The Return of the Dancing Master

Not a Wallander story, but basically the same idea, just with a different protagonist and a deep dive into neo-Nazism. Dark, but as good as the others.

As usual, Mankell weaves a particularly Swedish spell - a police officer/detective in the same vein as his Kurt Wallender: brooding, often uncertain in his personal relationships, & drawn to solving murder, no matter what it costs him. The map of Sweden at the beginning of the book helped me overcome the strange Swedish names of the (many!) locales our protagonist Stefan Lindman travels to or mentions. Besides the present day murders that thrust him and his fellow officers into an increasingly puzzling web, Mankell also effortlessly spins another dual storyline - that of the victim Herbert Molin's earlier life & the gradual emerging of a horrifying picture of Nazism, from the 1940s & to the present day via an underground Neo-Nazi show more network. His incredible prose had me appreciating the beautiful, (eventually snowy) but somehow lonely landscape of Sweden's small villages, and wanting to drink endless cups of coffee. show less

Set in the Nordic Noir landscape of snow and nutters, a horrific and ritualised murder occurs in a remote settlement. Enter the main character, a young detective full of self-doubt and cancer who is in a relationship that seems unclear to everyone, including me. He soon finds himself enmeshed in a web of mystery where each step towards a resolution leads to more and more questions and deeper mysteries.

While having no official role in the investigation he nevertheless seems to be always at the centre of all that unfolds.

This is a story that takes many twists and turns yet never seems any nearer to a resolution. In fact it appears that to move one step forward to the resolution it is necessary to go three steps back in the main show more characters histories.

The flawed detective struggles to understand his mortality and emotional availability while at the same descending deeper into the horror of the event and its subsequent fall out, including into his own life from a quarter he never suspected.

In essence he is fighting three battles, the murderer, the cancer and the girlfriend.

In the end he he wins one, loses another and reaches a draw on the third.

All up, I was gripped from the beginning in that slow, calm, understated, Nordic way. It’s not so much a ripping yarn as a slow measured HR approved yarn, yet still a bloody good read. show less

I picked up Henning Mankell because I read an article about how Patti Smith was so addicted to him she visited the author's hometown. This isn't one of the series Mankell is known for but it was a great introduction and now I'm hooked. I think I liked it better than Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole, although there are a lot of shared characteristics (including main characters who repeatedly do things that are stupid).

I love the way Henning Mankell writes. There is something so dramatic about each and every word. A warning though, his scenes of violence are not for the faint of heart. Even if you have never been victim or even witness to a violent crime Mankell makes you feel right there in the moment. It's as if the violence is happening to you. Very cringe-worthy material. Case in point - the brutal torture and murder of retired policeman Herbert Molin sets the stage for the Return of the Dancing Master. Stefan Lindman takes a medical leave of absence from his job as a police officer in order to battle mouth cancer. While in the waiting room of his doctor he reads about the murder of Molin. As a way to keep his mind off his illness Lindman decides show more to investigate Molin's murder as Molin was once a colleague of sorts back in the day. Lindman finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the investigation when another man is murdered. As he comes to realize Molin was not the man he thought he knew, Lindman starts to question his own relationships. show less

Quando il male torna dal passato sotto forma di vendetta, l'esistenza degli uomini di buona volontà non può che esserne sconvolta, soprattutto quando si rendono conto che il virgulto di quel male che credevano ormai scomparso è ancora verde e vitale.
Probabilmente il più bel libro di Mankell, teso e crudele dall'inizio alla fine.

Prima lettura 2007.

Gran novela policial. Uno pensaría por como comienza que será una novela de asesinos como otras pero va desarrollandose y termina en un final mucho más sorprendente que lo esperado.