Fascinating. This book doesn't follow the standard patterns. It starts with a man visiting a small village in northern Sweden and finding everyone murdered. Then we see judge Brigita Roselund realizing her mother's adoptive parents lived in this small village and since she has just been told to take some time off for high blood pressure, so she goes up to check out hte village. She becomes the main character that ties this disparate world wide story all together.
I somehow can't imagine an American novel talking about idealistic youth days when they were all entralled with China's communism and Mao, some even officially joining the communists. This feels very European or Scandinavian. Brigita's friend Karin became so enamored of the Chinese, that she made her life's work out of studying China and attends a conference in Beijing during the novel with Brigit.
This story manages to traverse four continents and teach me something about each. I still know so little about China. This book provided Mankell the opportunity to speculate about conversations happening at the top levels of the Chinese government about the many poor in the rural disctricts, the corruption as money flowed into the country surrounding the Olympics. The different approaches - more traditional Maoist and others with the goal of helping all and the new capitalism. I guess I have heard that the Chinese have developed relationships with Africa, but are they really planning to send massive numbers of Chinese to populate fertile, underdeveloped areas in Africa? Mozambique and Zambia were visited and we saw a different take on Mugabe. I should learn more.
Most facinating was the historical flash back to the ancestors of two of the main Chinese characters Hung Cho and Ja Roo, who were forced to flee their rural homes, were dragged to America and put to work on building the railroad across the continent under horibble conditions. The ancestors traveled across America, then to England and then back to China. They befriended some Swedish missionaries and we even get a glimpse into this strange phenomenon of bringing Christianity to China. I felt there were strong parallels to the way they were prostelizing to some other parts of the book - to the early zealousness of the Swedish communists.
I learned a bit more about the criminal courts in Sweden. I also kept wishing for a map, but I now really get how close southern Sweden is to Denmark & Copenjhagen, and that Helsingborg is some place down there.
Brigit was an interesting character - middle aged, grown children, distancing relationship with husband, likes her job though it gets stressful. And then she gets involved in the mass murder story, not realizing she is the one putting it all together. She is not really being the detective, though she does a bit of sleuthing in the beginning and passes it on to not very receptive police.
I know this is a very disjointed review, but these are impressions about the book I scribbled down in the car after listening to it. I think I don't want to give the plot away, by even indicating the connections, but it was a fascinating romp through Sweden, China, US, and Africa mostly in the present, but going back 150 years or so.
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