The Man from Beijing

by Henning Mankell

A massacre in the remote Swedish village of Hesjövallen propels this complex, if diffuse, stand-alone thriller from Mankell (The Pyramid). Judge Birgitta Roslin, whose mother grew up in the village, comes across diaries from the house of one of the 19 mostly elderly victims kept by Jan Andrén, an immigrant ancestor of Roslin's. The diaries cover Andrén's time as a foreman on the building of the transcontinental railroad in the United States. An extended flashback charts the journey of a railroad worker, San, who was kidnapped in China and shipped to America in 1863. After finding evidence linking a mysterious Chinese man to the Hesjövallen murders, Roslin travels to Beijing, suspecting that the motive for the horrific crime is rooted in the past. While each section, ranging in setting from the bleak frozen landscape of northern Sweden to modern-day China bursting onto the global playing field, compels, the parts don't add up to a fully satisfying whole.

--From Publisher's Weekly

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, China, Sweden, Scandinavian Literature

384 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Henning Mankell was an internationally known Swedish crime writer, children's author and playwright. He was best known for his literary character Kurt Wallander.

Mankell split his time between Sweden and Mozambique. He was married to Eva Bergman, Swedish director and daughter of Ingmar Bergman.

Reviews

[Kemper · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 massacre of almost the entire population of a tiny village in a remote area of Sweden. 19 people have been sliced and diced in various ways. Even the pets have been brutally killed. (Hey, Sweden. WTF? Seriously. I thought America was supposed to be the king of using wanton acts of violence for pop entertainment. But after reading Let the Right One In, Stieg Larsson and some of Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series, I’m starting to think you’re even more twisted than we are.)

A criminal judge with a foundering marriage and a bit of a mid-life crisis named Birgitta Roslin realizes that her deceased mother’s foster parents were among those killed. When Roslin unexpectedly has some time off work, she travels to the area of the slaughter for reasons she doesn’t really understand, and she ends up coming across clues indicating that the killer may have been from China. However, when a better local suspect pops up, the police chase that angle instead. Birgitta doesn’t realize that she’s stumbled into a story of revenge that began in America during the building of the transcontinental railroad during the 1860s. Great set-up for a story, but it fails miserably.

The first problem is that I don’t even know what kind of book it’s supposed to be. It’s not a horror novel or a schlock crime story despite the grisly murders that start it. It’s not a whodunit because the villain is introduced pretty early in the book along with his motives for the crime. You’d think it’d turn into a globe-spanning thriller then, right? Wrong. Despite the many exotic locales and a couple of other murders, most of the book consists of various characters' thoughts about China or their personal lives. So if you know who committed the crime, and there’s no action driving the resolution of the plot, what’s the point of the story?

The second problem is that the main character is an amateur slueth. I’m not a big fan of these characters, and it’s tricky to make it work. If you’re going to have an investigator who isn’t a professional and is outside the system, then a writer usually has to make the authorities corrupt or completely stupid. Or the protagonist has to be put in circumstances so that they won’t be believed when they uncover evidence. But in this case, you’ve got a respected Swedish judge, who the police are at least willing to listen to. So the second she realizes she’s in danger or gets a critical piece of information, you’d think she’d be on the phone. Uh…no. Because Birgitta Roslin is an utter moron.

She’s naïve when she should be paranoid.. Paranoid when she has no reason to be. Trusting when she shouldn’t be. Untrusting when she has no reason to be. All in the interests of just moving this glacially paced plot forward. Which doesn’t matter. BECAUSE I ALREADY KNOW WHO DID IT AND WHY. It’s maddening knowing everything that your idiot heroine doesn’t and is too stupid to figure out.

Prime example: At a key point near the end of the book, Birgitta, gets a critical piece of news dropped in her lap. (Everything is dropped in Birgitta’s lap. She doesn’t actually DO anything except kind of grope around in a clumsy way while claiming that she’s just trying to stay informed about the on-going investigation.) It involves locating a person that the police know they should at least talk too. You know, to solve THE GODDAMN MASS MURDER. But old Birgitta just goes to bed. She’s shocked in the morning to discover that her night’s sleep resulted in another murder, and she has good reason to think that she’s next. Despite the fact that a person of interest in a GODDAMN MASS MURDER may very well be coming to kill a freaking judge, Birgitta does NOT call the cops. Instead, she flees Sweden in a panic to go to London and seek help from a Chinese woman that she had met only once. Because when a GODDAMN MASS MURDERER is on your trail, it’s always best NOT to inform the agents of the same justice system that employs you. It’s much better to seek aid in a foreign country from someone you don't really know.

Jesus wept….

I can’t believe that the guy who writes the terrific Kurt Wallander novels is the same person who came up with this piece of crap. If Wallander would have been the guy investigating a GODDAMN MASS MURDER, you can be sure that he’d call the other cops for help when he found the guy responsible.

[Cynnamon · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 reading a sociocritical social novel.
But in my eyes this book is mostly a political thriller containing an abundance of information mostly about China and Africa.
Henning Mankell made Mozambique his second home country. As everyone knows China is showing a lot of activity in Africa. Therefore the issues discussed in this book were very important to Mankell.

