Books by Henning Mankell
The Return of the Dancing Master
From the dean of Scandinavian noir, come s a riveting mystery set in frozen north of Sweden. .
When retired policeman Herbert Molin is found brutally slaughtered on his remote farm in the northern forests of Sweden, police find strange tracks in the snow — as if someone had been practicing the tango. Stefan Lindman, a young police officer recently diagnosed with mouth cancer, decides to investigate the murder of his former colleague, but is soon enmeshed in a mystifying case with no witnesses and no apparent motives. Terrified of the disease that could take his life, Lindman becomes more and more reckless as he unearths the chilling links between Molin’s death and an underground neo-Nazi network that runs further and deeper than he could ever have imagined.
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The Return of the Dancing Master
December 12, 1945. Nazi Germany lies in ruins as a British warplane lands in Buckeburg. A man carrying a small black bag quickly disembarks and travels to Hamelin, where he disappears behind the prison gates. Early the next day, England's most experienced hangman executes twelve war criminals.
Fifty-four years later, retired policeman Herbert Molin spends another sleepless night on his remote farm in Harjedalen, Sweden. But it is this night when the long-dread shadows from his past finally emerge to exact revenge. After Molin is found brutally slaughtered - literally whipped to death - the police discover strange tracks in the blood on the floor...as if someone had been practicing the tango.
Stefan Lindman is a young police officers who has just been diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. When he reads about the murder of his former colleague, he decides to travel north and find out what happened. Soon he is enmeshed in a puzzling investigation with no witnesses, no discernible motives. Terrified of the illness that could take his life, Lindman nonetheless becomes more and more reckless as he uncovers the links between Molin's death, World War II, and an underground neo-Nazi network that runs much further and deeper than he had ever imagined.
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One Step Behind
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the seventh riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
On Midsummer’s Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander’s most trusted colleagues–someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime–also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can’t begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father’s death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.
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Firewall (Kurt Wallander Mysteries, No. 8)
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the eighth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
A body is found at an ATM the apparent victim of heart attack. Then two teenage girls are arrested for the brutal murder of a cab driver. The girls confess to the crime showing no remorse whatsoever. Two open and shut cases. At first these two incidents seem to have nothing in common, but as Wallander delves deeper into the mystery of why the girls murdered the cab driver he begins to unravel a plot much more involved complicated than he initially suspected. The two cases become one and lead to conspiracy that stretches to encompass a world larger than the borders of Sweden.
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The Dogs of Riga
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the second riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
On the Swedish coastline, two bodies, victims of grisly torture and cold execution, are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain he has the ability to solve a case as mysterious as it is heinous. But after the victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, a country gripped by the upheaval of Soviet disintegration, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes over the investigation. Thinking his work done, Wallander slips into routine once more, until suddenly, he is called to Riga and plunged into an alien world where shadows are everywhere, everything is watched, and old regimes will do anything to stay alive.
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The Fifth Woman (A Kurt Wallander Mystery)
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the sixth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander’s strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.
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The White Lioness
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the third riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
The execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife looks like a simple case even though there is no obvious suspect. But then Wallander learns of a determined stalker, and soon enough, the cops catch up with him. But when his alibi turns out to be airtight, they realize that what seemed a simple crime of passion is actually far more complex—and dangerous. The search for the truth behind the killing eventually uncovers an assassination plot, and Wallander soon finds himself in a tangle with both the secret police and a ruthless foreign agent. Combining compelling insights into the sinister side of modern life with a riveting tale of international intrigue, The White Lioness keeps you on the knife-edge of suspense.
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Sidetracked
by Henning Mankell, Diana Harmon Asher
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander • From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the fifth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
In the award-winning Sidetracked, Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden’s former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. But his investigation is beset with a handful of obstacles—a department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policeman’s widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the young girl who set herself on fire. Fascinating and astute, Sidetracked is a compelling mystery enhanced by keen social awareness.
