The Return of the Dancing Master is a Swedish-noir novel by Henning Mankell, published in the year 2000. It has been translated from Swedish into English in 2003. Mankell is best know for his Kurt Wallender stories, a detective series with lots of followers, both in book form and on television. This is also a police-procedural story, following a new protagonist, Stephan Lindemann. He is facing a cancer diagnosis and takes some time off. He hears about a former policeman he worked with who has been murdered in the north. Instead of going to a beach in Europe, he travels to the small town and pokes around, uninvited by the local police. He becomes caught up in the investigation and eventually assists in following up on faint leads.
There are many secrets to uncover and some of them go back to World War II. the retired colleague turns out to be a former Nazi soldier who has committed war crimes. The killing is revenge-motivated, but there is another murder, and a series of crimes to cover up a conspiracy of a modern Nazi movement in Sweden and across many countries. The plot was interesting, but perhaps a little overdone, and the ending of the book was done in a thriller style (but less believable). Overall, the characters were interesting and it was hard to guess where the story would go.
A solid read, but its hard to beat the Kurt Wallender books. Recommended 4.2 out of 5.0 stars
An audiobook clip (Part 1):
