Finished Th 6/9/ll
A sprawling work which spans over a century and a half, and visits nearly every continent on the globe. Yet, maybe it's just a bit too sprawling.
The novel begins after a mass murder in a tiny village in rural Sweden. The reason for these killings seems to be linked to a trio of Chinese brothers who were shanghaied, and forced to work on the American continental railroad project of the mid nineteenth century. The evil gang/boss of these railroad workers had relatives in this Swedish hamlet, and these killings appear to be an act of revenge.
Sections of the novel were almost worthy of an entire book by themselves. The trials and tribulations of the three brothers journey from China to America, their lives as virtual slaves for the railroad, and their trek back to their homeland was arresting stuff. Also, a secret meeting of powerful and influential Chinese globalists in Zimbabwe and Mozambique was quite powerful.
However, the entire novel was not as good as some of the more riveting sections, and I think that I might find Henning Mankell's 'Kurt Wallander Mystery Series' a better place to appreciate this very popular Scandinavian author.
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