Review: AFTER THE FIRE, Henning Mankell

• 
   This edition read as an e-book on my Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MY54W9Q
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Digital, Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 5, 2017
• Marlaine Delargy (Translator) 
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 401 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1473524903
• Book 2 of 2 ‏ : ‎ Fredrik Welin 

Synopsis ((Amazon)

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.

My Take

Coming into this book, I am already familiar with Henning Mankell as the creator of Kurt Wallander but I am not sure that, despite having seen two television series based on those books, I have read many of them.

I am reading this book for discussion with my U3A Crime Fiction Reading Group.

I wasn't aware that this book was the second in a series, but the first was written 8 years earlier. What I have noticed is that  his most recent book was written 3 years prior to this one, and that Mankell died from cancer in 2015 and this one was published posthumously two years after his death.

While I was reading this book, prior to knowing all of the above, I was constantly wondering why Mankell had written it. It is not really crime fiction although at least one crime had been committed. Fredrik Welin's house was burnt down and he escaped death narrowly. Later it seems that there is an arsonist at work, as other houses are also burnt down, The puzzle of who the arsonist is is eventually solved.

But there are other issues too: his relationship with those around him, how he survives now his house has gone, why he stopped practicing as a doctor, his strange relationship with his daughter.

If I was answering my own question, what is on the author's mind?  I would answer that Welin is approaching 70, and he is thinking about life, death, effects of age, love and relationships, and I think Mankell is facing the same issues himself, but we now know that he was dying of cancer.

It is far from Henning Mankell's best book but it certainly make you think. Read more about him on Wikipedia. 

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

THE PYRAMID
THE MAN FROM BEIJING
5.0, THE FIFTH WOMAN
4.5, AN EVENT IN AUTUMN 

Books by Henning Mankell (Fantastic Fiction)

Series

Joel Gustafson
   1. A Bridge to the Stars (1990)
   2. Shadows in Twilight (1991)
   3. When the Snow Fell (1996)
   4. The Journey to the End of the World (1998)

 

Kurt Wallander
   0. The Pyramid (2008)
   1. Faceless Killers (1991)
   2. The Dogs of Riga (1992)
   3. The White Lioness (1993)
   4. The Man Who Smiled (1994)
   5. Sidetracked (1995)
   6. The Fifth Woman (1997)
   7. One Step Behind (1997)
   8. Firewall (1998)
   9. Before the Frost (2004)
   9.5. An Event in Autumn (2014)
   10. The Troubled Man (2011)
   Wallander's First Case (2014)

 

Sofia
   1. Secrets in the Fire (2000)
   2. Playing with Fire (2002)
   3. The Fury in the Fire (2009)
     aka Shadow of the Leopard 

 

Fredrik Welin
   1. Italian Shoes (2009)
   2. After the Fire (2017)

 

Novels

   The Rock Blaster (1973)
   The Return of the Dancing Master (2003)
   Chronicler of the Winds (2006)
   Depths (2006)
   Kennedy's Brain (2007)
   The Eye of the Leopard (2008)
   The Cat Who Liked Rain (2008)
   The Man from Beijing (2010)
   Daniel (2010)
   The Shadow Girls (2012)
     aka Tea-Bag
   A Treacherous Paradise (2013)   

Review: AFTER THE FIRE, Henning Mankell

My Take:

Fredrik Welin is a retired doctor, 70 years old when his grandparents house on a small island where he lives catches fire and burns down. Fredrik is lucky to escape but all his possessions are gone. He ends up having to live in a caravan which his daughter left behind many years before.

The fire forces Fredrik to assess what is most important in his life. When fire investigators find evidence that the fire was deliberately lit Fredrik becomes the main suspect. His daughter comes home when he rings her to tell her about the fire. Theirs is a prickly relationship and one morning she leaves as suddenly as she arrived. However she has told him that she is pregnant so when she phones him from Paris to say she is in trouble, in jail, he flies to Paris to help her.

Throughout the book Fredrik recalls incidents from his life and we gradually piece together his story. There are more arson attacks and more old houses burn down. Long time residents of the community die and Fredrik becomes very aware of the fragility of his age.