The book is written in Mankell's usual cool, clear and calm writing style, which I appreciate very much.

His main point in this novel is to talk about the political development in China. He personalises the social, economic and politic conflicts in China, by examining one Chinese family and assigning different factions to their members. The main battle is fought between brother and sister, who are both in high positions, and it is merciless.

The murders of the beginning and the historical explanations for them are more or less only a framework for the main story.

I really enjoyed reading this book, even though it was a bit tedious at times due to the huge amount of political and historical information weaved in.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot over-emphasize how disappinting this book was. It started out great: nearly everyone in a small village in cold and snowy northern Sweden is massacred, a hideous scene. A woman deputy is introduced, then a woman with a connection to some of the victims. Then Mankell takes us back to a the American West, where some Chinese immigrants find themselves serving as slave laborers on the continental railroad. I was fully engrossed.

But I don’t think Mankell really thought through where he wanted to take the book. Soon, the woman deputy becomes a disagreeable caricature, and the other woman, now suddenly the central protagonist, ends up pursuing clues to Beijing. Before long, we’re in Africa, then back to Sweden, then England. It’s just a mess.

Mankell, normally one of my favorite writers, basically indulged in building a story to affirm some personal anti-Chinese political opinions, and it just fell flat. When the whole thing wraps up, there is one glaring inconsistency–a major, major one involving the identity of the killer–involving a photograph which I can in no way resolve. Maybe something was lost in translation. But more to the point, if anything was lost, it was lost in the writing. I hope Mankell got these political obsessions off his chest. I just wish he hadn’t dragged me along.

[Nora Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 concept of what if the bad guy is really a good guy who got treated horribly and if they were in fact the bad guy in the first place?

[Mike Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 railways. Traverses into China and the communist plans to relocate millions of peasants to farm in Africa.

All this interlaced with a Swedish judge related to one of the dead in the massacre investigating the atrocity. Great writing and pace. Mankell is more than Wallender for sure. Have my third purchase lined up - a Wallender prequel. But with the new and final series of Bosch Legacy now on it’s time for a …Harry Bosch😉

[Metodi Markov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Очаквах криминален трилър, а получих книга свързваща миналото на червен Китай, с настоящето и бъдещето му.

Манкел пише умело, историята е интересно построена, но героите не са много добре създадени в по-голямата си част и това отнема от стойността на книгата за мен.

Беше ми все пак интригуваща до края си, много от нещата които авторът е предвидил не са се сбъднали до сега, но пък не е невъзможно дори съвсем скоро да станат реалност.

Този роман показва чудесно, как западняците изобщо не разбират комунизма и в частност жестоката му и безчовечна китайска разновидност. Най-заслепени са тези с настоящи или бивши леви убеждения, като съдийката Руслин. Неслучайно са известни с циничното си прозвище, дадено им от самите комунисти - "полезни идиоти".

Моята оценка - 4,5*.

Цитати:

"Власт, която не се гради върху знание и непрестанен приток на информация, накрая не е възможно да бъде отстоявана."

"Бедността винаги изглежда еднакво, където и да я срещнеш."

"Комунистическата партия иска да покаже на света, че е възможно да се комбинира икономическо развитие с недемократична държавност."

"Пияниците по парковете и самотните мъже, които ходят и събират мъртвите листа из църковните дворове, са нещо като пъпа на шведското общество."

[Alana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books I've ever read. Maybe I should back up and say that I don't like crime fiction and that the only reason I read this book is that it was given to me as a gift from my in-laws (who I now respect less for recommending this garbage. I kid. Sort of).

Internationally bestselling novelist? This is a joke, right? The author is in serious need of a thesaurus because you can only read the same descriptive phrase so many times in a single page, let alone paragraph (perhaps this frustration would more appropriately be directed at the translator?). There are a million irrelevant and tedious details thrown in, and the dialogue is so poorly written it's just painfully awkward. Here is an excerpt from when the protagonist is in Beijing and is approached by a young man:
"Are you lost? Can I help you?"
"I'm just looking at that handsome building over there. Do you know who owns it?"
He shook his head in surprise.
"I study to be veterinarian. I know nothing of tall buildings. Can I help you? I try to teach me speak better English."
"Your English is very good." She pointed up at the projecting terrace. "I wonder who lives there?"
"Somebody very rich."
"Can you help me?" she said. She took out the photograph of Wang Min Hao. "Can you go over to the guards and ask them if they know this man. If they ask why you want to know, just say somebody asked you to give him a message."
"What message?"
"Tell them you'll fetch it. Come back here. I shall wait by the hospital entrance."
"Why not ask them yourself?" he said.
"I'm too shy. I don't think a Western woman on her own should ask about a Chinese man."
"Do you know him?"
"Yes." ... "One more thing," she said. "Ask them who lives up there, on the top floor. It looks like an apartment with a big terrace."
"My name is Huo," he said. "I will ask."
"My name's Birgitta. Just pretend to be interested."
"Where you from? U.S.A.?"
"Sweden. Ruidian, I think it's called in Chinese."
"I do not know where that is."
"It's almost impossible to explain."

