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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Mankell generally writes about Swedish crimes in order to highlight social issues overseas. Here the focus is on Chinese slave labor during the building of the trasnscontinental railway and China's expansion into Africa in the modern day. To be sure, I learned a lot about these situations.
On the other hand, the writing (or perhaps the translation?) here is distinctly non-energetic. A story that ought to be a thriller raises the reader's pulse only slightly. Even a John Grisham plot would put me to sleep with sentences like this: "According to Birgitta Roslin's colleagues, Hans Mattsson, who could hardly be called bellicose by nature, had not been sufficiently outspoken in making clear the hopeless situation the courts had been placed in by the National Judiciary Administration and more especially the government, which were intent on saving money." By the time the penny has dropped (the penny always drops near the end of a Swedish mystery, when everything becomes clear to the person solving the crime), the reader has waded through more than 350 pages of this kind of prose.
On the other hand, the writing (or perhaps the translation?) here is distinctly non-energetic. A story that ought to be a thriller raises the reader's pulse only slightly. Even a John Grisham plot would put me to sleep with sentences like this: "According to Birgitta Roslin's colleagues, Hans Mattsson, who could hardly be called bellicose by nature, had not been sufficiently outspoken in making clear the hopeless situation the courts had been placed in by the National Judiciary Administration and more especially the government, which were intent on saving money." By the time the penny has dropped (the penny always drops near the end of a Swedish mystery, when everything becomes clear to the person solving the crime), the reader has waded through more than 350 pages of this kind of prose.
3.75* (Now I would like 1/4 stars) This book is not part of the Hollander series, and no police detective played a starring role - certainly not your typical crime/mystery novel, in fact the genre seemed to switch half way through. One of the best starts to a book that I have ever read - amazing suspense. The political discussions about China, imperialism, etc. in the middle of the book slowed the pace of the mystery down but China fascinates me so this wasn't an issue for me.
De eerste delen behoren tot het beste dat ik al van hem las, maar het laatste wil per sé de politiek-geëngageerde toer op gaan, maar spendeert zo veel energie aan een geloofwaardig discours dat het tempo verloren gaat. Desalniettemin fijne laatavondlectuur. (***1/2)
Very intriguing ... suspense all around and somewhat complex murder-mystery.
För väldigt många år sedan läste jag en Wallander-deckare av Mankell och tyckte inte alls om den, jag vet inte om de andra är likadana, men just den upplevde jag som otroligt dåligt skriven, förutsägbar och simpel. Sedan blev det ingen mer Mankell. Förrän nu. Och faktum är att det blir nog inga fler alls nu. Läs mer på http://bokslut.blogspot.se/2013/01/kinesen-av-henning-mankell.html
Perhaps I read too many Wallander books but I think I prefer Mankell's non-Wallander books. (The last non-Wallander novel I read was the The Return of the Dancing Master, which was an excellent read.) Mankell's great a telling stories involving multiple locations (e.g. The White Lioness). Done badly it would be considered pretentious but Mankell pulls it off deftly. Compelling main character in judge Birgitta Roslin and a great plot all in all. Well worth a read.
This one grabbed me from the beginning. Very enjoyable read.
Strange. It is as though Mankell is sending the world a message after his dealings in Mozambique. This is a dark little book, simply written but with a complex plot...
Started out great as a police/detective story. Somehow, we end up in a day-long meeting of the top Communist officials in China. It was too, too implausible, and the China portion was, frankly, boring and played up the "inscrutable Asian" stereotype.