What makes this book so interesting is that it appears to be a continuation of a book called The Italian Shoes which Henkell wrote in 2006. (A book I haven’t read.) In addition this is the last book Mankell wrote, and it is easy to see it as reflecting his personal concerns.

Among his notes Mankell comments that all fiction has some connection to real events.

My Rating: 4.5

Review: AN EVENT IN AUTUMN, Henning Mankell

• first published in Dutch in 2004, reprinted in Swedish 2013
• English translation published 2014
• translated from Swedish into English by Laurie Thompson
• ISBN 978-1-846-55807-8
• 169 pages

Synopsis ( Random House, UK)

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

My Take

One of the best parts of this book, apart from the story, is the Afterword in which Henning Mankell explains how the story was published  and where it fits in the continuum of the Wallander stories. There is a longer section titled HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT FINISHED AND WHAT HAPPENED IN BETWEEN which is also worth reading. In it he talks about his relationship with Wallander, and how he feels about the depictions of Wallander in the three TV series that have been produced.

AN EVENT IN AUTUMN comes just before the last in the Wallander series, THE TROUBLED MAN, which I have yet to read. Wallander is living and working with his daughter Linda, with whom he has a rather crusty relationship. He is looking to buy a house and looks at one which Martinson's wife has inherited. He has made up his mind to buy the house when he stumbles over something in the back yard. The object turns out to be a skeletal hand sticking up out of the soil.

This is a novella and doesn't have the depth, or the number of plot lines, of a full blown novel. The characterisation is a bit thin, but nearly all the characters are those we have met in earlier novels. Nevertheless Wallander fans will enjoy it.

My rating: 4.5

I've also reviewed
THE PYRAMID
THE MAN FROM BEIJING
5.0, THE FIFTH WOMAN


Kurt Wallander (this list is from Euro Crime)
The numbers on the right indicate the correct order, while the dates are the order of publication in English. 

• Faceless Killers	1997	1
• The Dogs of Riga	2001	2
• The White Lioness	1998	3
• The Man Who Smiled	2005	4
• Sidetracked	1998	5
• The Fifth Woman	2000	6
• One Step Behind	2002	7
• Firewall	2004	8
• The Pyramid (The Wallander Stories)	2008	9
• The Troubled Man	2011	10

Review: THE FIFTH WOMAN, Henning Mankell - audio

Originally published in Swedish 1996
Translated from Swedish by Stephen T. Murray 2000
Audio from Audible.com

Publisher

Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Length:17 hrs and 3 mins

Audible Release Date:11-01-07

Narrated by Dick Hill

The massacre of 5 women in remote Africa, including a Swedish tourist, triggers a serial killer in Sweden to begin working through a list of 43 targets. The first victim is a retired motor vehicle distributor, unmarried, and interested only in birdwatching and writing poetry about birds. He dies cruelly in the middle of the night when the bridge he has to cross to get to his bird watch tower collapses.

Kurt Wallander has just returned from a "pilgrimage" to Rome with his father. It is a trip his father  has long wanted to do, and Wallander marvels at how it seems to have brought them closer. But his father is 80. Is it too late?

The reader really participates in THE FIFTH WOMAN through two points of view. On the one hand we know who is behind the killings, but not why, because we are there when the killer is unleashed by the news of the death of the Swedish tourist. We are also sitting on Wallander's shoulder as he returns to work from his holiday and gradually falls back into his working routine. In the week he has been away, their new boss Lisa Holgerson has taken over the section, but apart from the suntan he acquired in Rome not much is different. Wallander of course does not know who is behind the killings, and for quite a long period does not realise there is more than one. The discovery of a shrunken African head in the safe of the retired Volvo salesman is a real distraction.

As I listened to this I was struck by the meticulous nature of the way Wallander works.  He goes over the evidence again and again. He works with Anne Britt Hoogland to get a different perspective and they constantly sift what they already know, what the forensics will support, and apply theories based on the new knowledge they acquire. And yet at the same time he is intuitive, in a way that few others in his team are. They too are all methodical but they don't have the niggling thoughts and the flashes of intuition that Wallander has. And yet none of this would make sense if he didn't know his case so well.