Is it? Is it really? Ever hear of a place called Europe? Well, it's there. In the north. Off the Baltic Sea. All of the dialogue is so unnatural it just made me cringe and laugh in disbelief.

Also, you already have a complete picture of what's happened from the half way point of the book but are forced to go over it all again from someone else's perspective. The climax, therefore, is extremely anticlimactic, and all the loose ends are neatly tied up with this neat explanation: "There were...many details that still weren't explained...There were threads that would continue to hang loose, perhaps forever." Wow, I guess he heard that deadline approaching and had to put things somewhere fast.

Oh, and the whole story revolves around a court judge who consistently exhibits poor judgment in everyday dealings. Come ON!

[Aza · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, to me Henning Mankell's books are always full of life experience, depth, and knowledge of human society. His stories often travel to far away places and intertwine that at times one couldn't possibly imagine they might be related. But just like a butterfly in South America might trigger a tsunami 1000 miles further north, the Man from Beijing does something similar. He causes death and grief in a far away country over something that happened elsewhere and more specific, in another era. And all because of a long-forgotten diary. Pain can be passed on to someone's genes. The past catches up with the present and as so often with humans, they act on it. The Man from Beijing is a fictional story but it could be life at its very core, he borrows from reality. I am a huge admirer of Mankell's work and love the fact that he had the ability to fuse different stories and show a broader perspective of events and how things could perhaps even be. They quite often serve as a warning, a mirror of events as they could happen somewhere and just like most of his other work, it makes your brain work hard and the reader has to make an effort to connect the dots and actually THINK a little more. Mankell has the ability to seam multiple characters and their stories what first appears to be a contained crime story in a small village but no, it stretches out around the globe. Absolutely fantastic and with the current state of our world absolutely believable! He partially feeds the reader different perspectives from different characters but does not lose the red thread that pulls through the main story. Nothing is ever what it seems, one never knows what comes around the corner next which makes it a suspenseful page-turner. But Mankell is - compared to other newish crime writers - perhaps rather old school and slightly slower in his approach and writing style. Fair enough and very good! His work will last. I personally love his style, it gives me enough time to dive in and explore. And it's very cleverly plotted, too. His books are always interesting transcriptions from his unique observation and perspective of where society could be heading at. I was very sad when Mankell passed away, he was and is a true writing hero who had planted many good deeds in his life.

[Anmiryam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've heard a lot about Henning Mankell from others that know I am an aficionado of Nordic mysteries, so I was excited when a friend passed this along for me to read. My enthusiasm was premature. If I was to use this book to pass my final judgement on Mankell as an author, I'm afraid I would be rather harsh. There were hints through this book of the thriller that could have been -- compelling, fast-paced, filled with interesting characters -- but these are drowned in extended polemics about the history of the treatment of Chinese laborers in the American West, Chinese politics and amibitions, Swedish society and the fundamental nature of capitalism. Some of these sections, particularly the pivotal piece set in the 1860s, are compelling in themselves, but they are often not needed to support the overall plot.

Mankell's missteps are not limited to following his own interests to the detriment of the book, but in also crafting a leaking ship. The first half, which establishes the mystery, introduces the accidental heroine of the book and explores the history that is the fuel for the modern day massacre that starts the book, is well done, but Mankell must have lost interest once these were completed. Many of his main characters are insufficiently developed, or just not that interesting (yes, Brigitta, that means you). His villain is a stock character and is never nearly frightening enough to be seen as the psychopath he must be. Loose ends, unexplained or contradictory motivations, serendipitous connections and an overly neat ending all mar the flabby second half.

Given the strength of his following, I'm not going to allow this one disappointment dissuade me from picking up another Mankell, but I will be sure that the next one is a Wallender mystery!

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

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 sense, but I still remember it as an interesting story, after the mass murder on the first few pages. Although even I have to admit that the Wallander series stands out.

Side note: I was once able to pass a geography question in high school about Chinese investments into Africa because I'd read this book. ;)

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not exactly 3 stars, maybe a little bit more. Are we EVER going to get the extra 1/2 star ability?

The opening scenes of this book are positively chilling, when at first a hungry wolf, away from its pack, is searching for food around the tiny village of Hesjövallen and chances upon a human leg. Then later, a researcher looking into the phenomenon of small towns and villages that are simply dying out stumbles upon the scene of a massacre -- with the exception of three people, everyone person there has been gruesomely murdered. The only clue: a red ribbon that someone has left behind in the snow. In charge of the investigation is one Vivian Sundberg. Sundberg crosses paths with a judge named Birgitta Roslin, currently on sick leave for high blood pressure issues, who reads about the slaughter in her local newspaper and realizes that the victims included her mother's foster parents. Birgitta wants to help the police, and as she goes to volunteer her information, she has unknowingly already started down a most dangerous path.

