-of-sorts from the legendary writer &amp; campaigner for human rights: Quicksand is a collection of micro-essays exploring what it is to be human, covering topics as varied as Henning's cancer diagnosis, art, jealousy, Ice Ages past and present, and the future of our planet

An extraordinarily moving book… The chief strength of this book – and what makes it such a beautiful, moving document – is in the descriptions that Mankell gives of the joy and suffering he has seen, especially in Africa… Throughout Quicksand, there are scenes [of] joy and triumph in the midst of suffering and loss. This grave book, intensely beautiful in spirit, takes us to these places in the thoughtful company of a great soul

An honourable, courageous piece of work… A work of considerable scope… A remarkable man

An extraordinary book, mixing the intimate detail of memoir (the incidents from his childhood and early life are told beautifully, and with wonderful economy) with the moral beliefs of a man whose concern with social justice has dictated the pattern of his mature years. At times Mankell can sound like a latter-day Seneca, and he brings the same gravitas and moral authority to bear on his arguments… A deeply serious, and highly uplifting book…profoundly moving.

Quicksand, a hybrid of essay and memoir, reflects knowledgeably on art, religion, childhood and the “final insensibility” that is our dying. Rarely has a writer contemplated the mystery of the end of life with such a wide-ranging curiosity

Quicksand…defines life not by its ending but by the creative and humanitarian content that filled — and fulfilled — Mankell’s life

Quicksand, Mankell’s final book, is his most excoriating indictment of human folly… An extremely moving swansong

A deeply sombre book… Fans of Mankell’s magnificently gloomy fiction will have no difficulty in recognising the blueprint for his literary alter ego, Kurt Wallander… Compelling

Although written in the final year of his life…the result is uplifting and, as a memoir, as unusual a creation as his Nordic detective, Kurt Wallander

A collection of essays that are not limited to his illness, but enriched by it.

Mankell confronts his own mortality with moving intelligence and honesty, meditating on vast spans of time that cannot be fully apprehended by intellect or imagination, from the last ice age to the ones to come, and from the earliest civilisations to modern society.

Delivered in a no-nonsense style, never striving for melodrama or controversy…making us think deeply about what it means to live, and to die, as a result.

In calm, limpid writing [Mankell] contemplates his illness – cancer – but is determined to hold on to the good things in life.

The effect is more like poetry than prose, as we are transported from cave paintings to motorways, seedy hotels to dazzling cathedrals, hospital wards to the Louvre, the Prado, the Thassos ampitheatre.

Although written in the final year of his life, after his diagnosis with cancer, the result is uplifting and, as a memoir, as unusual a creation as his Nordic detective, Kurt Wallander.

In January 2014 Henning Mankell was informed that he had cancer. 
 
 However, Quicksand is not a book about death, but about what it means to be human. Mankell writes about love and jealousy, courage and fear, about what it is like to live with a fatal illness. 
 
 This book is also about why the cave painters 40,000 years ago chose the very darkest places for their fascinating pictures. And about the dreadful troll that we are trying to lock away inside the bedrock of a Swedish mountain for the next 100,000 years. 
 
 It is a book about how humanity has lived and continues to live, and about how Henning lived his own life. 
 
 And, not least, about the great zest for life, which came back when he managed to drag himself out of the quicksand that threatened to suck him down into the abyss.

I Die, But The Memory Lives On

A powerful, moving and tragic account of the families shattered and children abandoned as a result of the spread of HIV and, through the Memory Books project, a hope for the future.

The problem of Aids has been kept largely under control in Europe, but in the Third World it is a different story. There is a devestating lack of resources for medicine and for education. When parents die at a young age, children are left behind with no-one to teach them how to avoid the same fate, and so the cycle continues. 
 
Memory Books could prove to be the most important documents in our time in answer to this crisis. When the official reports have been filed away, these slim volumes, memories recorded by those who died too soon, will remain. Through a combination of words and drawings, they can have a legacy, a hope that future generations may not suffer the same heartbreaking fate. 
 
Henning Mankell is not a public figure in the way politicians are, but he has achieved cult success with his Kurt Wallander novels and is noted for the social and moral questions raised by his fiction. He devotes much of his time to work with Aids charities. 
 
I Die But the Memory Lives on is a fable illustrating the importance of books as a means of education, of preserving memories and of sharing life. In the midst of death and suffering, a young girl plants a tree. She nurtures it as a fragment of life that will grow and survive and, like the Memory Books, outlive this global crisis. Mankell, by highlighting and humanising this catastrophe, proposes a way to help.