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Sidetracked
by Henning Mankell, Diana Harmon Asher
An ABA Indies Introduce Book
An ALA/ALSC Notable Children's Book
Parents' Choice Award, Fiction, Recommended
“This is a splendid novel that I read in one sitting. . . . You will cheer when this kid embraces ‘Do your best’ and shows it to be a ringing call to nothing less than Triumph.” —Gary D. Schmidt, Printz Honor winner and two-time Newbery Honor winner
"Diana Harmon Asher tells an entertaining story about a boy picking his way through the potholes and pitfalls of puberty, with a little help from his friends." —Richard Peck, Newbery Medal winner
"Just read it! Diana Harmon Asher has written a witty, observant, and sensitive novel for kids, as well as a delight for the adults in their lives." —Susan Isaacs, New York Times bestselling author
If middle school were a race, Joseph Friedman wouldn’t even be in last place—he’d be on the sidelines. With an overactive mind and phobias of everything from hard-boiled eggs to gargoyles, he struggles to understand his classes, let alone his fellow classmates. So he spends most of his time avoiding school bully Charlie Kastner and hiding out in the Resource Room, a safe place for misfit kids like him.
But then, on the first day of seventh grade, two important things happen. First, his Resource Room teacher encourages (i.e., practically forces) him to join the school track team, and second, he meets Heather, a crazy-fast runner who isn’t going to be pushed around by Charlie Kastner or anybody else.
With a new friend and a new team, Joseph finds himself off the sidelines and in the race (quite literally) for the first time. Is he a good runner? Well, no, he’s terrible. But the funny thing about running is, once you're in the race, anything can happen.
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Sidetracked
by Henning Mankell, Diana Harmon Asher
ABA Indies Introduce Book
ALA Notable BookParents' Choice Recommended Seal "This is a splendid novel that I read in one sitting. . . . You will cheer when this kid embraces 'Do your best' and shows it to be a ringing call to nothing less than Triumph." --Gary D. Schmidt, Printz Honor winner and two-time Newbery Honor winner
"Diana Harmon Asher tells an entertaining story about a boy picking his way through the potholes and pitfalls of puberty, with a little help from his friends." --Richard Peck, Newbery Medal winner
"Just read it! Diana Harmon Asher has written a witty, observant, and sensitive novel for kids, as well as a delight for the adults in their lives." --Susan Isaacs, New York Times bestselling author
If middle school were a race, Joseph Friedman wouldn't even be in last place--he'd be on the sidelines. With an overactive mind and phobias of everything from hard-boiled eggs to gargoyles, he struggles to understand his classes, let alone his fellow classmates. So he spends most of his time avoiding school bully Charlie Kastner and hiding out in the Resource Room, a safe place for misfit kids like him.
But then, on the first day of seventh grade, two important things happen. First, his Resource Room teacher encourages (i.e., practically forces) him to join the school track team, and second, he meets Heather, a crazy-fast runner who isn't going to be pushed around by Charlie Kastner or anybody else.
With a new friend and a new team, Joseph finds himself off the sidelines and in the race (quite literally) for the first time. Is he a good runner? Well, no, he's terrible. But the funny thing about running is, once you're in the race, anything can happen.
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Faceless Killers
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander • From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the first riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.
Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.
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The Pyramid (Kurt Wallander Series)
The missing piece of the internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander mystery series: the story of Kurt Wallander's beginnings. •The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander
Revealing a side of Wallander that we have never seen, the long stories collected in The Pyramid are vintage Mankell. Here, we see Wallander on his homicide first case as a twenty-one-year-old patrolman, as a young father facing unexpected danger on Christmas Eve, as a middle-aged detective with his marriage on the brink, as a newly separated investigator solving the brutal murder of a local photographer, and finally as a veteran detective, with his signature methodical and instinctive work style, discovering unexpected connections between a downed plane and the assassination of a pair of spinster sisters.
In these five riveting tales we watch Kurt Wallander come into his own not only as a detective but as a human being
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Before the Frost
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the ninth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series. Here he is joined on the force by his daughter Linda.
In this latest atmospheric thriller, Kurt Wallander and his daughter Linda join forces to search for a religious fanatic on a murder spree. Just graduated from the police academy, Linda Wallander returns to Skane to join the police force, and she already shows all the hallmarks of her father--the maverick approach, the flaring temper. Before she even starts work she becomes embroiled in the case of her childhood friend Anna, who has inexplicably disappeared. As the case her father is working on dovetails with her own, something far more dangerous than either could have imagined begins to emerge. They soon find themselves forced to confront a group of extremists bent on punishing the world's sinners.
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Before The Frost: A Linda Wallander Mystery (Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover))
by Henning Mankell, Ebba Segerberg
Linda Wallander is bored. Just graduated from the police academy, she is waiting to start work at the Ystad police station and move into her own apartment. In the meantime, she is staying with her father and, like fathers and daughters everywhere, they are driving each other crazy. Nor will they be able to escape each other when she moves out: her father is Inspector Kurt Wallander, a veteran of the Ystad police force, and the two of them will soon be reluctant colleagues.
