{"product_id":"after-the-fire-0525435085","title":"After the Fire","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0525435085\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e New\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eProduct DescriptionHenning Mankell's last novel, about an aging man whose quiet, solitary life on an isolated island off the coast of Sweden is turned upside down when his house catches fire.Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees and his mailman Jansson is the closest thing he has to a friend, and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude.One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light--only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots. Dawn reveals that everything he owns is now a smoldering pile of ash and his house is destroyed--forcing him to move into an abandoned trailer on his island. A local journalist, Lisa Modin, who wants to write a story about the fire, comes into his life. In doing so, she awakens in him something that he thought was long dead. Soon after, his daughter comes to the island with surprising news of her own. Meanwhile, the police suspect Fredrik of arson because he had a sizable insurance claim on his house. When Fredrik is away from the archipelago, another house goes up in flames and the community realizes they have an arsonist in their midst. After the Fire is an intimate portrait of an elderly recluse who is forced to open himself up to a world he'd left behind.About the AuthorHenning Mankell's novels have been translated into forty-five languages and have sold more than forty million copies worldwide. He was the first winner of the Ripper Award and also received the Glass Key and the Crime Writers' Association Golden Dagger, among other awards. His Kurt Wallander mysteries have been adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. During his life, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Mozambique, where he was artistic director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He died in 2015.Excerpt.  Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter 1My house burned down on an autumn night almost a year ago. It was a Sunday. The wind had gotup during the afternoon and by the evening the anemometer indicated that the gusts measured over twenty metres per second.The wind was coming from the north and was very chilly in spite of the fact that it was still earlyautumn. When I went to bed at around half past ten I thought that this would be the first storm of theseason, moving in across the island I had inherited from my maternal grandparents.Soon it would be winter. One night the sea would slowly begin to ice over.That was the first night I wore socks to bed. The cold was tightening its grip.The previous month, with some difficulty, I had managed to fix the roof. It was a big job for asmall workman. Many of the slates were old and cracked. My hands, which had once held a scalpelduring complex surgical procedures, were not made for manipulating broken tiles.Ture Jansson, who had spent his entire working life as the postman out here in the islands beforehe retired, agreed to fetch the new slates from the harbour although he refused to accept any payment. As I have set up an improvised surgery in my boathouse in order to deal with all his imaginary medicalcomplaints, perhaps he thought he ought to return the favour.For years now I have stood there on the jetty by the boathouse examining his allegedly painfularms and back. I have brought out the stethoscope which hangs beside a decoy duck and established that his heart and lungs sound absolutely fine. In every single examination I have found Jansson to be in the best of health. His fear of these imaginary ailments has been so extreme that I have never seen anything like it in all my years as a doctor. He was simultaneously the postman and a full-time hypochondriac.On one occasion he insisted he had toothache, at which point I refused to have anything to dowith his problem.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mia Karts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52194093695264,"sku":"NEW0525435085","price":15.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0980\/7426\/3840\/files\/91C7hWpl2XL.jpg?v=1786901461","url":"https:\/\/miakarts.com\/products\/after-the-fire-0525435085","provider":"Miakarts Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}