Product Description

In woodland outside Ystad, the police make a horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, the pages marked with scribbled corrections. A string of macabre incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, have been taking place, and Inspector Wallander fears that these disturbances could be the prelude to attacks on humans on an even more alarming scale. Linda Wallander, in preparation to join the police force, arrives at Ystad. Exhibiting some of the hallmarks of her father - the maverick approach, the flaring temper - she becomes entangled in a case involving a group of religious extremists who are bent on punishing the world's sinners. Following on from the enormous success of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, Henning Mankell has begun an outstanding new chapter in crime writing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22912 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
No longer is Henning Mankell a name known to just a privileged few. Before the Frost will have a readership far greater than his first European fans, those lucky enough to have encountered some of the finest modern crime writing from a Swedish master. His recent novel, Firewall, further developed the cool, utterly gripping style that had become his trademark: modern society and its eccentricities stripped bare, with Sweden ably standing in for the whole of western society. In that book, Mankell’s dogged copper Inspector Kurt Wallander investigated crime in cyberspace (as the country experienced electricity blackout), and anarchist cyber terrorists tested Wallander’s mettle. But Mankell was showing signs of wanting something new, and Before the Frost delivers that--in spades.

Linda Wallander--Kurt’s daughter--is cut from the same cloth as her resourceful father, and as a new detective character for Mankell, she’ll do very nicely, even if a certain amount of adjustment is needed on the reader’s part. In the dark forest near Ystad, a grisly find is made: human hands and a severed head, arranged in a grim mockery of prayer. A bible, seemingly heavily annotated by the killer is also found. But this is just one of series of bizarre incidents that have been taxing inspector Kurt Wallander: including domestic pets being attacked. Not a good time, in fact, for Wallander’s daughter Linda to make her debut as another detective on the force. But (needless to say) she soon gives her father a run for his money in identifying the criminals involved--a sinister group with biblical punishments on their unflinching agenda.

While Linda has some way to go to make herself as beloved a protagonist as her father, the auguries here are very promising, with plotting compensating for the gearshifts involved.--Barry Forshaw

Michael Ondaatje
'Mankell is by far the best writer of police mysteries today'

Michael Ondaatje
'Mankell is by far the best writer of police mysteries today'

Customer Reviews

Respectable effort from Mankell
Having read several of Mankell's previous works I was looking forward to delving in to this one. Kurt Wallander mysteries are amongst the finest of 'Police procedurals', but I have to admit that I found the first Linda Wallander story somewhat fractured and plodding. May be it's the switch of main character or the religious aspects that underly the antagonists.

Essentially I'd recommend this book to any Mankell fan but for me it didn't quite live up to the eminence of 'Sidetracked' or 'Firewall'.

Before the Frost, Henning Mankell
At last it's arrived: the first novel in Mankell's new three-part series in which Linda Wallander takes the limelight from her father Kurt, who is soon to retire. (Let's forget, for the moment, that the fourth Wallander mystery still hasn't been translated.) All people want to know is this: is it as good? The answer, one entry in, is both yes and no. Before the Frost is just as gripping, just as eccentrically well-written, and just as remarkably socially-conscious as Mankell's other novels; no worries there. However, it was always going to be true that Linda is not as compelling and brilliant a character as her father. Almost no protagonist could be, though, so I wasn't expecting it. She's still darn capable of leading this series; she's just not quite as fascinating as her father. Though, as she assumes his mantle it becomes clear that they share many qualities: the temper, the doggedness, the strength and the child-like vulnerability which belies it.

There's only one other area where this novel is not quite as good as the previous ones, and that is the fact that we don't get such a detailed picture of the police investigation, given that Linda is not yet on the inside. We don't get the unique, glorious sense of teamwork which I've never found in any other series before; we don't get to see the tense way the investigation develops incrementally detail by small detail. In fact, through this novel she has just left training college and is waiting to join the force. Mere weeks before she is due to put on the uniform, an old friend goes missing. Linda, worried, begins to investigate.

Meanwhile, the Ystad police are baffled by a series of horrific arsons, carried out on live animals. Swans, a calf. Then an elderly woman, whose hobby is mapping the region's lost rural pathways, is found murdered. Her head and hands have been severed, and a Bible full of handwritten "corrections" lies by the remains. Soon it becomes apparent that Linda's missing friend knew the woman, and that the other investigation, which increasingly seems to hint at a network of Christian fanaticism, must somehow be connected.

The best crime fiction is coming from Europe. No question. You only have to read it to know that very little from Britain or America is currently as refreshing and original. People have tasted European crime-writing, and they are crying out for more. Henning Mankell is certainly one of the most guaranteed to sate that thirst. There are few writers as inventive; few writers who are so talented at scrutinising the current zeitgeists through their plots. Here, Mankell manages to say a lot about religion and religious extremism without directly saying much at all. (Briefly, I must say how refreshing it is to see a portrait of extremism that isn't Islam, in a world that's media is so preoccupied with peddling ignorant nonsense (I would use a stronger word were it appropriate) about how the whole of the west is imminently at risk from Muslim fundamentalists, and I get the distinct sense that Mankell knows exactly how daring he's being.) In a rather thought-provoking turn of events, at the close of the book Linda's first day as a police officer is the 11th of September:

"Martinsson turned on the television.
'Something's happened in the States,' he said.
'What sort of thing?' Linda asked.
'We'll have to wait and see.'
There was an image of a clock, counting down the seconds to a special news report. More and more people filtered into the canteen. By the time the news report came on, the room was almost full."

Another area where Mankell succeeds notably is in stitching the events of dreamy Ystad onto a far wider canvas; linking them to a world-wide perspective. He has always excelled in doing this, since The White Lioness dealt with apartheid, and then right through to Firewall, which dealt with aspects of digital terrorism. The result is that his provincial Swedish mysteries can extend a range of meaning far beyond windswept southern Skane, and is probably one of the many contributing factors to why Mankell is so hugely popular.

So, very minor hiccups won't spoil this at all for Mankell fans. Linda is not the most compelling of the Wallander family (although she does provide a very interesting new viewpoint on her father, and we get other insights into the Wallander clan - particularly ex-wife Mona - that Kurt's perspective simply couldn't provide), but as soon as she's settled into her role, this new series could easily become just as special as when her father was at the helm.

A chip off the old block
Used to Kurt Wallander, it is unsettling to find his troublesome daughter Linda now at centre stage, as she is poised to start her new job on her father's stamping ground, having just finished at police college.

At least she is more of a feisty Smilla Jasperson than a saintly Kay Scarpetta. The author has never gone out of his way to make Linda a sympathetic character but she comes through more than one ordeal, (worrying her dad enormously) and I look forward to subsequent stories involving her.

A missing friend, a man with a mission, a series of killings and some genuinely scarey moments when I really did fear for the main characters.

Linda is more like her father than she realises. They both feel deep commitment to the job and are prepared to put in the hours going backwards and forwards over the same ground checking details and establishing facts. The rookie at one point finds the situation "both crystal clear and confusing". Something nags away at her. "The big picture. Her father always talked about looking for the way events came together".

She begins to realise how this dedication competed with her parents' marriage and ultimately was one major factor leading to its collapse.

I for one was relieved that Kurt Wallander still played a role, Mankell hadn't yet pensioned him off.

A farewell to one of Wallander's old friends in this book and hello to a new face in the Ystad police department.

Definitely worth reading even if the heroine hasn't the most winsome personality.