Linda's boredom doesn't last long. Soon she is deeply involved in the inexplicable disappearance of her childhood friend Anna. But no one - least of all her father, who is busy investigating an ominous series of animal killings - thinks anything serious has happened to Anna. Determined to find out the truth, Linda makes a few predictable rookie mistakes that may just turn out to be life-threatening. When her father's case unexpectedly dovetails with Anna's disappearance, something far more calculated and dangerous than either could have imagined begins to emerge. Joining their efforts is Stefan Lindman (The Return of the Dancing Master), a recent transfer to the Ystad station.
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The Man from Beijing
The acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, writing at the height of his powers, now gives us an electrifying stand-alone global thriller.
January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.
Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor—a gang master on the American transcontinental railway—that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth.
The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the United States—a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjövallen murders.
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The Man from Beijing
From the dean of Scandinavian noir, Henning Mankell, the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series, an incredible stand-alone masterpiece: a bone-chilling mystery that spans two centuries and four continents.
In the far north of Sweden a small, quiet village has been almost entirely wiped out by a mass murderer. The only clue left at the scene is a red ribbon. Among the victims are the grandparents of Judge Birgitta Roslin, who sets out to find the killer. Despite being brushed off by the police, Birgitta is determined to prove that the murders were not a random act of violence but are part of something far more dark and complex. Her investigation leads to the highest echelons of power and into the recesses of history where the seeds of evil deeds were planted.
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Chronicler of the Winds
A haunting and powerful story about war-torn Africa, a mystical orphan boy, and the power of narrative to give a chaotic world order.
In the hot African night a single gunshot cracks the silence. José Antonio traces the sound to the stage of the local theatre company, where he finds Nelio, the young prophetical leader of the city’s street kids, crumpled in blood. Nelio refuses to be taken to the hospital but instead tells Jose his life’s story: how bandits raided his village, his daring escape, and his struggle to survive on the streets. José is irrevocably changed. He becomes the Chronicler of the Winds, revealing Nelios’s magical tale to all who will listen.
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Geschichte des Hospitals Sanct Elisabeth in Marburg. (German Edition)
From internationally bestselling author Henning Mankell comes a gripping mystery and a depiction of every parent's worst nightmare.
When Louise Cantor finds her twenty-eight year old son dead in his apartment, everything indicates it was a suicide. Louise, however, refuses to accept this, and with nothing more than few suspicions and a mother's intuition, she and her ex-husband set out to find what happened. What they discover is a dark underworld of people exploiting the victims of the AIDS epidemic: corrupt businessmen dealing infected blood, suspicious researchers carrying out dangerous tests, and lecherous drug dealers peddling black market medicine. Their investigation takes them across three continents, and leads them into some mighty financial institutions and highest corridors of power, where suddenly their own lives are at stake.
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The Shadow Girls
From the dean of Scandinavian noirand the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series, comes this moving and profound literary novel about three refugee women and the poet they befriend.
Jesper Humlin is a mildly famous author and poet with lackluster book sales. Not even his editor will support his artistic vision, suggesting instead that he start writing crime novels in the place of poetry. In his travels, Humlin encounters three women who will change his worldview. All three have fled their home countries and settled in Sweden: Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag from Nigeria. The women look to Humlin for guidance in telling their stories, learning how to shape the tales of their journeys and sacrifices. Both social comedy and social tragedy ensue from these efforts, but in the end Humlin, Leyla, Tanya and Tea-Bag all find that they have helped change one another.
The Shadow Girls is an absorbing tale of how a diverse society changes—and is changed by—its citizens, whoever they are
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The Eye of the Leopard
Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, rich and poor, The Eye of the Leopard is a stunning novel from a modern master.
Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his recently deceased friend Janice. Africa is a complete shock to Olofson, yet he chooses to stay and make it his home, eventually taking control of a small farm. Here, he learns of the fragile truce between the white and black populations of Zambia, and rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins alert him that violence may erupt at any moment. As a wealthy white man, he grows increasingly fearful and returns in his mind to the traumatic events that drove him from Sweden, playing back the complicated events of his past, as his present races toward a thrilling climax.
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Depths
From the dean of Scandinavian noir and internationally bestselling author, Henning Mankell, comes a lyrical and evocative novel about a Swedish naval engineer during World War I and his devastating plunge into obsession.