An Event in Autumn

Never before published in English, this Kurt Wallander novella sees the original Scandinavian detective uncovering the skeleton of a woman in a suburban garden - forcing him to delve into the area's dark past...

An absolute pleasure to read and one worth luxuriating in

Wallander remains one of the most impressive and credible creations in crime fiction today

Good news for those suffering Wallander withdrawal symptoms

This beautifully crafted story will grab you and it will not let go

A final precious gobbet for those of us who aren’t ready for Inspector Wallander’s story to come to an end

Mankell is undoubtedly a skilled writer with plenty of breadth, but it’s clear that his subtleties of character, plot and pace achieve greatest expression in the Wallander series

Wallander is among the very best fictional crimebusters

The real test of thrillers of this kind is whether you want to spend time in the detective's company. I certainly do

Henning Mankell (1948-2015) became a worldwide phenomenon with his crime writing, gripping thrillers and atmospheric novels set in Africa. His prizewinning and critically acclaimed Inspector Wallander Mysteries continue to dominate bestseller lists all over the globe and his books have been translated into forty-five languages and made into numerous international film and television adaptations: most recently the BAFTA-award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. 
 
Driven by a desire to change the world and to fight against racism and nationalism, Mankell devoted much of his time to working with charities in Africa, including SOS Children’s Villages and PLAN International, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. In 2008, the University of St Andrews conferred Henning Mankell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience. 
 
www.henningmankell.com

Some cases aren’t as cold as you’d think 
 
Kurt Wallander’s life looks like it has taken a turn for the better when his offer on a new house is accepted, only for him to uncover something unexpected in the garden – the skeleton of a middle-aged woman. 
 
As police officers comb the property, Wallander attempts to get his new life back on course by finding the woman’s killer with the aid of his daughter, Linda. But when another discovery is made in the garden, Wallander is forced to delve further back into the area's past. 
 
A treat for fans and new readers alike, this is a never before published Kurt Wallander novella

Wallander's First Case

Kurt Wallander is twenty one and new to the police force - and he won't let anything stand in the way of solving his first murder case

Mankell is the master of Scandinavian crime, much imitated, never bettered

Henning Mankell (1948-2015) became a worldwide phenomenon with his crime writing, gripping thrillers and atmospheric novels set in Africa. His prizewinning and critically acclaimed Inspector Wallander Mysteries were bestsellers all over the globe and his books have been translated into forty-five languages and made into numerous international film and television adaptations, including the BAFTA-award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. 
 
Driven by a desire to change the world and to fight against racism and nationalism, Mankell devoted much of his time to working with charities in Africa, including SOS Children’s Villages and PLAN International, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. In 2008, the University of St Andrews conferred Henning Mankell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience. 
 
www.henningmankell.com

Kurt Wallander is twenty one and new to the police force - and he won't let anything stand in the way of solving his first murder case 
 
Wallander finds his neighbour dead: a revolver in his hand, and a bullet through his head. 
 
Suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the apparently open and shut case of suicide, Wallander starts an off-the-books investigation - only to find that following his instincts is a very dangerous thing to do. 
 
Discover the case that began Kurt Wallander's career - first published in The Pyramid, a collection of short stories featuring Wallander. 
 
OUT NOW: An Event in Autumn - a new, never before published Wallander novella.

A Treacherous Paradise

From the master of thriller writing, comes a sweeping historical novel based on the true story of a Swedish woman who ran the most famous brothel in Mozambique: a gripping and thought-provoking read

Mankell uses his deep knowledge of Mozambique’s history and politics to great advantage in this unusual and riveting story

Mankell is the master. Let’s be honest: I hate thrillers. But I love Mankell

Profound and compelling… Paints a convincing and poignant picture

A Treacherous Paradise sees Henning Mankell turn his talents for writing gripping thrillers to a world where power and powerlessness meet and passion is a dangerous commodity. 
 
Hanna Lundmark escapes the brutal poverty of rural Sweden for a job as a cook onboard a steamship headed for Australia. Jumping ship at the African port of Lourenço Marques, Hanna decides to begin her life afresh. 
 
Stumbling across what she believes to be a down-at-heel hotel, Hanna becomes embroiled in a sequence of events that lead to her inheriting the most successful brothel in town. Uncomfortable with the attitudes of the white settlers, Hanna is determined to befriend the prostitutes working for her, and change life in the town for the better, but the distrust between blacks and whites, and the shadow of colonialism, lead to tragedy and murder.

