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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, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén 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 Hesjövallen 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 Hesjövallen murders.
"While each section... compels, the parts don't add up to a fully satisfying whole." - Publishers Weekly
"Breathtakingly bold in its scope. If Mankell never links his far-flung, multigenerational horrors closely together, that's an important part of his point." - Kirkus Reviews
"Yes, Mankell overextends himself here, but he also shows why he remains a must-read for anyone interested in the international crime novel." - Booklist
"With this overwhelming thriller, Mankell has perhaps presented us with his best book ever." - Westdeutsche Allgemeine (Germany)
"Mankell’s best thriller in fifteen years." - Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
"A fantastic book ..... The book of the year so far ... Whether you read it as a suspense novel, a thriller, or as commentary on the world of today with roots more than 150 years back, it is fascinating."
- Kulturspeilet (Norway)
"Mankell continues as one of the kings of the noir novel."
- El Mundo (Spain)
This information about The Man from Beijing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Author Henning Mankell was the acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries plus more than 20 other novels, both series and stand-alones. The Kurt Wallander series has been published in thirty-three countries and consistently tops the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes (including the UK's Golden Dagger Award in 2000) and generating numerous international film and television adaptations.
Born in a village in northern Sweden in 1948, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique until his death in October 2015 from cancer.
Kurt Wallander Series Order (dates are English-language publication dates):
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