The Man from Beijing, Henning Mankell
The Man from Beijing, Henning Mankell
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The Man from Beijing

Author: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson

Narrator: Rosalyn Landor

Unabridged: 15 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/16/2010


Synopsis

The acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, writing at the height of his powers, now gives us an electrifying stand-alone global thriller.

January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.

Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor—a gang master on the American transcontinental railway—that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth.

The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the United States—a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjövallen murders.

About The Author

Henning Mankell is the prizewinning author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, which were adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. His novels have been translated into forty languages and have sold thirty million copies worldwide. He is the first winner of the Ripper Award (the new European Crime Fiction Star Award) and has also received the Glass Key and Golden Dagger awards. He divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kemper on April 07, 2011

Despite a bloody gore fest kicking off the action and a story that spans from 19th century America to present day China, Sweden, Africa and England, this ended up being about as interesting as a lecture on geopolitics from a semi-bright junior high student. This book begins with the discovery of a ma......more

Goodreads review by Cynnamon on June 22, 2019

This book starts out with a mass murder in a tiny Swedish village. But it would be a mistake to expect a Swedish mystery here (this expectation lead imho to the various low ratings). When you read on you get the impression that you are reading an historical novel. You also could get the impression of......more

Goodreads review by Nora on November 10, 2023

I had to stop reading this book a second time because I am totally grossed out by the image of a prisoner being butchered and turned into food for pigs. That's why this book is only getting four stars instead of five stars because I absolutely adored everything else about this book. I also loved the......more

Goodreads review by Mike on April 10, 2025

Second of three books by this great Author bought from charity shop. This one even being a signed copy. Starts with a massacre in a remote Swedish hamlet. Recounts a story of Chinese brothers forced to go to America in the latter part of the nineteenth century to work on the construction of the rail......more

Goodreads review by Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) on October 14, 2017

Read all my reviews on [URL not allowed] When I was going through some of the reviews, it almost seemed like everyone was disappointed by The Man From Beijing, but this was not at all the memory I had about the book. Yes, it is slow paced, and not all the jumps may make a lot of s......more


Quotes

“This is hands down the best thriller I’ve read in five years. Grade: A . . . Complex and enormously satisfying.”
Entertainment Weekly

“The book cements Mankell’s reputation as Sweden’s greatest living mystery writer . . . Roslin is a sort of Nordic Miss Marple.”
Los Angeles Times

“Mankell succeeds in transfixing the reader with a masterly balance of character sketches and pell-mell storytelling. He is entirely convincing in his depiction of ordinary people becoming enmeshed in geopolitical intrigue.”
Wall Street Journal

“Mankell’s new book is an original but still chock-a-block with gory crime combined with hints of the late Stieg Larsson’s social concern and John le Carré’s international intrigue.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
“A must-read for anyone interested in the international crime novel.”
Booklist

“Over the past decade or so, Henning Mankell has built a large audience that, even now, in the (mostly) snowless U.S., can’t wait to find copies of his new snowbound work of mystery. The Man from Beijing more than repays such patience. It’s a terrific police procedural . . . Despite the broad reach of the plot, the book never puts the reader in danger of losing interest.”
—Alan Cheuse, Dallas Morning News 
   
The Man from Beijing, though not a Wallander novel, is the equal to any in that series. It’s the work of a writer with the imagination, brains, resources, and joinerly craft needed to make thoughtful, challenging, exciting, artistic novels . . . Remarkable.”
Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“Scandinavian crime writing has seldom shouldered the burdens of world history with such upfront ambition.”
Independent (UK)
 
“Breathtakingly bold in its scope.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Gripping . . . It is the disruption, the threat and the delicious chill of fear, all safely contained, that is the pleasure of this book.”
Observer (UK) 

“With this overwhelming thriller, Mankell has perhaps presented us with his best book ever.” 
 —Westdeutsche Allgemeine (Germany)
 
“Mankell’s best thriller in fifteen years.” 
 —Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
 
“A fantastic book . . . The book of the year so far . . . Whether you read it as a suspense novel, a thriller, or as commentary on the world of today with roots more than 150 years back, it is fascinating.” 
 —Kulturspeilet (Norway)
 
“[The Man from Beijing] conquers the world.” 
 —Borås Tidning (Sweden)
 
“Mankell shows us once again that he is the absolute master of his class.” 
 —Kulturbase (Germany)
 
“There is no doubt that Mankell with this blockbuster of a thriller has written one of his best books . . . Suspense until the last page, audacious storytelling, and two female main characters presented with care and compassion.”
Dagsavisen (Norway)
 
 “Explosive.”
Leben & Glauben (Germany)