This was one of my favourite books the year I read it. It truly made me fall in love with Mankell's work.

Thank you to Net Galley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Not the best way to start out my 2021 reading. I was disappointed with this book as I loved the Kurt Wallander series, but this book just did not do it for me. There was a not a character in the book that I liked or cared about what happened to them. The story wasn't super engaging and I could not wait for the book to end.

"After the Fire" is definitely a book worth reading. Belfer did a fabulous job of keeping me totally engaged in the reading. I loved how she wove the stories of Susanna and Sara together. She was able to weave between past and present so very smoothly. I am sure every music lover would love this book and think anyone, even if not a music lover, would enjoy this read.

Seventy-year-old Fredrik Welin is woken up suddenly and, realizing something is wrong, he dashes outside, rescuing only a few items on the way out the door. His house is on fire. Help arrives fairly quickly given that the house is situated on a private island in a Swedish archipelago. But it is too late and the house is destroyed. When an investigation reveals arson, Fredrik wonders who of his neighbours could have done this. The local police, however, consider him the main suspect and, until he is exonerated, the insurance company will not pay out. Fredrick is also worried about how to tell his daughter what has happened to her inheritance but when she arrives to see for herself, it becomes clear that she has secrets of her own.

After the Fire is Henning Mankell's last novel published posthumously. It is very well-written, less a mystery than an examination of life, death, and memory as Fredrick tries to deal with his past, his present, and the fast-approaching end of his life. He is a very complex character and not a particularly likeable one and nor are most of the other characters here. Of all the characters, the island itself may be the most fascinating - rocky, remote, isolated, lonely. This is a very dark, bleak but, at the same time, completely engrossing look at human relationships. Not an easy read but a very compelling one.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

A fairly bleak and brooding read, but one I very much enjoyed and felt drawn back to whenever I put it down. Welin is a cranky, 70 year old , retired surgeon and a self proclaimed ‘old man’. The sea, the islands and the weather of the Swedish archipelago where he has retired to, are an ever-present part of the story. His relationships with family and acquaintances are difficult, to say the least. The fire that burns down his old family home sets in motion a renegotiation of his relationships and of his life.

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

It's an okay story that resolves nothing. Probably what old age really is like. It just IS.

After the Fire is Henning Mankell's last published work. It is also a follow-on to an earlier book. This book is really a sum of its parts – the main character, the plot, and the setting stand almost separately in my mind. For me, the picture the author manages to draw of the setting is the most memorable part of the book. The introspective main character does not grab me as much as I thought he would.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/01/after-fire.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Fredrik Welin is a retired surgeon who lives along on his own personal island. He lives a fairly routine and uneventful life until he is awoken by a house fire. Fredrik rushes out his house without any possessions but what he is wearing. This fire causes him to become closer to his family and friends. Some of these relationships are positive while others are not as he learns some secrets he might have wished were better kept buried.

This novel is told from Fredrick's point of view so the reader can only view the world through him. Thus the reader is limited to one set of emotions, thoughts and opinions. However, this allows the reader to truly grasp what it feels like to lose everything and have to start over. Or the emotions a person feels when reconnected with their family.

The plot is dry, I thought the novel would have been more of a murder mystery. This is especially true after a few people die and Henning Mankell hints that they might have been unnatural. Instead, this novel just follows Fredrick during a year of his life. It was interesting to read about a Swedish archipelago; the isolation and hardships a person experiences but also the breathtaking beauty.

The characters and their motives were hard to understand. I felt no attachment to any of the side characters. Louise, Lisa and Janssen were hard to get. I had no idea why most of them acted the way they did or why they did certain actions. I understand Fredrick didn't completely understand either so since the reader only got to see things from his side the reader wouldn't get all the information either. However, I felt this took a lot away from the novel especially regarding the big reveal at the end. Why did this person do so much hard to their community?

Thank you to Netgalley and Vintage Publishing for an ARC.

I know I shouldn't comment on the quality of the ebook as it was an ARC but it was still so poor I feel I have too. Entire words were missing so sentences were unfinished or words were blended together with letters missing. This made certain parts of the novel a guessing game which took some of the enjoyment away from the novel.

When Fredrik Welin’s house burns down one night, leaving him with nothing, there seems to be no explanation, no motive, no reason. He even comes under suspicion for setting the fire himself for the insurance. There is an explanation of course, and the book tediously and wearingly plods along to the anti-climactic conclusion with much introspection and little action and unfortunately I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for Welin’s plight. He doesn't seem to feel much either and whilst I’m all for a measured response rather than an overdramatic one, I do like to feel some emotion. And I didn’t. Slogged through to the bitter end but was much relieved to arrive there.

