Kennedy's Brain: Henning Mankell

[poliphilo]

Not having Wallander on board frees Mankell up to go trotting round the globe. Wallander is lovely but for some purposes he just won't do. Take him out of Skane and he flounders. This story- which skips from Greece to Sweden to Australia to Catalonia to Mozambique- demands a cosmopolitan protagonist and gets one in the shape of a middle-aged, female archaeologist. It's a very good book- dark, political, angry (with occasional lapse into preachiness and melodrama.) The characters are complex.  Our protagonist sets out to investigate her son's murder and finds she can't do that without investigating her son- which means investigating herself as well. Two incidental things I like about Mankell (both rare in a thriller writer): he doesn't do gratuitous sex and he doesn't employ Mary Sues.