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Monday, June 18, 2012

Before the Frost by Henning Mankell

6. - 469.) Before the Frost by Henning Mankell – The first and apparently last Kurt and Linda Wallender novel is a great mystery. It opens with a survivor’s recounting of the Jonestown, Guyana massacre of 1978. It continues 23 years later in August of 2001 with Linda returning to Ystaad after completing her training as a police officer. (I was immediately struck that Jonathan began living in Sweden in August of 2001.) As with several in the series an unknown character commits a horrorific inexplicable crime. This time a group of swans are set afire. Further ritualistic killings of animals take place. One of Linda’s high school friends, Anna, disappears after claiming to have seen her father who had deserted Anna and her mother over 24 years ago. Linda, putting in slow time, while she waits to start her police career tries to determine what has happened to Anna. Gradually Linda is drawn into the investigation with her father. The connections with Jonestown remain hidden to them. While waiting for her apartment she is living with him. Their complex relationship adds tremendous personality to the mystery. In most previous books Kurt had almost no personal life. He is far more human in this book. They have a real parent-child relationship. As usual Mankell skillfully builds the tension as the disparate threads of the investigation ever so slowly come together and then suddenly accelerate to a dramatic conclusion. As in Firewall a conspiracy is made very plausible. The last 100 pages raced by. He is a great author. (Jan. 27/09) (Tied for Fourth Best fiction of 2009)
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 19, 2012 at 12:26 AM

    Bill your post have just remind me that I still have this book in my TBR shelf and I should not let it there.

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  2. Maxine ClarkeJune 19, 2012 at 2:34 AM

    Nice review. I think this is my favourite Wallander, though I read them over a period of so many years, in the bizarre order in which they were pubilshed in the UK, that I may have forgotten others.

    The character of Linda is a great development over the series. I can't remember if she appears in any other books after this one, but she certainly is a very significant character in the last Wallander book, The Troubled Man.

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  3. AnonymousJune 19, 2012 at 5:22 AM

    Bill - Thanks for the fine review. I like the way Mankell ties in past and present in this novel. And like you, I like seeing the fatherly side of Wallander's character.

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  4. Bill SelnesJune 19, 2012 at 11:19 PM

    Jose Ignacio: It is worth moving to the front or top of the shelf depending on how you stack the TBR books.

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  5. Bill SelnesJune 19, 2012 at 11:28 PM

    Maxine: Thanks for the comment. I still believe Linda could replace Kurt and carry a new series. I equally like her alot as a character.

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  6. Bill SelnesJune 19, 2012 at 11:29 PM

    Margot: Thanks for the comment. After reading The Troubled Man I wish Before the Frost had been the closing book to the series. I found it a considerably better book.

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