As with other detectives, Wallander's personal life suffers. The collapse of his first marriage came as a surprise to him. His work is so engrossing that he just doesn't realise he is giving nothing to Mona and their daughter. He enjoys his trip to Rome with his father and means to follow it up with closer contact, but there just isn't time.

This is a terrific novel. My rating 5.0

THE FIFTH WOMAN is the 6th in the Wallander series. Check Euro Crime for a list.

Other Mankell titles reviewed on this blog
THE PYRAMID
THE MAN FROM BEIJING

Review: THE MAN FROM BEIJING, Henning Mankell

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 692 KB
Print Length: 368 pages
Publisher: CCV Digital (January 28, 2010)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B0036RCVJW
Published 2008
English translation Laurie Thompson

2006: the remote Swedish village of Hesjövallen is one of those tiny northern villages where a declining population of mainly elderly people ensures relatively limited contact with the outside world. The horrific slaughter of 19 residents (including one child who shouldn't have been there) makes this the worst homicide bar one that Sweden has ever seen.

Birgitta Roslin, a district-court judge in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, realises the village is the one where her mother was once fostered out and tries to find out if her mother's foster parents are among the dead.

Homicide on this scale is beyond the resources of the local police, but in charge is Vivi Sondberg, a diligent and hard-working police officer, persistent and analytical, but she wants a local explanation.
In fact the explanation is far from local. It reaches 140 years from the past to exact revenge for acts committed in far different times. Birgitta Roslin's analytical mind is piqued when she finds diaries and letters in her mother's foster parents' house and when she realises most of the people in the villages must be related to each other.

I'm not going to tell you more of the story - you need to let it unfold for yourself. Let me just tell you that THE MAN FROM BEIJING is among my best reads so far this year. I've seen reviews that criticise the length of this book, and perhaps they are right. Henning Mankell has used an extraordinarily large canvas - in part as a platform for his criticisms not only of today's Norwegian society but also what might happen in Mozambique, where he lives, and other African countries, as a result of Chinese economic colonialism.

However I think the length was probably necessary to give the reader sufficient social and political understanding. For me it wasn't a slow read - the tension builds well, despite the fact that we really do know who was responsible for the killings from about half way through the book.

What struck me about Mankell's canvas is how global the threads are that connect this world we are now part of. This is a phenomenon that has been growing since the early industrialisation of the 19th century, where most of us in the "new countries" have strings, sometimes gossamer thin, sometimes much stronger, that connect us to an old world that existed only 200 years ago. And today telecommunications are changing our world ever more radically, but the threads that tie us to the old are still there, invisible, lurking, sometimes surfacing in most unexpected ways.

And I liked THE MAN FROM BEIJING not only because it gave me a lot to think about, but because Mankell created in it several very strong characters. Birgitta Roslin's refusal to leave questions unanswered contrasts with Vivi Sondberg's apparent willingness to accept the easy answers. I had high hopes of Vivi but she played true to form. There are many side plots to enjoy too.

My rating: 5.0

A word of warning: despite the fact that the cover image of this edition at least shows what appears to be Kenneth Branagh, this is NOT a Kurt Wallander novel.

Review: THE PYRAMID, Henning Mankell

(The Kurt Wallander stories) translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg with Laurie Thompson, Harvill Secker, 2008, ISBN 9781846550980, 376 pages.

From Mankell's website:
The Pyramid is a collection of 5 short stories which gives readers more insight into the personal life of Kurt Wallander. While it was written after the 8th novel, Firewall, the events depicted in The Pyramid take place well before Faceless Killers, making it 1st chronologically in the series. The first story takes place in 1979 while the final occurs in 1989. In the stories, the reader sees Wallander on his first case and also before he meets his future wife Mona.

While a couple are short enough to be called short stories, at least the last two are long enough to be called novellas.

