Product Description

Herbert Molin, a retired police officer, lives alone in a remote cottage in northern Sweden. Two things seem to consume him; his passion for the tango, and an obsession with the "demons" he believes to be pursuing him. Early one morning shots shatter Molin's windows...by the time his body is found it is almost unrecognisable. Stefan Lindman is another off-the-job police officer. On extended sick leave due to having cancer of the tongue, Lindman hears about the murder of his former colleague and, in a bid to take his mind off his own problems, decides to investigate. As his investigation becomes increasingly complex, it is with both horror and disbelief that Lindman uncovers links to a global web of neo-Nazi activity. Written with all the usual flair so highly commended by Mankell fans this intricate crime novel, with its cast of new characters, heralds the end of the Kurt Wallander Mysteries and yet, ultimately, it leads the story back to Wallander's Ystad where a new outstanding series of thrillers can begin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149426 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Review
'Mankell is by far the best writer of police mysteries today. He is in the great tradition of those whose works transcend their chosen genre to become thrilling and moral literature' Michael Ondaatje 'Sweden's lord of criminal misrule at the top of his grimly engrossing game' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'Questions of responsibility and morality, of justice and democracy, are explicitly raised. And this is unusual in detective fiction. Superbly translated by Laurie Thompson, I found this book a worthy successor to the Wallander whodunits' Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph 'The new cast are introduced with customary brilliance, and the political edge suggests a fine new direction from this immense talent' Scotland on Sunday 'Dancing Master is absorbing, chilling and dripping with evil atmosphere' The Times 'A worthy successor to the Wallander whodunits' Sunday Telegraph 'Mankell is the master of the slow burn, and The Return of the Dancing Master makes us crave more of his misty, haunted atmosphere' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'Follows the Mankell formula but with a unique twist' London Review of Books

From the Publisher
'Questions of responsibility and morality, of justice and democracy, are explicitly raised. And this is unusual in detective fiction. Superbly translated by Laurie Thompson, I found this book a worthy successor to the Wallander whodunits' Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948. He is the author of many works of fiction, including the nine novels in the Kurt Wallander series. He has worked as an actor, theatre director and manager in Sweden and in Mozambique where he is now head of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant crime thriller - dark, mordant and seductive
I don't know what it is that has suddenly caused this rise in recognition of foreign writers, but it can only be a good thing. Jose Carlos Somoza, Boris Akunin, Karin Fossum, Carlo Lucarelli, and the Dark Wintry King of them all, Henning Mankell, who is increasingly a phenomena. His books fly off the shelves on mainland Europe, he's mobbed in the streets in his native Sweden, in Germany he apparently outsells J.K. Rowling (it's about time someone did), and half-Swedish Ruth Rendell has taken the trouble to read all the novels in their original language, admiring the fascinating procedural detail, which is just one of Mankell's strengths. He never shies from portraying the dull of aspects of routine police-work, but somehow manages to put such a spin on them as to make them interesting. And although The Return of the Dancing Master is a departure from his ever-better Kurt Wallander series - although it may as well not be, for how similar and ominously gloomy the two different protagonists are, it is just as excellent, and probably even better.
Retired policeman Herbert Molin lives a hermetic existence in a lonely house in the middle of a North-Sweden forest. Whatever he's hiding from, he's eluded it for 11 years, occupying himself with his fears, his jigsaw puzzles, and his dancing. Then, one day he is found beaten and lashed, lying dead in the snow on the edge of the wood. In his house, bloody footprints pattern the floor, marking out the steps of his favourite dance, the tango.

When Stefan Lindman, on sick-leave and obsessed with death having recently been diagnosed with cancer, reads of his old colleagues murder, he ventures north to the forests of Molin's retreat in order to try and find out more about who killed him, and in doing so places himself into a bleak investigation that stretches itself back to the evil acts of the second world war, and forces him to confront uncomfortable truths about his modern-day Sweden.

I can well see how Mankell's books, this one in particular, may not be suited to all. The Return of the Dancing Master - this title has quickly jumped to the top of my "Favourite Book Titles" list - is a dark, bleak and intense book with a heavy, dark atmosphere. There is little sunlight to be glimpsed anywhere, literally or metaphorically. So this is not for people who like their fiction light and happy, but more melancholy and affecting.

Sweden is evoked brilliantly, which is important as setting is one of the three necessary factors required in order to make a crime book effective, the other two being plot and character, where Mankell succeeds as well. The vast lonely forests of Northern Sweden contribute effectively to the bleakness (as you can tell, "bleak" is very much a watch-word here) of the book, and it is clear that Mankell has a very good handle on his country, and although is fond of it, shows us the things which worry him about modern Sweden, which he has said he thinks is a "pretty average" society. Here we are treated to bigotry, racism and neo-Nazism in pretty heavy doses, which makes for some disturbing scenes, and along with the atmosphere and the morbidity-obsessed lead character, it all correlates into a pretty dark book. Dark but brilliant, though. Mankell is an incredibly powerful writer, and that gift is on display here right from the beginning. The prologue gives us a vision of the executions of Nazi war criminals in 1945, and then in the first chapter we read terrified yet gripped by the throat as a scared, lonely old man's isolated home is assaulted in the dark, the windows shot out and he himself slaughtered.