The Shadow Girls

The inspirational tale of a writer who finds himself caught up in the extraordinary stories of three young immigrant girls in Sweden by the 'Swedish John le Carre', Henning Mankell

Mankell writes with both a social conscience and great humour…it is both passionate and entertaining, and a strong indication that the Swedes are not as lugubrious as their crime fiction makes them out to be

Three girls escaping horror and hardship to make new lives in Sweden become the inspiration for troubled poet Jesper. But Mankell is too clever and cunning an author to go down any predictable path. Inspirational

This quirky offering sets out to tackle the weighty topics of immigration and how refugees affect Swedish society

Mankell is giving a voice to those who do not possess one. Some may feel that there are two kinds of novel here, which remain obstinately heterogeneous. But such is Mankell’s skill that we surrender to whatever mode the book settles into – and it might be argued that the comic sugaring of the pill in The Shadow Girls makes the hidden agenda all the more potent

As we are drawn into the shadow world of immigrant life in Sweden, Mankell’s blend of comedy and moving drama provides a voice for those who lose theirs on their journey from oppression to imagined freedom; freedom which is often transient and blighted with prejudice and racism

A passionate and enjoyable tale that intertwines the story of a failed writer with those of the refugee women to whom he teaches creative writing

Mankell adroitly mixes cheerful satire and harrowing detail, and this hymn to the mistreated and marginalised sparks with passion

Tea-Bag, a young Nigerian girl, has fled a refugee camp in Spain for the promise of a new life in Sweden. Tania has made a long and dangerous journey to escape themisery of life in a brothel. Leila has travelled with her family from Iran. All of them are facing different challenges in their new home. 
 
Meanwhile, celebrated poet Jesper Humlin is looking for inspiration. Harried by his mother and girlfriend, misunderstood by his publisher and tormented by his stockbroker, Jesper needs a new perspective on life. A chance encounter with Tea-Bag leads him into the shadow world of the immigrant experience in Sweden. Initially he sees the girls purely as material for his work, but they have very different ideas. 
 
This inspiring novel encompasses both humour and tragedy and illuminates our understanding of those left on the margins of our society.

Before The Frost

After the enormous success of the Kurt Wallander series, Henning Mankell begins a new chapter: as Kurt prepares for retirement his daughter Linda prepares to join the Ystad police force and becomes an immediate star in her own right.

With this book his fans are in for a double treat as Mankell gives us two Wallanders for the price of one... Crime fiction doesn't get any better than this

Probably Britain's favourite European mystery writer... Mankell's subtle use of his characters keeps you reading

This novel will not disappoint Kurt's followers. He remains integral, and his guilt-shot relationship to his daughter is beautifully done

The Nordic King of European thriller writers

The leader of a religious cult in Guyana instigates a mass suicide. He succeeds in killing himself and his whole flock of worshippers, save one. 
 
In a wood outside Ystad, the police make an horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, handwritten corrections and amendments on every page. 
 
A string of incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, has been taking place and Inspector Wallander fears that these events could be the prelude to attacks on humans on a much greater scale. Meanwhile Linda Wallander, preparing to join the Ystad police force, arrives at the station. Showing all the hallmarks of her father - the maverick approach, the flaring temper - she becomes involved in the case and in the process is forced to confront a group of extremists bent on punishing the world's sinners.

Kurt Wallander

The Pyramid

An essential read for all fans of Kurt Wallander: The Pyramid brings us the early years of Kurt Wallander

[A] brilliant collection of stories from the grand master of chilly Scandinavian crime

Absorbing... A good book for newcomers to start with

** The inspiration for the NETFLIX original series Young Wallander - out now ** 
 
When Kurt Wallander first appeared in Faceless Killers, he was a senior police officer, just turned forty, with his life in a mess. His wife had left him, his father barely acknowledged him; he ate badly and drank alone at night. 
 
The Pyramid chronicles the events that led him to such a place. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat whilst trying to solve a murder off-duty; witness the beginnings of his fragile relationship with Mona, the woman he has his heart set on marrying; and learn the reason behind his difficulties with his father. These thrilling tales provide a fascinating insight into Wallander's character, from the stabbing of a neighbour in 1969 to a light aircraft accident in 1989, every story is a vital piece of the Wallander series, showing Mankell at the top of his game. 
 
Featuring an introduction from the author, The Pyramid is an essential read for all fans of Kurt Wallander.