Henning Mankell’s After the Fire is the Swedish author’s final novel. After the Fire is a far cry from the Wallander crime series, and yet the novel, which at times conveys a strange dream-like quality also concerns crimes. This time, however, the emphasis is on aging and coming to terms with one’s life and actions.

69-year-old retired surgeon Fredrik Wellin lives on an island in the house that used to belong to his grandparents. Fredrik lives a solitary life, and he likes it that way. His only regular visitor is the postman, Jansson, and Fredrik’s daughter, Louise, who keeps her father at arm’s length, occasionally comes to visit. Independent and private, she stays in her caravan which was moved to the island on a cattle ferry. Fredrik suffers from high blood pressure, worries about his heart, and self-medicates. Perhaps some of Fredrik’s desire for solitude can be explained by his retirement which occurred in disgrace: he amputated the wrong arm of a young woman. And so he returned to the island, to the house in which he was born, to live out his days until his death.

After the Fire

Asleep one night, Fredrik is woken up by a bright light. Realizing that his house is on fire, he manages to escape grabbing two left boots on the way out of the door. The house is completely destroyed, and Fredrik, who moves into his daughter’s caravan, soon finds himself suspected of arson. Suddenly his life isn’t private anymore.

After the Fire is not a fast-paced novel. Mankell takes his time unpacking his story, building slowly on atmosphere, events in the area’s harsh past, and strange, eerie events. Even a childhood excursion when Fredrik went fishing with his grandfather evokes memories of his grandfather bludgeoning a swimming deer. Fredrik’s island is near a former fishing, now summer resort town, and the story takes place when the visitors have left and just the locals remain. The locals are a strange bunch: including the mysterious Oslovski, a woman with a glass eye who claims to be Polish and then later became a Swedish citizen.

Sometimes she disappeared for several months and then one day she would be back. As if nothing had happened. She moved around like a cat in the night.

Most of the characters in the book are strange, and this raises the question: do strange people move to this area to escape the burden of suburbia, or do they become strange in this remote, harsh landscape? A bit of both, I suspect. The landscape is unforgiving: bitter winds, the sea that freezes only to crack and swallow unfortunate victims in the shallows, the perch have disappeared, the quarries have closed. Nature is relentless and unbeatable:

I drove down a steep hill, and then the trees began to thin out. I passed a few houses by the side of the road; some were empty, dilapidated, while others were perhaps still occupied. I stopped the car again and got out. No movement, not a sound. The forest had crept right up to the houses, swallowing the rusty tools. the overgrown meadows.

One of the only ‘normal’ characters here is the attractive newspaper reporter, Lisa Modin, and before long, Fredrik has designs on this woman, decades his junior, designs, which while incongruous on one level, also show his loneliness and desire for female companionship.

Fredrik’s daughter, the prickly Louise, a daughter whose existence he only learned of when she was an adult, arrives on the island, and while the traditional role would be for her to help her father pick up the pieces of his life, her short stay only brings friction and raises some uncomfortable questions.

After the Fire is an interesting, and at times slow, melancholy read. We land in the book at the end of Fredrik’s life, and pieces of information are gradually parceled out, so that we put together the puzzle of Fredik’s psychology. He acknowledges feeling remorse for chopping off the wrong arm of a patient, but add to that picture his wife, Harriet “who made her way across the ice using her wheeled walker, some years go” and who died on the island. Add a father who wasn’t told that he had a daughter until that child grew into adulthood. Then add the bizarre relationship between Fredrik and Louise–at one point he spies through the caravan window while his daughter is half dressed as if catching her in a private moment will reveal the secrets of her life that she refuses to share. Through the story Henning Mankell argues for the relentless of Nature and our human attempts to subvert it, and yet there’s another strain here: the immutability of human nature.

Review copy

This is another story I just couldn't get into even though the author is much respected. I'm sure this will have a huge following and I'm apologize for not being able to complete it.

70-year-old ex-surgeon Fredrik Welin lives alone on a tiny Swedish island. He awakens one night with his house on fire. Fortunately, he is able to escape, but his house and all of his belongings are burned to the ground. He moves into a caravan and starts--or tries to start-- a friendship with a female journalist writing about the incident.

