 First edition | |
| Author | Henning Mankell |
|---|---|
| Original title | Innan frosten |
| Translator | Ebba Segerberg |
| Country |  Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
| Series | Kurt Wallander |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Leopard förlag |
Publication date | 2002 |
Published in English | 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 388 pp (Eng. hardback trans.) |
| ISBN | 1-84343-113-0 (Eng. trans.) |
| Preceded by | Firewall |
| Followed by | The Troubled Man |
Before the Frost (Innan Frosten, 2002) is a novel by Swedish crime-writer Henning Mankell.
The protagonist is Linda Wallander, daughter of Inspector Wallander. The book was to be the first in a three-book series with Linda as the main character. However Mankell abandoned the series after just one novel when the actress playing Linda in the Swedish films, Johanna Sällström, committed suicide in 2007.[1]
Kurt Wallander and Stefan Lindman (the protagonist from The Return of the Dancing Master) also feature in the novel.
Linda Wallander is bored. Just graduated from the police academy, she is waiting to start work at the Ystad police station and move into her own apartment. Meantime, she is living with her father and, like fathers and daughters everywhere, they are driving each other crazy. Nor will they be able to escape each other when she moves out. Her father is Inspector Kurt Wallander, a veteran of the Ystad police force, whom she will have to work alongside. Linda's boredom doesn't last long. Soon she is embroiled in the case of her childhood friend Anna, who has inexplicably disappeared. As the investigation proceeds, she makes a few rookie mistakes. They are understandable, but they are also life-threatening. And as the case her father is working on dovetails with her own, something far more calculated and dangerous than either could have imagined begins to emerge.[2]
