The Return of the Dancing Master is a Swedish-noir novel by Henning Mankell, published in the year 2000.\u00a0 \u00a0 It has been translated from Swedish into English in 2003.\u00a0 \u00a0 Mankell is best know for his Kurt Wallender stories, a detective series with lots of followers, both in book form and on television.\u00a0 \u00a0 This is also a police-procedural story, following a new protagonist, Stephan Lindemann.\u00a0 \u00a0 He is facing a cancer diagnosis and takes some time off.\u00a0 \u00a0 He hears about a former policeman he worked with who has been murdered in the north.\u00a0 \u00a0 Instead of going to a beach in Europe, he travels to the small town and pokes around, uninvited by the local police.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0He becomes caught up in the investigation and eventually assists in following up on faint leads.<\/p>\n
There are many secrets to uncover and some of them go back to World War II.\u00a0 \u00a0 the retired colleague turns out to be a former Nazi soldier who has committed war crimes.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The 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.\u00a0 \u00a0 The plot was interesting, but perhaps a little overdone, and the ending of the book was done in a thriller style (but less believable).\u00a0 \u00a0 Overall, the characters were interesting and it was hard to guess where the story would go.<\/p>\n
A solid read, but its hard to beat the Kurt Wallender books.\u00a0 \u00a0 Recommended – 4.1\/5 stars.<\/p>\n