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Sidetracked, by Henning Mankell
Sidetracked starts off with two bangs. First, 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. Then, 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 markings of a demented serial killer, and |
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Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. 
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.The Eye of the Leopard, by Henning Mankell(NB: Not in the Kurt Wallander series.) Switching between past and present, and 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.  The main character, Hans Olofson is the son of a Swedish lumberjack. His life has been filled with tragedies.He had an alcoholic father and a mother who disappeared. And as a young man, he lost both his best friend and his lover tragically. Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after its independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his dead friend Janice and visit the grave of a legendary missionary who survived alone in the remote hills of Northern Zambia. Africa is a terrible shock to him, but also beautiful. He stays and makes it his home. After a while he takes sole responsibility for the farm he manages. However, he never fully understands his own 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. 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 or make for radical change: a handful of generations of white settlers cannot change a continent underpinned by myth and superstition. The Eye of the Leopard is a wonderful and very original psychological thriller. It penetrates deeply into the mind of a man who is lost in an unknown world. Order The Eye of the Leopard  by Henning Mankell from amazon UK! |
Other fiction, by Henning Mankell:
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The Pyramid (Kurt Wallander Mystery)
, by Henning Mankell
The Pyramid, a collection of short stories, with a prologue, is about Kurt Wallander. It was originally published in Swedish as Pyramiden in 1999. The Pyramid was written after 
"What happened to Wallander before the series began?...Several years ago, right when I was done with the fifth book, Sidetracked, I realized that I had started to write stories in my head that took place long before the start of the series." - from Henning Mankell's foreword
The stories in the book span a decade in the life of Kurt Wallander. The Pyramid tells the story of Kurt Wallander from 1969 to 1989, from the time when Wallander was a police man in Malmö when he meets his father at an Egyptian police station in Cairo. We meet Wallander on his first case and even before he meets his future wife Mona. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat while at the same time trying to solve a murder off-duty. We also witness the beginnings of his fragile relationship with Mona, the woman he has his heart set on marrying. As well, we learn the reason behind his difficulties with his father.
The Pyramid shows the making of Kurt Wallander, all the way from the twenty-one-year-old patrolman on his first criminal investigation, via Wallander the young father facing an unexpected danger on Christmas Eve, Wallander solving a case of poisoning, to the newly separated Kurt Wallander investigating the murder of a local photographer. As well, we meet Wallander as a veteran detective who sees unexpected connections between a downed plane and the assassination of two spinster sisters.
Featuring an introduction from the author, The Pyramid is an essential read for all fans of Kurt Wallander. The mysteries in The Pyramid are vintage Mankell as well. And they provide the missing piece of the internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander mystery series.
Order from amazon UK: The Pyramid
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