Now, if things had launched from that point in the usual Mankell style, I would have been reading with the usual high level of suspense tension that his works generally produce. However, Mankell seems to have some issues he wants to deal with, apart from just the decaying state of Swedish society. He takes the reader into a discussion of current philosophical divisiveness regarding the future direction of the People's Republic of China, going from there into the plight of parts of post-colonial Africa, and although it all does tie into the story line, you sort of get the feeling that you're getting lectured to here at times. And although eventually things do come full circle, the getting there just wasn't done in the usual Mankell style. The motivation of the bad guy didn't seem realistic, and neither did some of the actions of Birgitta, since she is supposedly someone who is meant to uphold the law. And there are a few too many coincidences at work in this novel.

Perhaps it's not fair to judge this book based on others that the author has written, but you can't really help it in the long run. I love Mankell's work (and I've read a LOT of his books), but this one just didn't do it for me. But, since it's getting rave reviews at a lot of places, don't just take my word for it. I'm just one person swimming against the tide of popular opinion.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Henning Mankell is a bad writer. This can be overlooked in books like Faceless Killers and The Man Who Smiled, where plot and character are everything and the dyspeptic charms of Inspector Wallander, coupled with Sweden's gloomy weather, delight us. The Man From Beijing lacks Wallander and lots of other things. The dialogue could not be any more wooden. Here's a Chinese woman telling the protagonist, Swedish judge Birgitta Roslin, that the West is not happy that China was so advanced at one time: "Gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, everything is originally Chinese. You weren't even first to learn the art of measuring time. Thousands of years before you started making mechanical clocks we had water clocks and hourglasses. You can never forgive us for that." It's not just the dialogue that's awkward. After nearly getting shot in a restaurant, Birgitta "had only just realized that the man who died had fallen onto the table next to the one where she'd been sitting."

The enormous bloody massacre of 19 mostly elderly Swedish villagers that begins the book is merely an excuse for Mankell to opine through his characters on corruption and the police state in China, and poverty and powerlessness in China and Africa. The plot, which can just barely sustain its strange connections to China and 19th century America, veers off onto an utterly gratuitous journey to Africa. Why? Because Mankell's heart is in Africa; he's an activist who lives part time in Mozambique and his love of Africa is now featured in most of his fiction, regardless of how little it actually has to do with the plot points he starts out with.

Apparently whoever writes the copy for his website is a bad writer too:

Having published his first novel Henning Mankell emasculated his dream of going to Africa and arrived in Guinea-Bissau the same year as The Stone Blaster was published.

- "I don't know why but when I got off the plane in Africa, I had a curious feeling of coming home."

Sometimes dreams die, but I hate it when they have to be emasculated too.

[Gerry Claes · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no question that China has become an economic powerhouse. The question is, is it a communist country, a capitalist country or both? This book looks at those in China who who want China to adhere to the principals of Chairman Mao and place the well being of the masses above all else and those in China who have become capitalists and are hell bent on amassing wealth no matter what the cost.

All of this is played out starting with a massacre in a small Swedish town that makes no sense and baffles the local police. The police think they have found the individual who has committed this atrocity and are content to consider the case closed. A Judge from Sweden isn't so sure and she pursues the case on her own. Her research touches America, China and Africa. This case is way too big for her to solve on her own but she does manage to get the attention of people who do not want her poking her nose into their business.

Since I have just returned from China I was interested in the dilemmas modern day China is facing and how the author sees the country dealing with them. If you want a mystery that in the end ties up all the loose ends and leaves nothing to the imagination then this book is probably not for you. However if you like a book that will give you an education and something to ponder then you may enjoy this book.

[Beesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel did not live up to its very ambitious premise. Mankell seems to have set out to spin a mystery that swept across continents and generations, and that created connections between the most unconnected of individuals. His ambition far exceeded his execution, making me wonder if this is yet another example of publishing houses rushing books to print without taking the time to properly foster and edit them. This read more like a draft -- albeit a late draft -- than a completed novel. There's good raw material here, and with a few more rewrites and some polishing, this could have been a terrific read. As it was, I did not care about any of the characters. Although we learn who committed the horrific crime that opens the story, and we kind of learn why, we don't learn nearly enough about the why. The long passages discussing events in China and Africa were dry and pedantic. And the plot was riddled with implausibilities, clumsily executed. We know Henning Mankell can do better than this.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henning is back to his true form in this one, even if the premise stretches credulity just a bit. Can't elaborate on that too much without doing a spoiler alert, but suffice to say that the root cause of a mass murder in a tiny Swedish village requires a pathological thirst for revenge that is hard to make fit with the man behind it, given everything he has to lose.

But it gives Mankell a great opportunity to explore Chinese history, and particularly the story of two brothers who are driven by poverty away from their home village and end up being shanghaied into working on the trans-Pacific railroad project in the United States under brutal and demeaning conditions. This flashback takes up a good chunk of the book and in effect provides two novels in one.

For his protagonist, Mankell has chosen a woman judge who usually handles petty crimes in her home district, in his familiar stomping grounds of southern Sweden. Her marriage isn't going well, she is at loose ends, and, it turns out, she was once a student revolutionary infatuated with Mao, which gives her occasion later in the story to visit Beijing with an old friend and thus propels the plot toward its gripping conclusion.

It's not just Chinese history that Mankell deals with, either. Another major portion of the book is set on an African visit, which sets the stage for the climax of the story but also allows him to float some provocative theories about where China is headed in its international relations.