Firewall

In this tense and gripping installment in the Kurt Wallander series, the criminals always seem to know the police's next move

Firewall is the eighth of his investigations, and the most enjoyable yet

Another gripping Inspector Wallander mystery by Sweden's master crime writer

Firewall cracks along at a punishing pace... I am already hankering for a return to Ystad and a few more sleepless nights traipsing after Kurt

Kurt Wallander is right up there with Ian Rankin's John Rebus

Stopping to use a cash machine one evening, a man falls to the ground: dead. A taxi driver is brutally murdered by two teenage girls who demonstrate a complete lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards, a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery... 
 
Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery of betrayals in his own team, lonely and frustrated, Wallander begins to lose conviction in his role as a detective. 
 
And somehow these criminals seem always to know the police's next move.

One Step Behind

Three young friends are shot dead on Midsummer's Eve. Then one of Kurt Wallander's colleagues is murdered. Is it the same killer?

One of the most ingenious crime writers around. Highly recommended

Mankell is in the first division of crime writing

Not only an intriguing puzzle, but a moving description of a man trying to keep faith with a dead friend... This is the best aspect of crime fiction: a gripping plot plus the exploration of character and relationships that reverberate around murder

So compelling that, at the end of the sleepless night it took to read, I blearily reached for a keyboard to search for Mankell's other titles

It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unknown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet. 
 
Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is it the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.

The Fifth Woman

When Inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of an elderly man, he uncovers a gruesome murder in a case that will test him to his limits.

Inspector Wallander is one of the most wonderful creations in contemporary crime writing

Truly horrifying... The novels become a compulsion - one reads them all

The real test of thrillers of this kind is whether you want to spend more time in the detective's company. I certainly do

Mankell's long, subtle, involving novel could turn you to crime

Four nuns and a fifth woman are killed in a savage night-time attack in Africa. A year later, Inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of an elderly birdwatcher and discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder - a body impaled in a trap of sharpened bamboo poles. Then, another man is reported missing. 
 
Once again Wallander's life is put on hold as he and his team work tirelessly to find a link between the series of vicious murders. 
 
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for Sidetracked.

Sidetracked

In this gripping thriller, Kurt Wallander's furious pursuit of a killer who scalps his victims will throw him and those he loves most into mortal danger.

Wallander's investigations are perfectly judged to create a thrilling mood of growing tension culminating in a satisfying climax

Wonderfully bleak thrillers...somehow unremitting and gripping at the same time

Mankell is one of the most ingenious crime writers around. Highly recommended

Midsummer approaches, and Inspector Kurt Wallander prepares for a holiday with the new woman in his life, hopeful that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without him. 
 
But his restful summer plans are thrown into disarray when a teenage girl commits suicide before his eyes, and a former minister of justice is butchered in the first of a series of apparently motiveless murders. Wallander's desperate hunt for the girl's identity and his furious pursuit of a killer who scalps his victims will throw him and those he loves most into mortal danger. 
 
WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION GOLD DAGGER

The Man Who Smiled

A disillusioned Inspector Kurt Wallander is thrown back into the fray when he becomes both hunter and hunted in this gripping thriller.

Absorbing, chilling and dripping with evil atmosphere

Rather in the way that Dire Straits were the Trojan horse that kickstarted the CD industry, Mankell's novels became the standard bearer for foreign crime in translation...the writer is a man of rare skills

Spiralling into an alcohol-fuelled depression after killing a man in the line of duty, Inspector Kurt Wallander has made up his mind to quit the police force for good. 
 
When an old acquaintance seeks Wallander's help to investigate the suspicious circumstances in which his father has died, Kurt doesn't want to know. But when his former friend turns up dead, shot three times, Wallander realises that he was wrong not to listen. 
 
Against his better judgment, he returns to work to head what may now have become a double murder case. An enigmatic big-business tycoon seems to be the common denominator in the two deaths. But while Wallander is on the trail of the killer, somebody is on the trail of Wallander, and closing in fast... 
 
Over 35 million copies of the Kurt Wallander series sold worldwide.

The White Lioness

When a pillar of the local community vanishes, Inspector Kurt Wallander has a feeling the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer... 
 
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Sidetracked.

Mankell is one of the most ingenious crime writers around, strong on characterisation, plotting and atmosphere. Highly recommended

In 1992, in peaceful Southern Sweden, Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Wallander and his team are called in to investigate. 
 