In 1914 Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is covertly measuring the depths of Swedish coastal waters. A man of discipline and obsessed with exactitude, he is more comfortable on naval vessels than he is in his loveless marriage back in Stockholm. On one of his missions, Lars discovers a feral but beautiful woman living alone on a remote island. Passion, suspicion, and violence are awakened in him and soon he is living a double life-lying to his wife and his superiors and submerging himself in a pool of deception that has devastating consequences.
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Daniel
In 1878, aspiring entomologist Hans Bengler travels to the Kalahari Desert in hopes of making a name for himself by discovering a previously unknown insect or two. There he encounters a boy named Molo, an orphan whose family has been killed by European colonists. Bengler “civilizes” the boy by rechristening him Daniel, teaching him to pray to the Christian god, and finally bringing him home to Sweden. The boy is bewildered and awed by the new land, cut off from his culture and the spirits of his family, and Bengler finds that raising a child across a great cultural divide is more difficult than he imagined. A psychological drama of one boy’s struggle to find his place in a new land far from home, Daniel is a compelling novel for our modern globalized world.
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The Troubled Man
The tenth riveting installment in the mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •"As satisfying for its emotional depth as its suspense.... A gripping mystery.” —PEOPLE Magazine
A retired navy officer has vanished in a forest near Stockholm. Kurt Wallander is prepared to stay out of the relatively straightforward investigation—which is, after all, another detective’s responsibility—but the missing man is his daughter’s father-in-law.
With his typical disregard for rules and regulations, Wallander is soon pursuing his own brand of dogged detective work on someone else’s case. His methods are often questionable, but the results are not: he finds an extremely complex situation which may involve the secret police and ties back to Cold War espionage. Adding to Wallander’s concerns are more personal troubles. Having turned sixty, and having long neglected his health, he’s become convinced that his memory is failing. As he pursues this baffling case, he must come to grips not only with the facts at hand, but also with his own troubling situation.
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The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (10)
On a winter day in 2008, Håkan von Enke, a retired high-ranking naval officer, vanishes during his daily walk in a forest near Stockholm. The investigation into his disappearance falls under the jurisdiction of the Stockholm police. It has nothing to do with Wallander—officially. But von Enke is his daughter’s future father-in-law. And so, with his inimitable disregard for normal procedure, Wallander is soon interfering in matters that are not his responsibility, making promises he won’t keep, telling lies when it suits him—and getting results.
But the results hint at elaborate Cold War espionage activities that seem inextricably confounding, even to Wallander, who, in any case, is troubled in more personal ways as well. Negligent of his health, he’s become convinced that, having turned sixty, he is on the threshold of senility. Desperate to live up to the hope that a new granddaughter represents, he is continually haunted by his past. And looking toward the future with profound uncertainty, he will have no choice but to come face-to-face with his most intractable adversary: himself.
The much-anticipated return of Henning Mankell’s brilliant, brooding detective, Kurt Wallander.
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Italian Shoes
From the bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander series comes a touching and intimate story about an embattled man’s unexpected chance at redemption.
Many years ago a devastating mistake drove Fredrik Welin into a life as far as possible from his former position as a surgeon, where he mistakenly amputated the wrong arm of one of his patients. Now he lives in a frozen landscape. Each morning he dips his body into the freezing lake surrounding his home to remind himself he’s alive. However, Welins’s icy existence begins to thaw when he receives a visit from a guest who helps him embark on a journey to acceptance and understanding. Full of the graceful prose and deft characterization that have been the hallmarks of Mankell’s prose, Italian Shoes shows a modern master at the height of his powers, effortlessly delivering a remarkable novel about the most rewarding theme of all: hope.
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Italian Shoes
The bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander series delivers a “short, beautiful, and ultimately life-affirming novel” about the path to self-acceptance (Booklist).
From the prize-winning “master of atmosphere” comes the surprising and affecting story of a man well past middle age who suddenly finds himself on the threshold of renewal (The Boston Globe).
Living on a tiny island that is surrounded by ice during the long winter months, Fredrik Welin is so lost to the world that he cuts a hole in the ice every morning and lowers himself into the freezing water to remind himself that he is alive. Haunted by memories of the terrible mistake that drove him to this island and away from a successful career as a surgeon, he lives in a stasis so complete that an anthill grows undisturbed in his living room.