At first I really enjoyed the writing and reading about the eccentric characters--especially Fredrik himself. But as the book when on, it seemed to just kind of ramble and I found my interest waning. This book is definitely more of a character study than the mystery novel it seemed in the beginning.

If you're a Henning Mankell fan or if you've only seen his books on the shelf, you might be expecting this posthumously published novel to feature a tortured detective following the trail of a killer in a classic Scandanavian noir way. That is not what this is but it's definitely worth a read. Fredrik Welin has a lot of problems at the sunset of his life, not the least of which his house has just burned to the ground, leaving him with his memories, not all of which are positive. This is a dark book, in many ways, and it's sometimes slow as it devolves, occasionally, into the ruminations of a 70 year old man. He's got a lot to think about. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Fredrik Welin is a 70 year old Swedish doctor, who retired early after he amputated a young girls arm "accidentally." He lives on a tiny island in the Swedish archipelago, that his grandparents left to him. He has an only daughter Louise, that he rarely sees and never knew she existed till she was 30 years old. He has one friend Jansson, and I use that term loosely, who was the former postman. Fredrik is completely happy living as a recluse until one night he is woken up with his house completely engulfed in flames. He loses everything and only escapes with the clothes on his back and a mismatched pair of wellingtons (which he talks about a lot). When the police become involved, he is suspected of arson.

I truly have mixed emotions about this book. The story was told in the first person which is not my favorite narrative. There were times I could not put the book down as the writing and flow of the book were great and very much enjoyable. However, I was very surprised that the mystery was not the forefront of the story. And I think that is the main reason the book just didn't work for me. I was expecting a mystery and what I got was the constant internal dialogue of Fredrik that honestly at times grated on my nerves. He was uninteresting and would go off on constant childhood memories (that lasted for pages) that I thought irrelevant to the story.

I felt that most of the characters were selfish and not very likable. His daughter Louise was very obnoxious and just down right mean. She became physical with her father on several occasions. Fredrik toward the end did have some good character development. My initial rating was 4 stars, but the ending sadly dropped it to 3 stars. When he finally figured out the arsonist and asked the question "why?" we never got a full explanation and I kinda just felt left hanging.

Stunning insight to thoghts and actions of a lonely 70 year old man, after he loses everything after a fire.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, the heirs of Henning Mankell, and Vintage Digital in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Fredrik Welin is a Swedish doctor who retired young to the island and skerry in the archipelago owned by his grandparents following a botched surgery that resulted in a young woman losing her arm. After the death of his grandparents this retired recluse has a circle of friends and contemporaries among the permanent residents of the islands, but of family he had only his ex, Harriet - they never married - and their daughter Louise whose existence he was unaware of until she was 30, of whom he sees little and understands not at all. Ture Jansson, the islands' retired postman and hypochondriac who trades him mechanical and boat services for medical advice. Lisa Modin, a young reporter for the local newspaper who mines Fredrik for her articles but isn't willing to share her story or anything else with Fredrik. Axel Nordin, a man many times married with an untold number of children, who runs the small local chandlery. Rut Oslovski, a single woman with a mechanical bent and a passion for restoring her 1958 DeSoto Fireflite four door sedan, one of only 4,192 manufactured.

And then the home he inherited from his grandparents, built in the nineteenth century, is torched. At first Fredrik is the main suspect. Then another house just as old is torched on another island while he is in Paris with his daughter. Yet a third house goes up. And friends begin to die.

This is an extraordinary story. It is one I am happy to recommend to anyone who gets lost in the tale. This is one to keep you up nights.

I was quite surprised when this novel came out after the death of Henning Mankell, quite some time after. But he kept it quite noir in that he never let love flourish for Fredrik. Always elusive always wanting. As far as the story unfolds Fredrik was in his house when it was set on fire by an arsonist. At the same time he ends up calling his daughter and telling her this. She comes but tells him she is pregnant and then leaves without telling him. Later calling him up from in prison and asking for help. He leaves and goes to Paris and gets her out and then meets the father of her child. While in Paris another house goes up in flames back in the archipelago and his love comes to Paris ending in a mess. Many stories are told in the typical Henning Mankell fashion.

It ends as he is rebuilding his home. He finds out who the arsonist is but does't tell the police. His daughter has a baby girl. But what I find amazing is Mankell's ability to formulate words that describe each kind of situation that arises in the story. I will miss him and his writing. Definitely read this story because it is an extension of "Italian Shoes", and it is well worth the time.