As Inspector Wallander is introduced to this missing person's case he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela has made his long walk to freedom, setting in train the country's painful journey towards the end of the apartheid. Wallander and his colleagues find themselves caught up in a complex web involving renegade members of South Africa's secret service and a former KGB agent, all of whom are set upon halting Mandela's rise to power. 
 
Faced with an increasingly globalised world in which international terrorism knows no national borders, Wallander must prevent a hideous crime that means to dam the tide of history.

The Dogs of Riga

It is winter and Inspector Kurt Wallander receives an anonymous tip-off; two days later, a life raft washes up on a beach, in it lie two men, both shot dead

Riga is a haunted place, and Mankell describes it with the sort of creepy detail that one shudders to believe is accurate

Sweden, winter, 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team receive an anonymous tip-off. A few days later a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead. 
 
The dead men were criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect. Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea, to Riga in Latvia, where he is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police surveillance, scarcely veiled threats, and lies. 
 
Doomed always to be one step behind the shadowy figures he pursues, only Wallander's obstinate desire to see that justice is done brings the truth to light.

The Troubled Man

The final instalment in the bestselling Wallander series from the godfather of Swedish crime

A heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve

By the time you get to the end, you'll be wanting another. But it would be hard to beat this tale of murder and loss which leads back to the heart of the cold war

A plot as twisted and exciting as any Le Carre thriller

It's a fine finale for the fretful policeman and it's hard not to feel you'll miss the old bugger

Every morning Håkan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home. 
 
Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Håkan's son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier Håkan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident from his past. Could this be connected to his disappearance? 
 
When Håkan's wife also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth but the investigation will force him to look back over his own past, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us...

Faceless Killers

The first title in the acclaimed Inspector Wallander series.

'Wallander is among the very best fictional crimebusters' Daily Telegraph 
 
One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse, he discovers a bloodbath. 
 
An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, both victims of a violence beyond reason. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign. When this is leaked to the press, it unleashes a tide of racism. 
 
Wallander's life is a shambles. His wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him, and even his ageing father barely tolerates him. He works tirelessly, eats badly, and drinks his nights away. But now Wallander must forget his troubles and throw himself into a battle against time and against mounting racial hatred. 
 
Discover the first novel in the addictive Wallander series. 
 
'Mankell is one of the most ingenious crime writers around. Highly recommended' Observer 
 
'Mankell is in the first division of crime writing' The Times

An exquisite novel of mesmerizing depth and suspense

By far the best writer of police mysteries today

The novels become a compulsion - one reads them all

Daniel

A compelling story of a child driven to violence through loss and loneliness.

An acutely observed and slow-burning psychological thriller, written with Mankell's typically detached prose, making the violently tragic end all the more powerful

Mankell pulls no punches in this bleak but brilliant examination of misguided humanism

A powerfully involving and uncompromising novel about the loss of childhood and innocence

A sombre, gripping story about alienation and the clash of cultures

Hans Bengler, a young entomologist, leaves Sweden for the Kalahari Desert, determined to find a previously undiscovered insect to name after himself and advance his career. Instead, he finds a young boy, whose tribe has been decimated by European raiders. 
 
Accustomed to collecting specimens, Bengler re-names the traumatised child Daniel and brings him home to Sweden, intending to 'civilise' him. But Daniel yearns desperately for the desert and his real family. His only consolation is his friendship with a vulnerable young girl who is also an outsider in the community, but even this bond is destined to be violently broken, as Daniel's isolation and increasing desperation lead to a chilling tragedy.

The Man From Beijing

A brutal revenge story that  is both a gripping police procedural and a chilling political thriller.

The master of the Swedish crime thriller... a master modern storyteller

Readable, tense, sometimes horrific and chilling in its precise delineation of brutal crime

It's hard to think of a crime novel with a more grisly opening

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE WALLANDER MYSTERIES 
 
REVENGE CAN TAKE MORE THAN A LIFETIME 
 
In a sleepy hamlet in north Sweden, the local police make a chilling discovery; nineteen people have been brutally slaughtered. It is a crime unprecedented in Sweden's history and the police are under incredible pressure to solve the killings. 
 
When Judge Birgitta Roslin reads about the massacre, she realises that she has a family connection to one of the couples involved and decides to investigate. When the police make a hasty arrest it is left to her to investigate the source of a nineteenth century diary and red silk ribbon found near the crime scene. What she will uncover leads her into an international web of corruption and a story of vengeance that stretches back over a hundred years. 
 
The Man from Beijing is a gripping political thriller and a compelling detective story from a writer at the height of his powers.

