The Man From Beijing — Henning Mankell (2011 Fiction)

I am a fan of Henning Mankell, whose Kurt Wallander TV series stars Kenneth Branagh. The Man From Beijing is described as a stand-alone masterpiece, and I started with high hopes. The first 104 pages did not disappoint: a shocking crime committed in a depressing Swedish village in 2006. But then I was whisked back to China in 1863. Three brothers were press-ganged off to California and the transcontinental railway construction site in Nevada. There, they endured brutal conditions and shameful Irish racism. Only one, San, returned to China and respectability in 1868. The plot then leapt to 2005; San's descendants, Ya Ru and his sister Hong Qiu, highly placed in Communist China, present opposing viewpoints of an epic scheme to transplant poor Chinese peasants to wide open African spaces. The discussion predates today's U.S. concern about social inequality. The plot proceeds predictably in Mozambique, accurately portrayed by Mankell, who lives and works there. Birgitta Roslin, a Swedish judge, is the plot device, the character whose machinations link the Swedish crime to China. I found her character credible, hardworking, and on sick leave. I found her actions, the threads connecting events separated by continents and centuries, unconvincing. I found the crime's resolution unsatisfying.

Reviewed by Martin Waldron