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 Hesjovallen, 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 Andrens, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andren family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andren 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 Hesjovallen 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 Hesjovallen murders.
"From the Hardcover edition."
Industry Reviews
"A complex and enormously satisfying thriller . . . Grade: A." --Entertainment Weekly
"Cements Mankell's reputation as Sweden's greatest living mystery writer." --Los Angeles Times
"This novel is epic in its scope and sure to please fans of literary and crime novels." --USA Today
"Henning Mankell reminds us that there's a master of Swedish noir still writing." --The New York Times
"A page-burning new thriller . . . Mankell keeps the suspense at level 11, pulling the reader along a taut wire of political intrigue, historical wrongs, [and] personal drama."--Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A great mystery that belongs in the company of other knockout masterpieces of moral complexity and atmosphere like Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors, Robert Goddard's Beyond Recall, Barbara Vine's A Dark-Adapted Eye. . . . A brilliant tale of suspense and substance that dedicated mystery readers will want to savor."--Washington Post
"A terrific police procedural."--Dallas Morning News
"Mankell's new book is an original but still chock-a-block with gory crime combined with hints of the late Stieg Larsson's social concern and John le Carr�'s international intrigue."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Absorbing. . . . Suggests the brilliance of Graham Greene . . . Mankell seems capable of just about anything."--Toronto Star
"The Man from Beijing has the sweep of a John le Carr� mystery . . . reaching back through history and across the globe."--Winnipeg Free Press
"A compelling stand-alone novel . . . Mankell succeeds in transfixing the reader with a masterly balance of character sketches and pell-mell storytelling."--Wall Street Journal
"Its aim is broad and high, startlingly so: It's out to shake us up, saying something about the world we're in, about the nature of our lives at this moment. . . . The Man from Beijing is flavored with the . . . tang of time's passage itself. . . . Remarkable."--Philadelphia Inquirer
