'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

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.