Italian Shoes

A moving, compelling and powerful novel by the author of the Wallander mysteries

Mankell is a vivid and compelling storyteller

As with the the best of crime fiction, Mankell deals not only in character, plot and action, mystery and revelation, concealment and discovery, but also creates a world with its own mental and emotional atmosphere

Mankell has always been an ambitious writer... This novel transcends the limits of his earlier work

Authoritative plotting and well-defined characterisation... An examination of the boundless human capacity for making the wrong decisions and a recognition of the challenges posed by ageing

Mankell's words fall like snowflakes, building up to make even the most ugly thing something of beauty... The strength of women, the bestiality some men are capable men, and the impermanence of life are some of the themes that Mankell once again spins into a quiet masterpiece

As stark as anything he has written...an unflinching emotional honesty

Mankell is lyrical about the frozen landscape he knows so well

Mankell carefully maps the changing seasons in beautifully stark prose

The cool, enigmatic tone is reminiscent of Paul Auster

Present a spare tale of metaphors and symbols to argue that, in the middle of life, we are in death but occasionally, and happily, the opposite too

Once a successful surgeon, Frederick Welin now lives in self-imposed exile on an island in the Swedish archipelago. Nearly twelve years have passed since he was disgraced for attempting to cover up a tragic mishap on the operating table. One morning in the depths of winter, he sees a hunched figure struggling towards him across the ice. His past is about to catch up with him. 
 
The figure approaching in the freezing cold is Harriet, the only woman he has ever loved, the woman he abandoned in order to go and study in America forty years earlier. She has sought him out in the hope that he will honour a promise made many years ago. Now in the late stages of a terminal illness, she wants to visit a small lake in northern Sweden, a place Welin's father took him once as a boy. He upholds his pledge and drives her to this beautiful pool hidden deep in the forest. On the journey through the desolate snow-covered landscape, Welin reflects on his impoverished childhood and the woman he later left behind. However, once there Welin discovers that Harriet has left the biggest surprise until last. 
 
If you enjoyed Italian Shoes, the new Henning Mankell novel featuring Fredrik Welin, After the Fire, is available now.

Henning Mankell

Marlaine Delargy

This strange, beguiling book...gives closure to a substantial career without becoming maudlin or overly bleak. The waters around Welin’s island may freeze in the winter, but there is human warmth to be found in these pages, along with glimmers of hope and consolation... The bell may have tolled for one of Scandinavia’s finest writers, but his connection to those left behind is unbroken.

A powerful reminder that [Mankell] was also a literary writer of considerable accomplishment... After the Fire is a life-enhancing novel... a suitable final curtain for a much-missed modern novelist

The novel’s atmosphere is bleak and elegiac, suggesting that Mankell wrote it with his own impending death in mind

After the Fire is full of regret, loneliness and the melancholy of growing old, but there is also hope and love.

This posthumous translation by Marlaine Delargy, captivating in its delicately wry tone, echoes the seemingly flat reportage of Mankell’s prose: it somehow grabs you and won’t let you go… Mankell’s last novel is an elegiac meditation on old age and impending death… The extraordinary gift of Mankell’s bleak narrative is to make the last months of the life of his depressed and, frankly, unsympathetic and solitary anti-hero, both comforting and even inspiring. It is Mankell’s own candle in the lightless void

The huge number of readers who are devoted to the work of the late Henning Mankell will find in this, his last novel, all the characteristics they value: the observant descriptions of the minutiae of daily life, the gentle melancholy, the careful analysis of relationships (especially between fathers and daughters) and, above all, the inevitability of loneliness and loss

This profoundly gloomy yet ultimately hopeful novel – the last from the late grand master of Scandinavian noir – revolves around discovering who could have been responsible for this senseless crime

This final novel from Mankell (the Kurt Wallander series), posthumously published in a stunning English translation, questions what happens to a person who has lost everything—and who considers himself too old to rebuild... It’s a skillfully told, exquisitely structured story filled with sharp insights into human nature and unflinching examinations of the complex relationships to which people bind themselves in order to feel a little bit less alone.

A bracing look at a twilight year in the life of an old man who, when confronted daily by perfectly good reasons for giving up altogether, doesn’t so much rise above as plow stoically through them.

Lovely… Elegiac and steeped in the emptiness of the Swedish landscape

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER 2018 
 
The final novel from the bestselling author of the Inspector Wallander mysteries 
 
Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire. 
 
Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. Without a suspect, the police begin to think he started the fire himself.

Henning Mankell

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