The Return of the Dancing Master is bleak, yes, but it is fascinating, chilling, with the traditional flawed-hero (just what IS it about these kinds of people???) and it's refreshingly unformulaic. The plot is not once predictable, and constantly shifts beneath the reader to create a kind of gutsy suspense and a great pace. It's not quite perfect (there are a couple of kinks in the translation, I think, but that's forgivable) but apart from that it nearly is! A dark, excellent story by an incredibly talented writer, and I am absolutely sure that this will end up as one of my favourite reads of the year. If you want to try Mankell, start here. Whatever the price, the experience of this is well-worth it.

If you go into the woods today...
I wasn't overjoyed when I discovered that Mankell's latest novel doesn't feature Inspector Kurt Wallander, but within a couple of chapters I'd forgotten all about Ystad's favourite detective and become fully engrossed in the dark forests of northern Sweden. Apart from Mankell's gripping plots - and this one is as good as any - it is his sense of place that makes his novels so compelling. I don't normally read crime fiction, but like writers like Henning Mankell and Ian Rankin because their well-written, intelligent novels transcend the genre. Prepare to be bleary-eyed in the morning, because this novel is very hard to put down.

Brilliant - dark, mordant and seductive
I don't know what it is that has suddenly caused this rise in recognition of foreign writers, but it can only be a good thing. Jose Carlos Somoza, Boris Akunin, Karin Fossum, Carlo Lucarelli, and the Dark Wintry King of them all, Henning Mankell, who is increasingly a phenomena. His books fly off the shelves on mainland Europe, he's mobbed in the streets in his native Sweden, in Germany he apparently outsells J.K. Rowling (it's about time someone did), and half-Swedish Ruth Rendell has taken the trouble to read all the novels in their original language, admiring the fascinating procedural detail, which is just one of Mankell's strengths. He never shies from portraying the dull of aspects of routine police-work, but somehow manages to put such a spin on them as to make them interesting. And although The Return of the Dancing Master is a departure from his ever-better Kurt Wallander series - although it may as well not be, for how similar and ominously gloomy the two different protagonists are, it is just as excellent, and probably even better.

Retired policeman Herbert Molin lives a hermetic existence in a lonely house in the middle of a North-Sweden forest. Whatever he's hiding from, he's eluded it for 11 years, occupying himself with his fears, his jigsaw puzzles, and his dancing. Then, one day he is found beaten and lashed, lying dead in the snow on the edge of the wood. In his house, bloody footprints pattern the floor, marking out the steps of his favourite dance, the tango.

When Stefan Lindman, on sick-leave and obsessed with death having recently been diagnosed with cancer, reads of his old colleagues murder, he ventures north to the forests of Molin's retreat in order to try and find out more about who killed him, and in doing so places himself into a bleak investigation that stretches itself back to the evil acts of the second world war, and forces him to confront uncomfortable truths about his modern-day Sweden.

I can well see how Mankell's books, this one in particular, may not be suited to all. The Return of the Dancing Master - this title has quickly jumped to the top of my "Favourite Book Titles" list - is a dark, bleak and intense book with a heavy, dark atmosphere. There is little sunlight to be glimpsed anywhere, literally or metaphorically. So this is not for people who like their fiction light and happy, but more melancholy and affecting.

Sweden is evoked brilliantly, which is important as setting is one of the three necessary factors required in order to make a crime book effective, the other two being plot and character, where Mankell succeeds as well. The vast lonely forests of Northern Sweden contribute effectively to the bleakness (as you can tell, "bleak" is very much a watch-word here) of the book, and it is clear that Mankell has a very good handle on his country, and although is fond of it, shows us the things which worry him about modern Sweden, which he has said he thinks is a "pretty average" society. Here we are treated to bigotry, racism and neo-Nazism in pretty heavy doses, which makes for some disturbing scenes, and along with the atmosphere and the morbidity-obsessed lead character, it all correlates into a pretty dark book. Dark but brilliant, though. Mankell is an incredibly powerful writer, and that gift is on display here right from the beginning. The prologue gives us a vision of the executions of Nazi war criminals in 1945, and then in the first chapter we read terrified yet gripped by the throat as a scared, lonely old man's isolated home is assaulted in the dark, the windows shot out and he himself slaughtered.

The Return of the Dancing Master is bleak, yes, but it is fascinating, chilling, with the traditional flawed-hero (just what IS it about these kinds of people???) and it's refreshingly unformulaic. The plot is not once predictable, and constantly shifts beneath the reader to create a kind of gutsy suspense and a great pace. It's not quite perfect (there are a couple of kinks in the translation, I think, but that's forgivable) but apart from that it nearly is! A dark, excellent story by an incredibly talented writer, and I am absolutely sure that this will end up as one of my favourite reads of the year. If you want to try Mankell, start here. Whatever the price, the experience of this is well-worth it.