To have exercised his fascination with China in the context of a good old mystery-thriller and to have done it so seamlessly is the mark of how good Mankell is. If the original shocking kills seem a bit too contrived, it's a decent price to pay.

[Stephen Gallup · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is possible to like a book and be disappointed with it at the same time. That's the way I feel about The Man From Beijing.

The parts that work best are those when one character is being stalked by another, especially when Hong Qiu suspects that her psychopathic brother Ya Ru plans to kill her, and when the main character, Birgitta Roslin, realizes the killer is now coming for her. The mood in both sections is pretty creepy.

So the story has appeal (assuming you like the genre). But now for the drawbacks. The first, which other reviewers also pick up on, is the failure to provide motivation for Birgitta's odd behavior near the beginning, when she puts aside her day job as a judge and becomes an amateur private eye chasing clues in a gruesome murder case. Her interest in the matter is understandable, but not her tendency to run her own investigation and the way she selectively withholds her findings from the police.

Next are the multiple, extended nostalgic references to her youthful days as a naïve Maoist agitator (perhaps I too am naïve but I would expect a judge to have outgrown that sort of thing). That political bent figures in her decision to visit China, where her sleuthing continues.

Mankell provides a reasonably convincing sense of place for both Sweden and Mozambique, the two places where he spends his time, according to the biographical note (neither of which I have ever seen). He does less well with China, China's government, and his portrayals of ordinary Chinese people. My sense is that the author has had an extensive study of Mao Tse-Tung thought (which apparently he still thinks has merit) and has combined that with maybe a week's worth of personal observation of the country from within the bubble of a tour bus. Speaking as a 大鼻子 who probably can be justified in saying this, I found all these depictions to be painfully off-base. He needed a Chinese connection to make the plot work, but given his concluding note, which says that "even in a novel, the most important details ought to be correctly presented," what he came up with fails completely.

The story provided a diversion during a busy week, but I wish it had been better. It could have been better.

[Tony O'brien · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to point out at the outset that I can’t really write a proper review of this book without including a few spoilers, so if you haven’t read it yet, maybe it would be best to leave this review until after you have.

I have read several of Mankell’s Wallander books and am currently working my way through the series, thoroughly enjoying them as I go. The blurb for The Man from Beijing sounded fascinating so I decided to give Wallander a break and read this latest standalone novel. I finished it two days ago and have left it until now to put fingers to keyboard because I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. But I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a novel of five disparate sections, not all of which work, and ultimately it was one very major plot hole which spoiled the novel for me.

The first section begins, I have to say, magnificently, with the brutal and shocking murder of 19 people in a small village in the middle of nowhere. I haven’t been that gripped by the beginning of a crime novel in quite some time! The police needless to say are baffled, stunned, angered and confused by the carnage and the seeming lack of motive. This section moves along at a cracking pace, which only flags a little during the transition to part two, when a judge becomes aware of her connection with one of the families that were killed and decides to take a more personal interest.

The third section, which also works well, although you do have to wonder what on earth it has to do with the crime, describes the misadventures of a set of Chinese brothers who try to escape the penury and awfulness of their everyday lives by going to America. They do eventually get there, although not the way they intended, and end up as wage slaves working on the railroad. Their awful treatment at the hands of their overseer sets the scene for the next and probably weakest section of the book so far.

Set in China, this is a tale of political intrigue, espionage and betrayal, which is at such odds with the preceding chapters that it really is very jarring to the mind. Not only that but it really does drag in parts. It is only towards the end of this section that you gradually discover what these characters have to do with the original crime. However, the connection and motivation (i.e. revenge) is so poorly developed and so weak that it is hard to maintain interest, or indeed credulity.

SPOLIER ALERT!!!

The final section, when Mankell tries to draw all these disparate strands together, quite definitely does not work, for one very big reason. I don’t mean to be picky but when you base an entire novel on the basis of one single McGuffin, that McGuffin had better be a damn good one.

The problem I have is this - we are led to believe that the man who carried out the murders, on the orders of his Chinese boss to revenge the treatment of his ancestors who worked on the American railroad, was a master assassin. Indeed he must have been almost a ninja, to have carried out so many brutal murders in such a short period of time, without leaving a single trace! But he does leave a trace – a red ribbon which he takes from the lightshade in the only Chinese restaurant for miles around, which he leaves (presumably accidentally) by the body of one of the victims. It is this red ribbon which sets the judge on the trail, and indeed is the one and only piece of physical evidence at the crime scene. Well, I’m sorry but this is stretching credulity too far. Without this single piece of evidence, the police would have been stumped and the crime unsolved (and the book unwritten needless to say). But it is never explained why the assassin felt it necessary to take this ribbon or carry it around with him – can it really be normal practice for international hit-men to take souvenirs and then leave them very conveniently (too conveniently) next to the body of one of their victims?

So to sum up, although very well written and utterly gripping in parts, this novel definitely didn’t work for me. It is very, very slow in some sections, some characters behave in ways that are totally out of character, and the plot hole (there are others but this is the Big One) bugged me so much that I felt I could only give this two stars. All in all, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you are an intelligent crime aficionado, I think you’ll ultimately be disappointed.

