It’s only fair to salute the man whose Kurt Wallander mysteries pretty much introduced Scandinavian crime to the modern English speaking world.

Italian Shoes is not a Wallander novel – it’s not even a crime novel. It’s simply a beautifully written meditation on loneliness and attempts to rebuild and make amends for a life gone astray. Frederick Welin, a former surgeon destroyed by a malpractice case, has isolated himself on a remote Swedish island, his only ‘friend’ a taciturn, hypochondriac postman. An unexpected (and unwelcome) visit by a terminally ill former lover forces him to confront his past behaviour and make up for lost time.

If you’ve read Mankell, but never ventured beyond his detective stories, this could well be the place to start.