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After the Fire

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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of After the Fire by Henning Mankell, read by Sean Barrett.

Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire.

Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. Without a suspect, the police begin to think he started the fire himself.

Tackling love, loss and loneliness, After the Fire is Henning Mankell’s compelling last novel.

 Genre Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery Small Town & Rural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Crime

Critic reviews

This strange, beguiling book...gives closure to a substantial career without becoming maudlin or overly bleak. The waters around Welin’s island may freeze in the winter, but there is human warmth to be found in these pages, along with glimmers of hope and consolation... The bell may have tolled for one of Scandinavia’s finest writers, but his connection to those left behind is unbroken. (Ian Rankin)
A powerful reminder that [Mankell] was also a literary writer of considerable accomplishment... After the Fire is a life-enhancing novel... a suitable final curtain for a much-missed modern novelist (Barry Forshaw)
It is very moving and rather beautiful
The novel’s atmosphere is bleak and elegiac, suggesting that Mankell wrote it with his own impending death in mind (Joan Smith)
After the Fire is full of regret, loneliness and the melancholy of growing old, but there is also hope and love.
This posthumous translation by Marlaine Delargy, captivating in its delicately wry tone, echoes the seemingly flat reportage of Mankell’s prose: it somehow grabs you and won’t let you go… Mankell’s last novel is an elegiac meditation on old age and impending death… The extraordinary gift of Mankell’s bleak narrative is to make the last months of the life of his depressed and, frankly, unsympathetic and solitary anti-hero, both comforting and even inspiring. It is Mankell’s own candle in the lightless void (Marina Vaizey)
The huge number of readers who are devoted to the work of the late Henning Mankell will find in this, his last novel, all the characteristics they value: the observant descriptions of the minutiae of daily life, the gentle melancholy, the careful analysis of relationships (especially between fathers and daughters) and, above all, the inevitability of loneliness and loss
This profoundly gloomy yet ultimately hopeful novel – the last from the late grand master of Scandinavian noir – revolves around discovering who could have been responsible for this senseless crime (John Williams)
This final novel from Mankell (the Kurt Wallander series), posthumously published in a stunning English translation, questions what happens to a person who has lost everything—and who considers himself too old to rebuild... It’s a skillfully told, exquisitely structured story filled with sharp insights into human nature and unflinching examinations of the complex relationships to which people bind themselves in order to feel a little bit less alone.
A bracing look at a twilight year in the life of an old man who, when confronted daily by perfectly good reasons for giving up altogether, doesn’t so much rise above as plow stoically through them.
All stars
Most relevant
Sometimes a bit long but Henning Mankell ist still Henning Mankell. This is perhaps his strangest story and his way to deal with death.

Great final book of a great author

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Quite different to the fantastic Mankell books that I have listened to. More reflective and darker as a 70 year old man reflects on his life as well as the prevailing story drama. Perhaps it coincided with Mr Mankells age and health struggles before he passed away? A slower pace and less engaging but a wonderful performance by Sean Barrett as always.

Slower and more Morbid

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I listened to this book because I have read Italian Shoes, and quite enjoyed the story - but most of all it it just felt like being there in Scandinavia. Much in the way that the Wallander books do...

But After The Fire just plods on with anecdotes.

I'd only recommend it if you're already into Henning Mankell.

Three Stars is Generous

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loved it, great pace and got me immerse in his characters and the island. I could see the place smell the fire. Sean Barret is just my best reader.

could not stop listening.

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Not at all what I expected. Strange, almost depressing but very compelling, entirely addictive listening.

A different kind of Mankell.

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