[Armin · Rating 2 out of 5]

31/100 Zwei Sterne gnadenhalber für einen ziemlich weit hergeholten Krimi auf vier Kontinenten mit den allerbesten Absichten, für Australien und die Antarktis hat's wohl nicht mehr gereicht.
Besonders lästig war dieser von Schweden nach London verlegte Showdown. Vielleicht wurden bei der Kürzung fürs Hörbuch ein paar besonders feine Erzählfäden zerschnitten, aber längere Partien machten auf mich den Eindruck als hätte der Autor halt täglich seine Meilen gemacht, ohne weiter auf die Qualität oder eine dem jeweiligen Charakter angemessene Wortwahl zu achten. Es gab da schon den einen oder anderen unfreiwilligen Anachronismus.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Man from Beijing","Henning Mankell",
"After reading and enjoying The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its 2 sequels, I realized that I was missing excellent Swedish mystery books in translation, and so decided to try some other books written by Swedes and set in Sweden. This mystery starts with a terrible mass murder in a small village in winter which kills almost all of the inhabitants. It seems linked to another murder in the American west. The story bogged down for me when it moved to China, and we get the history of Communism there and modern intrigue of the inner workings of its present government .
When the story returns to Sweden and the motive of the killings solved, the book picks up its pace again. We also get the history of the Chinese men abducted to build the railway across the American West which may play some part in the mass murder. The main character is a middle-aged Swedish police woman who becomes interested in the case when she finds that her mother grew up in the village and her mother's foster parents were among those killed in the mass murder of 19 inhabitants of the village. 3.5 stars"

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. It's like Mr. Mankell suddenly decided to write something about China politics, and had to fabricate a plot to support his subject. The plot is disjointed, and the few loosely connected acts of violence do little to support it. The protagonist, a female Swedish judge, has the requisite existential angst seemingly required in Swedish detective novels, but floats in a cloud of vague dread and foreboding throughout most of the book. She's aware something is wrong, and feels threatened, but although she makes several honest efforts to escape the author is against her and so the bad guys find her with amazing ease. On the other hand, since the author is really FOR her, not against her, everything is effortlessly cleared up at the end.
As for the writing, I couldn't figure out if this was a badly written-book which had been well translated, or a well-written book poorly translated. In either case, the style seemed clunky and graceless.
Except for all that, it was great.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The current state of politics in China is the main theme of this novel. It is more of a poli sci lecture on various forms of government than a mystery involving hostilities between family members. It is about corruption within the Chinese government and a desire for economic dominance in Africa while also outlining the history of what a Chinese government official calls fascist governments in Rhodesia and the history of the imperialistic regimes of the English. The story is practically written like a screen play with exotic women, wealthy gangsters and a female socialist Swedish judge as the main character. It's weird to read a Wilbur Smith novel such as Those in Peril and then follow it with this Henning Mankell novel which takes the political argument about politics and business interests in Africa to a completely opposite perspective. Fascinating food for thought and not at all what I was expecting.

[Johnny G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I set a goal of reading 75 books this year (2016) and with 33 minutes left in the year, I did it (woot woot)! First of all, I know the reviews of this Mankell novel are all over the place. But you cannot deny the fact that the man can tell a riveting, engaging tale, spanning several seemingly disjointed settings. This one had a beginning like gangbusters (a small village in northern Sweden experiences 19 murders in the same night), slowed down dramatically as the plot moved from Sweden to China to Africa, and then picked up wonderfully in the last forty or so pages, but I won't give away the brilliant ending. It was extremely difficult for me to get over the fact that Henning Mankell passed away on Occtober 5th, 2015 - in my opinion his writing was that wonderful.

[Juan Nalerio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Todo lector que se siente atraído por la serie de Wallander pasa a curiosear las otras obras de Mankell.

El chino es una novela policial que cuenta la explotación de personas como mano de obra esclava para la construcción de líneas de ferrocarril en EEUU. Adicionalmente, trata la situación de China a comienzo del siglo XXI. Entretenida e interesante novela.

[Tittirossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prima parte molto Wallenderiana: assistiamo ad un delitto (efferato ed inquietante) poi arrivano gli investigatori. A cui si aggiunge il giudice Birgitta Roslin coinvolta suo malgrado da un lontano legame famigliare. Birgitta scopre l'assassino in 10 minuti. Un po' incredibile, infatti non le crede nessuno.
Poi parte con una digressione storica nel 1870 sui cinesi venduti come schiavi per costruire le ferrovie statunitensi. E qui capiamo che è il solito delitto tra il paranoico ed il razionale che affonda le radici nel passato. A questo punto vira sul fantapolitico, ma mica tanto!, con un tycoon cinese che cerca di manovrare la politica mondiale.
Birgitta va in Cina incontra Ho (sorella del tycon) e finisce nel mezzo di giochi molto più grandi del delitto iniziale, e Mankell si perde un po', ma ha l'occasione per raccontarci un sogno svedese degli anni '70.
Cina, Mao, Rivoluzione Culturale.
Un abbaglio a ben vedere, ma perfettamente descritto. E poi si va rapidamente verso un epilogo un po' troppo veloce, e decisamente semplicistico.
La scrittura: Mankell costruisce i protagonisti con alcuni dettagli quasi buttati lì ma che definiscono meglio di tante descrizioni (Birgitta scrive segretamente canzoni d'amore, ad esempio). Il suo tratto richiamo un sasso quasi arrotondato, un legno quasi liscio, una scabrosità sempre latente su una superficie che sembra perfetta. Mi fa pensare ad un popolo quasi civilizzato, ....

