One cool January day the authorities are called to a sleepy little hamlet in the north of Sweden where they discover a savagely murdered guy resting in the snow. As they begin their analysis they notice that the village seems eerily calm and deserted. Heading from house to accommodate, searching for witnesses, they uncover a crime unparalleled in Swedish history.

When Judge Birgitta Roslin reads approximately the massacre, she realises that she has a family link with among the lovers involved and decides on the subject of The Man From Beijing to research. A nineteenth-century diary and a crimson silk ribbon within the forest close by are the only clues.

What Birgitta eventually uncovers leads her into an international web of corruption and a story of vengeance that exercises back over a hundred years, linking China and the USA of the 1860s with modern-day Beijing, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and coming to a shocking climax in London’s Chinatown.

The Man from Beijing is both a gripping and perceptive political thriller and a compelling detective tale. It shows Henning Mankell in the elevation of his power, handling a wide historic canvas and pressing worldwide issues with his exceptional gifts for understanding and chilling suspense.