When an unexpected visitor disrupts this frigid existence, Frederik begins an eccentric, elegiac journey―one that displays the full height of Henning Mankell’s storytelling powers. A deeply human tale of loss and redemption, Italian Shoes is “a voyage into the soul of a man” expertly crafted with “snares that Mankell has hidden with a hunter’s skill inside this spectral landscape” (The Guardian).
“Beautiful.” ―The Boston Globe
“A fine meditation on love and loss.” ―The Sunday Telegraph
“Intense and precisely detailed. . . . A hopeful account of a man released from self-imposed withdrawal.” ―The Independent
“The creator of police detective Kurt Wallander presents a tale of mortal reckoning in which all the deaths are natural but none the less powerful.” ―Kirkus Reviews
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A Treacherous Paradise
In 1904, Hanna Renstrom boards a ship bound for Australia hoping to escape the cold and poverty that have dominated her life in Sweden. Her harrowing journey lands her in Portuguese East Africa, a world where colonialism and white colonists rule, where she becomes a peculiar outsider: she is on the outskirts of white society, because of her gender and profession as the owner of a bordello, and separated from the African prostitutes with whom she lives due to her skin color. As her life becomes increasingly intertwined with the brothel, Hanna moves inexorably toward the moment when one decision will defy all the expectations society has of her and, most important, those she has of herself.
Henning Mankell imbues this deeply moving story with all of the gripping drama, vividly drawn characters, and evocative details of place that fans of his acclaimed Kurt Wallander crime novels have come to love.
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Shadows in the Twilight
JOEL WILL SOON be 12, and he thinks nothing is going on in the small community where he lives. But he’s wrong. One day, an incident that could easily have been a catastrophe turns into a miracle. Now Joel believes he owes the world a good deed, to prove that he deserved what might have been divine intervention. He thinks up an elaborate scheme, but it doesn’t go as anticipated. Even though his heart is in the right place, feelings are hurt. If he confesses what he’s done and why, will things be put right again?
Readers who met Joel Gustafson, his father, and their friends in A Bridge to the Stars will follow, with appreciation, Henning Mankell’s shrewd depiction, in this companion novel, of the surprising changes in Joel’s existence. Mankell deftly explores Joel’s self-discovery, his realization that lives can be altered in a single moment, and his new understanding that a choice between telling the truth and keeping silent can make all the difference.
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When the Snow Fell
Joel Gustafson’s journey toward becoming a man continues.
As it has in the past, the first snow of the year signifies to Joel Gustafson his very own New Year’s Eve. So when the snow begins to fall on a cold November day, Joel gets busy making new resolutions—three, to be exact.
As the winter days pass, life becomes ever more complicated. Joel has questions and the answers don’t necessarily come easily, but he is determined to keep his resolutions—for his father, for himself, and for their future.
In this companion novel to A Bridge to the Stars and Shadows in the Twilight, readers follow Joel’s journey as he realizes along the way that it will require determination, strength, and valor to truly become a man.
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Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being
A stunning and poignant autobiographical look at the myriad experiences that shape a meaningful life, by the bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries.
“Surely one of the most moving and intriguing farewell notes ever written.... Intensely beautiful in its spirit.” —Alexander McCall Smith, New Statesman
In January 2014, Henning Mankell received a diagnosis of lung cancer. Quicksand is a response to this shattering news—but it is not a memoir of destruction. Instead, it is a testament to a life fully lived, a tribute to the extraordinary but fleeting human journey that delivers both boundless opportunity and crucial responsibility. In a series of intimate vignettes, Mankell ranges over rich and varied reflections: of growing up in a small Swedish town, where he experiences a startling revelation on a winter morning as a young boy; of living hand-to-mouth during a summer in Paris as an ambitious young writer; of his work at a theater in Mozambique, where Lysistrata is staged in the midst of civil war; of chance encounters with men and women who changed his understanding of the world. Along the way, Mankell ponders the meaning of a good life, and the critically important ways we can shape the future of humanity if we are fortunate enough to have the choice. Vivid, clear-eyed, and breathtakingly beautiful, Quicksand is an invaluable parting gift from a great man.
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After the Fire
Henning Mankell's last novel, about an aging man whose quiet, solitary life on an isolated island off the coast of Sweden is turned upside down when his house catches fire.
Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees and his mailman Jansson is the closest thing he has to a friend, and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude.
