Henning Mankell - 9 Novels

Henning Mankell (born 3 February 1948) is a renowned Swedish crime writer, occasional children's author and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most iconic creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander.

1. Chronicler of The Winds:
"Nelio is dead. And however unlikely it may sound, it seemed to me that he died without once being afraid. How can that be possible?"--from Chronicler of the Winds. World famous for his Kurt Wallander mysteries, Henning Mankell has been published in thirty-five countries, with more than 25 million copies of his books in print. In Chronicler of the Winds, he gives us something different: a beautifully crafted novel that is a testament to the power of storytelling itself. On the rooftop of a theater in an African port, a ten-year-old boy lies slowly dying of bullet wounds. He is Nelio, a leader of street kids, rumored to be a healer and a prophet, and possessed of a strangely ancient wisdom. One of the millions of poor people "forced to eat life raw," Nelio tells his unforgettable story over the course of nine nights. After bandits cruelly raze his village, he joins the legions of abandoned children living in the city's streets. An act of the imagination, an effort to prove to his comrades that life must be more than mere survival, cuts short Nelio's life.

2. Depths:
It is October 1914: the destroyer Svea emerged from the Stockholm archipelago bearing south-south-east. On board was Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a naval engineer charged with making depth soundings to find a navigable channel for the Swedish navy. As a child Tobiasson-Svartman was fascinated by measurement; nothing is as magical as exact knowledge. His instinct for his profession is reflected in the comfortable domesticity he enjoys with his wife - herself meticulous in every detail. Close to the waters where soundings are taken Tobiasson-Svartman alights on a barren skerry, presumed uninhabited, and is surprised to discover there a young woman, Sara Fredrika. Despite her almost feral appearance, something about her strikes him to the core. The mission is a success and the Svea returns to Gothenburg. Tobiasson-Svartman, however, remains haunted by this chance encounter; his equilibrium has been disturbed, and he is now compelled to find any pretence to return to the remote islet. In "Depths", Mankell confirms his status as a writer beyond the crime genre. By delving deep into the male psyche, he has produced a novel both as tense and compelling in every way as the "Wallander" series, but also powerful, moving and ultimately tragic.

3. I Die, But The Memory Lives On
Henning Mankell is not a public figure in the way that politicians are, nor does he court publicity for himself, but he is one of the most successful authors of our time and has devoted his recent years to work with Aids charities. In I Die, but the memory Lives on, this master storyteller has written a fable to illustrate the importance of books as a means of education, of preserving memories and of sharing life. In a very personal account he tells of his own fears and anxieties for the sufferers of HIV and Aids and, drawing on his experiences in many parts of Africa of the journeys that he has made to remote villages and the impressions he has gained there, proposes a way to help. The problem of Aids has been kept largely under control in Europe, but in Africa it is a very different story. Lack of education about the disease and lack of money to buy life-prolonging drugs for existing sufferers have turned the problem into a plague of Biblical proportions. As parents die at a young age, infant orphans are left behind. The cycle continues, seemingly in perpetuity.

4. Italian Shoes:
Once a successful surgeon, Frederick Welin now lives in self-imposed exile on an island in the Swedish archipelago. Nearly forty 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. She has sought him out in the hope that he will honor 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.

5. Kennedy's Brain:
An original and breathtaking thriller surrounding one of the most important issues of our time, from internationally acclaimed and bestselling author Henning Mankell. When archaeologist Louise Cantor's son Henrik is found dead in his flat, she refuses to believe it was suicide. Despite traces of sleeping tablets in his system, several clues that only a mother knows lead her to believe something more sinister took place. However Louise soon realizes that Henrik had kept many things from her and is shocked to learn he had contracted HIV. While looking through his papers, she discovers he was obsessed with the conspiracy theory that JFK's brain disappeared prior to the autopsy—along with the vital evidence regarding bullet exit wounds. The only lead is a letter and photograph from Henrik's girlfriend in Mozambique. Louise's quest to unravel the mystery surrounding her son's death takes her to Africa, a continent rife with disease, poverty and corruption. Struggling to cope with the oppressive heat and sickness, Louise sees fear in every face, even unexpectedly in the clinics set up by an American businessman. In Kennedy's Brain Mankell confirms his status as a master of suspense, and delivers a timely and riveting thriller that will have readers on the edge their seats until the very end.

6. The Eye Of The Leopard:
Hans Olofson is the son of a Swedish lumberjack. His childhood was unsettled: an alcoholic father, and a mother disappeared, only alive in old photographs. His adolescence was no easier as he lost both his best friend and his lover tragically. Alone and adrift, as a young man his only desire is to fulfil his lover's dream and visit the grave of a legendary missionary who survived alone in the remote hills of Northern Zambia. On reaching Africa, Olofson is struck by its beauty and mystery. After fulfilling his initial quest, an opportunity of employment in the region tempts him to stay. Time passes quickly. Though dismayed by the attitude of the white population to their adopted country, which is compounded by their vulnerability to alcohol and malaria, he is interested enough to take up sole responsibility for the farm he manages.For almost two decades Hans Olofson battles with a hostile environment and a placid, but resistant workforce. Set in the 1970s and 1980s, "The Eye of the Leopard" explores the relationship between the white farmers and their native workers. Through Olofson's descent into near mental collapse it becomes clear that many years spent in a foreign land do not necessarily breed an understanding of its people: a handful of generations of white settlers cannot change a continent underpinned by myth and superstition. "The Eye of the Leopard" is a first-rate and original psychological thriller delving deep into the mind of a man lost in an unknown world.

7. The Man from Beijing:
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. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the murders. But when Birgitta discovers the diary of another Andrén - a gang master on the American transcontinental railway in the nineteenth century - that describes the cruel treatment of Chinese slave-workers, she is determined to uncover what she suspects is a more complicated truth. The investigation leads to modern-day Beijing and its highest echelons of power, to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years, into a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjövallen murders.

8. The Return of the Dancing Master:
Featuring a new cast of characters this novel marks the end of the Kurt Wallander Mysteries and prepares the way for many more mysteries to come. Herbert Molin, a retired police officer, lives alone in a remote cottage in northern Sweden. Two things seem to consume him; his passion for the tango, and an obsession with the "demons" he believes to be pursuing him. Early one morning shots shatter Molin's window...by the time his body is found it is almost unrecognisable. Stefan Lindman is another off-the-job police officer. On extended sick leave due to having cancer of the tongue Lindman hears about the murder of his former colleague and, in a bid to take his mind off his own problems, decides to investigate. As his investigation becomes increasingly complex it is with both horror and disbelief that Lindman uncovers links to a global web of neo-Nazi activity. Written with all the usual flair so highly commended by Mankell fans this intricate crime novel, with its cast of new characters, heralds the end of the Kurt Wallander Mysteries and yet, ultimately, it leads the story back to Wallander's Ystad where a new outstanding series of thrillers can begin.

9. The Shadow Girls
Jesper Humlin is a poet of middling acclaim who is saddled by his underwhelming book sales, an exasperated girlfriend, a demanding mother, and a rapidly fading tan. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin's investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive (to his dismay), begins to pitch and promote the nonexistent book. When Humlin goes to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself thrust into an entirely different 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 heartbreaking moments, The Shadow Girls is a triumph that will please longtime fans of Mankell as well as readers new to his work.