Secrets in the Fire
- 168 pages
- 6 hours of reading
This novel brings to life a girl's experience of civil war, life in a refugee village, the loss of both legs in a landmine accident and her long struggle to survive. schovat popis
Henning Mankell was an internationally recognized Swedish author of crime novels, children's books, and plays. His work is characterized by its deep insight into human psychology and social issues. Mankell often explored themes of justice, morality, and the complexities of human relationships. His writing is valued for its atmospheric quality and penetrating observations about society.







This novel brings to life a girl's experience of civil war, life in a refugee village, the loss of both legs in a landmine accident and her long struggle to survive. schovat popis
As Joel Gustafson approaches his fifteenth birthday, he reflects on the newfound freedoms that await him, including riding a moped and watching adult films without sneaking in. He harbors a deep desire for adventure, dreaming of leaving their small Swedish town to sail with his father. This pivotal moment in his life prompts Joel to contemplate both the exciting opportunities and the challenges of growing up, as he navigates his aspirations and family dynamics.
It is Midsummer's Eve, three young friends gather in a wood. In the still-sunlit, Scandanavian dusk, they don costumes joyfully to enact - or so it appears to an unseen observer - a kind of masque. The hidden watcher soon brings their performance to an end. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect - three bullets, three corpses. The murderer, then, carefully photographs the grisly tableau. The Ystad police station, meanwhile, is experiencing a summer lull, indeed Inspector Wallander is at last at liberty to attend to - albeit reluctantly - his deteriorating health, but his peace of mind is shattered when one of his colleagues is murdered. An unknown killer, seen by no-one, is on the loose, and the police's only lead is a photograph of three dead young people in costume. Forced to dig more deeply than he would have wanted into the personal life of one of his colleagues, Wallander's investigation reveals something none of his team could ever have imagined. However, they remain tantalisingly, terrifyingly one step behind the lethal progress of a killer Wallander would have to suppose was deranged if his methods were not so meticulous and his victims so clinically targeted.
A young girl, possibly a foreigner, commits suicide in baffling circumstances. One, and then another, and then another vicious murder - and not one of them with an obvious motive - shatter the tranquility of the Swedish province of Skane. It falls to Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad Police to try and solve the crimes.
Midsummer approaches, and Inspector Kurt Wallander prepares for a holiday with the new woman in his life, hopeful that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without him. But his restful summer plans are thrown into disarray when a teenage girl commits suicide before his eyes, and a former minister of justice is butchered in the first of a series of apparently motiveless murders. Wallander's desperate hunt for the girl's identity and his furious pursuit of a killer who scalps his victims will throw him and those he loves most into mortal danger. WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION GOLD DAGGER
Book by Henning Mankell
Four nuns and a fifth woman, a visitor to Africa, are killed in a savage night-time attack. Months later, in Sweden, the news of the tragedy sets off a cruel vengeance for these killings. But when inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of an elderly bird-watcher he discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder.
It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unkown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation, Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.
One night the baker Jose Antonio Maria Vaz hears gunfire from the deserted theatre next door to his bakery. Bemused he races up to the uppermost gallery and there beneath him on a spot-lit stage is the wounded body of Nelio, the fabled street urchin, renowned throughout the city for living on his wits. Gasping, Nelio asks to be taken to the roof to breathe in the beautiful air, fresh off the indian ocean. There on the theatre roof, his life ebbing away, Nelio begans his story. At the age of five, Nelio witnessed his village burn to the ground, and the brutal massacre of his people by bandits. He himself escaped by chance; a man handed Nelio a gun and ordered him to shoot another boy, instead he turned the gun on the bandit, shot and ran. He made his way to the coast, encountering bizarre characters en route who gave him guidence. Upon arrival in the city Nelio joined a rough street gang, and began a very different way of life. A dazzling departure from the master of crime, Henning Mankell's CHRONICLER OF THE WINDS takes us to the African continent, a place for which the author has a great passion. An expertly crafted fable.
Stopping to get money from a cash machine one evening, a man inexplicably falls to the ground: dead. A taxi dirver is brutally murdered by two teenaged girls. Quickly apprehended they appal local policemen with their total lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery. Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery of betrayals in his own team, lonely and frustrated, Wallander begins to lose conviction in his role as a detective. The search for answers leads Wallander dangerously close to a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden within the anonymity of cyberspace. Somehow these criminals seem always to know the police's next move. Wallander finds himself fighting to outsmart them In their gripping police procedural about our increasing vulnerability in the modern digitalised world.