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I freely admit that I am one of those people that tends to think in outline form. I like things to flow in a logical manner. At times, this book made me feel like I was listening to my four year old nephew tell me about a movie. It was here, there, and all over the place, meandering into circumstances in China, Africa, the history of Mao's policies, etc. There were parts where I found myself wondering: did this book have an editor? If so, where were they? I mean, the background of the guy who is giving a speech about Mao's policies and the future of China, did that add anything to the actual plot? Was it necessary? Now, don't get me wrong, I actually thought this author did really a good job in sensitively addressing the issues facing China. I also actually thought that some of the information completely unrelated and unnecessary to the plot was very interesting. Did it still kind of irk me? Yes. I left feeling like the author was trying to lecture me rather than tell an interesting story. And my final bone to pick: the predictability. There were parts and characters that I felt were interesting and engaging but I also thought there could have been a little bit more teased out of them and without that, it became predictable.

[Quân Khuê · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dĩ nhiên Mankell luôn biết cách kể chuyện, và do đó ta có thể tha thứ cho quá nhiều tình tiết không hợp lý trong cuốn này. Mankell có vẻ đã tự làm khó mình khi cố kết nối những sự kiện quá xa nhau về không gian và thời gian. Những nỗ lực như thế nếu thành công sẽ vô tiền khoáng hậu, còn nếu thất bại thì cũng không lạ lắm. Nhiều người có vẻ không thích khi Mankell mở rộng biên độ của truyện trinh thám (cuốn này khó có thể nói là trinh thám điển hình), nhưng phần tôi, thì tôi thích khi Mankell mở rộng truyện tới những vấn đề Trung Quốc đương đại, địa chính trị, .v.v. Entertaining enough for the first weekend of the year! :)

[Smitha Murthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that starts so promisingly and ends with a whimper! This book is a classic case of authoritis -the kind of syndrome where authors decide they must give 10023 of their opinions on world matters into one book. From a sleepy village in Sweden, Mankell just jets around the world, leaning into global matters of China's rise, the Communist Party (who cares when there are 19 dead bodies in Sweden??), some bizarre family drama, and a lot of posturing on colonization.

This book had the vague feeling of "could have been so good, but isn't."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, this is my favorite Mankell's book. I really liked the plot and his back-forward style.

4* Meurtriers sans visage
4* La cinquième femme
2* Le cerveau de Kennedy
4* The Man Who Smiled
4* The Dogs of Riga
4* O Homem de Beijing
TBR The Troubled Man
TBR A Treacherous Paradise
TBR The White Lioness
TBR Sidetracked
TBR One Step Behind
TBR Firewall
TBR The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries

[ferrigno · Rating 4 out of 5]

È due giorni che mi chiedo quanto mi sia veriamente piaciuto questo romanzo. Abbastanza, ma è un tre stelle o un quattro? Abbondo per simpatia. In fondo non è importante.

Ci sono tante cose che mi hanno convinto. Una di queste è l'abilità di creare un personaggio con poche righe. L'uso del termine "creare" è frutto di una riflessione. Avevo scelto inizialmente "caratterizzare", che non è abbastanza preciso. Mankell, in effetti, caratterizza molto bene il giudice Birgitta Roslin e l'imprenditore Ya Ru: professione, contesto familiare presente e passato, relazioni, gusti, fobie. Se un personaggio è ben caratterizzato, alla fine lo conosciamo come fosse un familiare.

Con Hong Qiu è diverso. Sappiamo solo che è bellissima, sappiamo cosa dice e cosa fa nelle scene in cui compare, ma resta insondabile. Nonostante ciò, sembra scritta in grassetto, tanto emerge dalla pagina. Baricco ha scritto qualcosa in proposito in un bel mini saggio sul personaggio di Dracula, altro campione di insondabilità, qui: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubbl....

L'ho fatta lunga e non ho neanche messo a fuoco il romanzo nella sua interezza. In breve: è un thriller, la storia si svolge tra gli USA, la Svezia, Londra e Pechino, in un arco di tempo che va dall''800 a oggi. Il romanzo vuole uscire dalla nicchia del thrillerino e farsi storico-politico, riuscendoci. Si beve, forse troppo, se ne vorrebbe ancora ma non ce n'è.
Aforisma del giorno: un page-turner è il romanzo di uno scrittore che non sa gestire il tempo.
È lunghetto (quasi 600 pagine) ma non contiene una parola in più, forse qualcuna in meno del necessario.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Blergh. It's really hovering around 1.5 stars. Again, the style differences threw me, as the "Scandinavian mystery writer voice" (which I can only base off Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo and this, so, grain of salt) seems very stilted and matter of fact and just... there's nothing hidden, is the best I can come up with? It's not that it's plain, because I don't really have a problem with that, but there's nothing to ever decipher or wonder about. That said, there are far less mentions of SANDWICHES in this book than Dragon Tattoo, and I don't know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

