From gloom to dispair

In little more than a decade, the cosy world of Anglo-American crime fiction has been transformed by wave after wave of Scandinavian invaders. Some, like Steig Larsson, are suddenly parachuted into the bestseller lists almost before we have had time to become aware of their existence. Others, like Iceland’s Arnaldur Indridason and Norway’s Karin Fossum, advance steadily but less dramatically in terms of sales and critical plaudits. And then there’s Henning Mankell, the Swedish commander-in-chief of the invading forces, who deserves a category to himself.

He is a distinguished playwright, publisher and children’s author, who has a long and honourable record of supporting charitable causes, especially in Africa. But he is best known as the creator of the lugubrious Inspector Kurt Wallender, whose career unfolds over ten novels. Wallender’s popularity is international. An astonishing tribute to his success is the fact that the British dramatisation of Wallender, starring Kenneth Branagh, was shown on BBC1 this winter in tandem with one of Sweden’s Wallender film series on BBC4 (Sweden has two of them).