One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light--only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots. Dawn reveals that everything he owns is now a smoldering pile of ash and his house is destroyed--forcing him to move into an abandoned trailer on his island. A local journalist, Lisa Modin, who wants to write a story about the fire, comes into his life. In doing so, she awakens in him something that he thought was long dead. Soon after, his daughter comes to the island with surprising news of her own. Meanwhile, the police suspect Fredrik of arson because he had a sizable insurance claim on his house. When Fredrik is away from the archipelago, another house goes up in flames and the community realizes they have an arsonist in their midst. After the Fire is an intimate portrait of an elderly recluse who is forced to open himself up to a world he'd left behind.
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The Rock Blaster
Henning Mankell's first novel, never before released in English, explores the reflections of a working class man who has struggled against the constraints of his station for his entire life. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.
The year is 1911. The young rock blaster Oskar Johansson has been killed in an accident. Or so it says in the local newspaper. In spite of serious injuries, however, Oskar survives. Decades later, Oskar looks back and reflects on his working life as an invalid, his marriage, his dreams, and his hopes. Oskar's life is woven together out of fragments of voices, images, and episodes that, taken together, provide a sharp and precise picture of life in Sweden for the working class.
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An Event in Autumn (Kurt Wallander Series)
The eleventh riveting installment in the mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •Wallander is "one of the most impressive creations in crime fiction today.... An old-fashioned moral force and sense of disquiet of the sort rarely found in contemporary crime fiction." —The Guardian
After nearly thirty years in the same job, Inspector Kurt Wallander is tired, restless, and itching to make a change. He is taken with a certain old farmhouse, perfectly situated in a quiet countryside with a charming, overgrown garden. There he finds the skeletal hand of a corpse in a shallow grave. Wallander’s investigation takes him deep into the history of the house and the land, until finally the shocking truth about a long-buried secret is brought to light.
Includes an afterword by the author.
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The Man Who Smiled (Kurt Wallander Series)
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander •From the dean of Scandinavian noir, comes the fourth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
After killing a man in the line of duty, Kurt Wallander resolves to quit the Ystad police. However, a bizarre case gets under his skin.
A lawyer driving home at night stops to investigate an effigy sitting in a chair in the middle of the highway. The lawyer is hit over the head and dies. Within a week the lawyer’s son is also killed. These deeply puzzling mysteries compel Wallander to remain on the force. The prime suspect is a powerful corporate mogul with a gleaming smile that Wallander believes hides the evil glee of a killer. Joined by Ann-Britt Hoglund, Wallander begins to uncover the truth, but the same merciless individuals responsible for the murders are now closing in on him.
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Secrets in the Fire
It is the wise old woman of the village who teaches young Sofia about the secrets in the fire. Within the flames hide all things past and all things yet to be. But not even old Muazena can see the horrors the fire holds for Sofia and her familynot the murderous bandits who drive them from their home, and not the landmine that takes Sofia’s legs. In her long journey toward recovery, Sofia must still deal with growing up. Along the way, she discovers friends, and foes, in places she’d never expected. Through it all, Sofia draws on a strength she never knew she had, a fire of her own that’s been a secret all along. In beautifully spare, unsentimental language, Henning Mankell’s stunning novel puts a very human face on the suffering in Africa.
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The Man Who Smiled (Kurt Wallander Mysteries)
Dalgliesh.
The Man Who Smiled begins with Wallander deep in a personal and professional crisis after killing a man in the line of duty; eventually, he vows to quit the Ystad police force for good. Just then, however, a friend who had asked Wallander to look into the death of his father winds up dead himself, shot three times. Ann-Britt Höglund, the department's first female detective, proves to be his best ally as he tries to pierce the smiling façade of his prime suspect, a powerful multinational business tycoon. But just as he comes close to uncovering the truth, the same shadowy threats responsible for the murders close in on Wallander himself.
All of Mankell's talents as a master of the modern police proceduralwhich have earned him legions of fans worldwideare showcased in The Man Who Smiled, which is the fourth of the eight Wallander books published thus far in English.
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Kennedy's Brain: A Novel
Internationally bestselling novelist Henning Mankell delivers a terrifying thriller inspired by the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Henning Mankell, the acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, has put his unmistakable stamp on this gripping new thriller. Archaeologist Louise Cantor returns home to Sweden and makes a devastating discovery: her only child, twenty-eight-year-old Henrik, dead in his bed. The police rule his death a suicide but she knows he was murdered; her quest to find out what really happened to Henrik takes her across the globe to Barcelona, where her son kept a secret apartment; Sydney, Australia, to find Aron, her estranged ex-husband and Henrik's father; and to Maputo, Mozambique, where she learns the awful truth behind an AIDS hospice. Her investigation reveals how much her son concealed from her as she uncovers the links between his death, the African AIDS epidemic, and Western pharmaceutical interests, while those who dare help her are killed off.
