Imagine a bitterly cold Swedish winter, on the bleak treeless coastal island, in an old manor house built from the wood of a wrecked ship in which scores of sailors drowned, where one's only neighbours are 2 lighthouses, one of which no longer works and is haunted. Is there any better location for a thriller/murder… Continue reading The Darkest Room – Johan Theorin
Jo Nesbø writes some of the best murder mystery plots and stories you'll find anyway in the world.
Have you ever sympathized with the villain in a story? Read the Swedish Crime Novel of the Year for 2009 and you will see why I did!!
In 2002, Mankell travelled to Uganda and met many families affected by the Aids epidemic. He meets Aida, a girl growing up in Uganda where Aids kills people from 15 to 20 years old to those in their early fifties. Soon her parents will die. She will become a mother to her siblings. She is 12 years old. In many parts of Africa, the old people have to look after their grandchildren when the parents are no longer alive. Then when they die, the children are orphans. "Children who have to be one another's parents have a pretty distorted start in life. They slip up." Aids in Africa, is an epidemic and illness that is very much treatable in the Western world, where medicine is affordable and obtainable. In the third world, Aids is not under control, and many die from starvation as there is not enough manpower to keep agriculture going, but we in the privileged Western world know nothing of what is happening there.
Something to Ponder About 