Press Release: Deals Done
Harvill Secker Acquires New Wallander Mystery
Posted at 5:48PM Sunday 26 Jul 2009
HARVILL SECKER HAS ACQUIRED THE TROUBLED MAN - THE FIRST KURT WALLANDER NOVEL IN TEN YEARS - BY BESTSELLING SWEDISH AUTHOR HENNING MANKELL Harvill Secker Publishing Director Liz Foley bought The Troubled Man from Anneli Høier at the Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency and rights have already been sold to ten other countries. Harvill Secker published The Pyramid – a collection of short stories about Kurt Wallander – in 2008 but is has been over a decade since Henning Mankell last penned a Wallander novel. In The Troubled Man, Mankell returns with a new mystery featuring the melancholy Swedish detective, recently played by Kenneth Branagh in the award-winning BBC One series Wallander. The Troubled Man opens on a winter's day in 2008 when Håkan von Enke, a retired high-ranking naval officer, disappears during his daily morning walk in the forest near Stockholm . This becomes a deeply personal case for Kurt Wallander as Enke is the father-in-law of Wallander's daughter Linda. Clues point to the past: to the time of the Cold War, to right-wing extremist groups, and to hired killers from the old Eastern Europe . Wallander realises that he may have unearthed a dark secret involving betrayal and espionage on a huge scale. Foley said: 'We are delighted to be publishing this brilliant new Wallander mystery, which has been long-awaited by Mankell's legions of fans all over the world. It is a compelling thriller that sees Kurt investigating events bound up in his country's history and also looking back at his own past. It firmly cements Mankell as one of the most impressive crime writers of all time.' Henning Mankell is a prize-winning and internationally acclaimed author. His books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and have been translated into over forty languages. He devotes much of his free time to working with AIDS charities in Africa, where he is also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo . Mankell has recently been appointed Ambassador of the inaugural European Union Prize for Literature in recognition of his oeuvre and literary success. Kenneth Branagh will reprise his role as Wallander in 2010 when adaptations of three further novels – Faceless Killers, The Fifth Woman and The Man Who Smiled – will be broadcast on BBC One. Harvill Secker will publish Henning Mankell's thriller The Man from Beijing in February 2010. The Troubled Man will be published in hardback in February 2011. It will be translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson. http://www.henningmankell.com/
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