In the tradition of John le Carré's The Constant Gardener, Kennedy's Brain was inspired by Mankell's anger at ongoing inequities that permit a few people to have unprecedented power over the many poor Africans who have none. Already a bestseller in Europe, Kennedy's Brain is both a thrilling page-turner and a damning indictment of inhuman greed in the face of the African AIDS crisis.
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The Shadow Girls: A Novel
From the New York Times–bestselling author: A story of one man’s awakening and “a heartfelt reminder of the many people whose struggles are never known” (The Plain Dealer).
Jesper Humlin, a poet of middling acclaim and underwhelming book sales, is facing a crisis. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin’s investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive, starts pitching and promoting the nonexistent book despite Humlin’s emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself thrust into a world where names shift, stories overlap, and histories are both deeply secret and in profound need of retelling.
Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag, who is from Africa but claims to be from Kurdistan (because Kurds might receive preferential treatment as refugees)―these are the shadow girls who become Humlin’s unlikely pupils in impromptu writing workshops. Though he had imagined their stories as fodder for his own book, soon their intertwining lives require him to play a much different role.
Offering both surprising humor and heartrending tragedy, The Shadow Girls is a “passionate and entertaining” triumph that will astonish longtime fans of Mankell’s acclaimed Kurt Wallander novels as well as readers new to his work (The Daily Telegraph).
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Depths: A Novel
It is October 1914, and Swedish naval officer Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is charged with a secret mission to take depth readings around the Stockholm archipelago. In the course of his work, he lands on the rocky isle of Halsskär. It seems impossible for it to be habitable, yet it is home to the young widow Sara Fredrika, who lives in near-total isolation and is unaware that the world is at war.
A man of control and precision, Tobiasson-Svartman is overwhelmed by his attraction to the half-wild, illiterate Sara Fredrika, a total contrast to his reserved, elegant wife. Soon he enacts the worst of his impulses, turning into another, far more dangerous man, ready to trade in lies and even death to get closer to the lonely woman without losing hold of his wife. Matters of shame, fidelity, and duty are swept to sea as he struggles to maintain his parallel lives, with devastating consequences for the women who love him.
Henning Mankell, author of the internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander series and the critically acclaimed Chronicler of the Winds, once again proves himself a master of the novel with Depths, an arresting, disquieting story of obsession.
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The Eye of the Leopard: A Novel
A haunting novel juxtaposing a man's coming-of-age in Sweden with his life in Zambia, from the internationally bestselling author.
Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, The Eye of the Leopard draws on bestselling author Henning Mankell's deep understanding of the two worlds he has inhabited for more than twenty years.
Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his friend Janice. He is also fleeing the traumas of his motherless childhood: his father's alcoholism, his best friend's terrible accident, Janice's death, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. But he never fully comes to understand his place as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, and the fragile truce between them. Rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins warn him that the truce is in danger of rupturing.
Alternating between Hans's years in Africa and those in Sweden, The Eye of the Leopard is a bravura achievement and a study in contrastsblack and white, poor and wealthy, Africa and Europeboth sinister and elegiac.
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This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature
by Alice Walker, China Miéville, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Michael Palin, Pankaj Mishra, J.M. Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Michael Ondaatje, Henning Mankell, Molly Crabapple, Teju Cole, Kamila Shamsie, Adam Foulds, Najwan Darwish, Linda Spalding, Mohammed Hanif, Suheir Hammad, Rachel Holmes, Deborah Moggach, Gillian Slovo, Mahmoud Darwish, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Ed Pavlic, Raja Shehadeh, Ru Freeman, Victoria Brittain, Susan Abulhawa, Jeremy Harding, Yasmin El-Rifae, Mercedes Kemp, Suad Amiry, Sabrina Mahfouz, John Horner, Bridget Keenan, Selma Dabbagh, Jehan Bseiso, Omar El-Khairy, Remi Kanazi, Maath Musleh, Ghada Karmi, Muiz, Nancy Kricorian, Nathalie Handal, Jamal Mahjoub
Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world.
The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power."
Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations.
Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.
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