If you are young enough to be baffled by a grey-haired man wearing odd wellington boots, or you are reading this while trying to remember why you came into the room in the first place, in either case Henning Mankell’s character Fredrik will give you a wonderful insight to the elderly mind. ‘After the Fire,’ takes us to a fictional archipelago off the Swedish coast, where retired surgeon Fredrik Welin lives alone on a small island inherited from his grandparents and drenched in memories from his own early years. Human contact is restricted to his hypochondriac postman, Jansson, who reads the islander’s mail. He is generous, transporting Fredrik, when necessary, back and forth in his boat, and in return takes advantage of the medic’s skills to check his aches and pains and blood pressure. His house has burnt down during the night and Fredrik has escaped. The police inspection points to arson so, soon Fredrik is suspected as the culprit, which is not surprising on an island populated by one. He moves into the caravan his 40-year-old daughter, Louise uses on her irregular visits. He was unaware of her existence until late in life and they have a distrust of each other. Not helped by her unannounced arrivals and departures and long absences. She is a political activist and has stripped naked in front of politicians to make a point. She returns to the Island on hearing about the fire, but soon disappears without explanation. Lisa Modin, a journalist on the local paper visits to cover the story of the fire. Fredrik is soon speculating about having a relationship with the younger woman and invites himself to her home at night. She allows him to stay, sleeping on the settee. Intrigued by her, he searches her possessions while she is sleeping and uncovers a family secret. Lisa is interested in establishing the cause of the fire and pays visits to Fredrik’s Island. Although there are several sleepovers, the complicated pair don’t rush into a relationship. Fredrik is troubled by a number of incidents; flashing lights at night, the unexplained absences of a friend from her home, evidence found of an unknown camper, his missing watch and the sudden deaths of local people. Has he become insane and burnt his own house down as the police suspect? With most of his life behind him, the physical appearance of present-day people and places remind Fredrik of people and things that went before. A lady shopping brings on thoughts of an old lover and his regret at the way he treated her. These flashbacks are seamlessly wrought into the story by Mankell and didn’t stall the yarn, but enhanced my empathy for the appealing character. The harsh climate is portrayed with relentless images; Fredrik taking his daily dip in the freezing seawater, Harriet, Louise’s mother pushing a Zimmer frame to walk across the frozen sea. The weather also marks the passage of time; ‘It was the first night I’d worn socks in bed.’ Unlike the Wallander novels this is not a crime story, although born from arson. It will appeal to readers who enjoy a more literary work.

Known for his Wallander books, Mankell's latest venture is After the Fire. It tells us about Fredrik, our narrator and retired elderly doctor, whose house is burnt down on the remote Swedish island where he lives. The story revolves around his encounter with various people as the mystery of the arson event unravels. Slow-going, it plods along with a good deal of introspection and often emotionless thought. Involving a few other characters, not much happens for most of the book. As you will have gathered, I was not inspired by this novel and would only recommend it to die-hard Mankel fans.