• Wallander's First Case
• The Man with the Mask
• The Man at the Beach
• The Death of the Photographer
• The Pyramid

They trace Wallander's relationship with Mona, who will become his wife, then his ex-wife; with Linda his daughter whom he recognises holds the marriage together long after he and Mona have decided it holds nothing for them; and his father with whom he has an almost love-hate relationship. They also trace Wallander's growth as a detective, from when he is mentored by Hemberg, when he is still basically a cop on the beat, through to his rise as a detective, and his relationship with Rydberg, the mentor who replaced Hemberg, until Wallander was promoted over him.

As you do in the novels of Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell and Donna Leon, the reader becomes aware of social change, as refugees flood into Sweden, and drug trafficking replaces the old ways criminals used to make money. Mankell sees himself as a social commentator, and Kurt Wallender as his mouthpiece: (this is from the Foreword to THE PYRAMID)
"... the books have always been variations on a single theme: 'What is happening to the Swedish welfare state in the 1990s?..'.....
Wallander has in a way served as a kind of mouthpiece for growing insecurity, anger and healthy insights about the relationship between the welfare state and democracy".

I really enjoyed THE PYRAMID. Other reviewers have commented on a certain lack of tension in the short stories but then that is possibly the nature of a short story. I did feel a little as if this Kurt Wallander wasn't quite the same as the one we get in FACELESS KILLERS onwards. He is not the innocent depicted in his first case; he learns gradually not to "go it alone", after his impetuousness gets him into life threatening situations; his intuition is more carefully laid out for us than I remember in later novels.

THE PYRAMID is eminently readable, and if you are already a Henning Mankell fan, then you won't want to miss it.

My rating: 4.6

The Kurt Wallender series if you want to read them in proper order.
9 The Pyramid (The Wallander Stories) 2008
1 Faceless Killers 1997
2 The Dogs of Riga 2001
3 The White Lioness 1998
4 The Man Who Smiled 2005
5 Sidetracked 1998
6 The Fifth Woman 2000
7 One Step Behind 2002
8 Firewall 2004
9 The Pyramid (The Wallander Stories) 2008

Other reviews of THE PYRAMID
Reviewing the Evidence
It's Criminal
The Guardian

See also: What does Kurt Wallander look like?

Mini reviews from my database:

THE MAN WHO SMILED, my rating 4.7
Translated into English 2005, 4th in the Kurt Wallander series. Kurt Wallender has been on sick leave from the police in Ystadt for nearly 18 months. In his last case he accidentally killed an innocent man. Since then he has been in deep depression, and he has finally decided to leave the police force for good. He is however beginning to “mend”. While he is staying at a guest house in Skagen he is approached by a former friend, a solicitor, who tells him that his own father has died in a suspicious road accident. A few days later the solicitor himself is shot dead in his office. And Wallender finally makes up his mind – to go back to work!

SIDETRACKED, my rating 5.0
Midsummer approaches and Kurt Wallander clears his desk and prepares to set off on holiday with the new woman in his life, hoping that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without him. But Wallander's plans are ruined when a girl douses herself in petrol and sets herself alight as he looks on, powerless to stop her. One, and then another, and then another, vicious murder - none with any apparent motive - shatter the tranquillity of the Swedish province of Skåne. As the temperature rises and the tension mounts, Wallander's search for the identity of the girl and the serial killer will throw him and the people he loves most into mortal danger.

FIREWALL, my rating 4.7
Set in Sweden in 1997. Two seemingly unrelated incidents occur within hours of each other in Ystad and Kurt Wallender and his team investigate. Tynnes Falk, seemingly in the peak of health, drops dead late one evening at the cash machine where he has just checked his account balance. The following night two teenage girls attack a taxi driver with a hammer and a knife. The driver was able to call for assistance and the police are able to find the girls from his description of them. Kurt Wallender has recently reached 50, he is diabetic, and desperately wants a woman in his life. Some members of his team think he is getting a bit "past it", and one in particular takes every possible opportunity to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind of Kurt's superior. This is an engrossing novel, quite a long read (422 pp) as Kurt Wallender uncovers a plot where an event in Sweden could have world shattering consequences.

What does Kurt Wallander look like?

I've always thought that Henning Mankell himself looked a bit like Kurt Wallander, but here are the 3 current TV/film faces. What do you think?

Rolf Lassgård

Krister Henriksson

Kenneth Branagh

Henning Mankell.