So here are my major issues with this book (Massive massive spoilers, including the end of the book, deaths, I mean everything):

STYLE: I got into in that first paragraph, but a MAJOR MAJOR problem for me was the handling of the third person limited POV. The two places I had to just give in and start laughing were (SPOILERS, SWEETIE) the deaths of two of the POV characters, Hong Qiu and then her brother Ya Ru. Here's the scene of Hong Qiu's death, and keep in mind that everything up to this point in this scene has really been from Hong Qiu's POV (although 3rd person) --

"Hong Qiu had no time to gather what was happening before she was also hit by a bullet that smashed her jaw, was deflected downward, and broke her spine."

The scene then abruptly changes to Ya Ru's POV so we can follow the action of him covering up the murders he's just committed, and then read about him also killing his right-hand man/hit man. It's just supremely awkward in terms of transitions and I'm assuming it's not a translation issue either.

PLOT/CHARACTERIZATION: At first I was actually sort of believing the hype that EW had put behind this book, with that opening murder mystery scene that actually drew me in. Then I met the "hero" of the book, Birgitta. She's got pretty much zero personality beyond once being a Communist and having marital troubles with her husband and oh yes, she's a judge. That's really about it. The explanation for the opening mass murder of pretty much an entire sleepy town full of boring old people ends up being... revenge for the mistreatment of a Chinese guy's ancestors, but the Chinese guy happens to be a behind-the-scenes player who's risen to the top of the heap via shady deals, bribery, you know the deal AND he happens to be a player in the Communist party too. This somehow ties into the fact that there's a secret plan in the Communist party to ship a metric shitton of their dirt-poor peasants to uninhabited sections of Africa, which means wheeling and dealing with real-life African presidents? I didn't say it made sense. It ends up a sprawling mess with plenty of connections that end up feeling forced and unneeded.

DIALOGUE: Eh, this should really fall in with style, but I'm going to open the book to three random places and I guarantee you I'll find a clunker of a line on each page. Ready? BREAK.

p. 189: "Everybody owes everybody else something. If somebody starts asking about people, there's usually money involved somewhere."

p.295: "It's over now. I can go home. I've got my purse back and I've seen the Great Wall of China. I've convinced myself that the Chinese peasants' revolt has made enormous strides forward. What has happened in this country is nothing less than a human miracle. When I was young I longed to be one of those marching with Mao's Little Red Book in my hand, surrounded by thousands of other young people. You and I are about the same age. What did you dream of?" (WHO TALKS LIKE THIS? YOU'RE IN A BAR. RELAX.)

p. 392: But Mao tolerated the poets. I suppose you could say that was because he wrote poetry himself. But I think he knew hat artists could show the big political stage in a new light. When other political leaders wanted to clamp down on artists who wrote the wrong words or painted with dodgy brushstrokes, Mao always put his foot down and stopped them. To the bitter end. What happened to artists during the Cultural Revolution was of course his responsibility, but not his intention. Even if the last revolution he setin motion had cultural overtones, it was basically political. When Mao realized that some of the young rebels were going to far, he slammed on the brakes. Even if he couldn't express it in so many words, I think he regretted the havoc caused during those years. But he knew better than anyone else that if you want to make an omelette, you have to break an egg. Isn't that what people used to say?"

HOLY EXPOSITION, BATMAN. Seriously, that entire paragraph from page 392 is Birgitta's friend Karin just info-dumping about Mao and Chinese historical shit that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the central plot. And this isn't the only place it happens. I understand her friend is a scholar on China, but wow. She's only that to give Mankell and excuse to send Birgitta to China to move the plot forward.

And one other thing that bugged me an irrational amount: one of main clues Birgitta pursues in her initial investigation of the mass murder is a red ribbon that is found out near the crime scene in the snow. She tracks it to a local restaurant, which helps her get on the right track to figuring out that it's Ya Ru's main dude Liu Xin. Then in the last 20 pages, Birgitta's all LOL NEVER DID FIGURE OUT WHY HE SNIPPED THAT RIBBON OFF A LIGHT FIXTURE AT THE LOCAL CHINESE BUFFET AND CARRIED IT AROUND WHILE HE MURDERED 19 DEFENSELESS PEOPLE, NO BIG DEAL.

In short: Wow. So I'm never really going to trust Entertainment Weekly's book reviewer again. It's basically the opposite of the pull quote on the cover ("A complex and enormously satisfying thriller... Grade: A"). Crammed full of meandering plots and details, devoid of any 3D characters (the closest is MAYBE Hong Qiu), I'd actively push this out of someone's hands and give them a solid mystery/thriller (AKA Into the Woods by Tana French, and then I'd stack The Likeness right on top of that).

I didn't think I could actually rate Girl with a Dragon Tattoo favorably when compared to another book, but it's definitely better than this one. And not just for the sandwiches.