This previously untranslated novel from the Swedish author, best
known for his Kurt Wallender mysteries, tells the complex story of
a rootless Swede's perilous and disillusioning African
experience.In juxtaposed parallel chapters, Mankell (Kennedy's
Brain, 2007, etc.) vividly chronicles protagonist Hans Olofson's
early years in rural Sweden, living with his alcoholic father
during the 1950s, and Olofson's ordeal in Zambia in the early
1970s, whence he had relocated hoping to complete an odyssey that
was only dreamed about by a boyhood acquaintance unable to make the
journey herself. Young Hans, who seeks relief from his father's
depressive rages (after Hans's mother had abandoned them) in
friendships with a well-to-do older boy (Sture) and a young woman
(Janine), facially disfigured in a surgical accident, loses both of
them. He bullies Sture into an incapacitating misadventure, and has
perhaps inadvertently driven Janine to suicide. Subsequently,
determined to honor Janine's dream of service to Africa's suffering
natives, he arrives in Zambia shortly before violence sparked by
warring tribes claims the lives and property of well-meaning white
settlers, and incarnates the indigenous myth of a leopard and
crocodile locked together in unending mortal conflict. This image
mocks the white man's fantasy of reclaiming a land with no future,
and eventually drives Olofson away from the egg farm he had
coincidentally acquired, and the destiny he had naively believed
lay ahead of him. This impressive novel is intensely detailed and
beautifully constructed, and it vibrates with a palpable and
genuinely frightening sense of doom. But it suffers intermittently
from the redundancy and slow pacing that likewise afflict Mankell's
mystery novels.The tension never relaxes, and most readers will
surely persevere through the final blood-soaked, despairing pages,
which attain a truly mesmerizing power. (Kirkus Reviews)
'Absorbing, chilling and dripping with evil atmosphere' The Times
Since his mother's disappearance, Hans Olofson has led an isolated
life. When he loses his girlfriend in tragic circumstances, he
decides to fulfil her dream: to visit the grave of a legendary
missionary in Zambia. On reaching Africa, Hans is struck by its
beauty and mystery, and an opportunity of employment tempts him to
stay. But he soon becomes embroiled in the issues of the local
community. As relationships splinter and fray, Hans realises that
his African dream is rapidly turning into a nightmare...
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