Mankell’s last book, completed I think not long before he died.
Unsurprisingly, quite a gloomy book, about an elderly retired doctor living on an island somewhere in a Swedish archipelago. His house mysteriously burns down and the first half of the book has him swanning around the place trying in part to prove his innocence.
It picks up a lot in the 2nd half as his rebellious daughter, pregnant by an initially undisclosed partner, turns up, but they don’t get on and she disappears to Paris. Meanwhile the doctor becomes obsessed with a much younger journalist.
The daughter calls from Paris, having been arrested and her father travels there to help her out, and discovers the life she is living with some impoverished North Africans. For much of his time is Paris, he reminisces over his year there, before returning to Sweden where the mystery of the fire is solved and various of his acquaintances have died. This begins to reconcile him toward his own death.
Difficult to describe.
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