Changes

|title=Kennedy's Brain

|author=Henning Mankell

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=336

|publisher=Harvill Secker

|date=September 2007

|isbn=978-1846550300

}}

Louise Cantor is an archaeologist working in Greece. She returns to Stockholm to visit her son and finds him dead in bed. The police say that it was suicide but there are small discrepancies in the flat which tell Louise that Henrik was murdered. As she delves into the circumstances of Henrik's life she finds that there was a great deal which she didn't know about him. The first shock is that he was HIV-positive. His Stockholm flat wasn't his only home and the soles of his shoes suggested that he'd been travelling somewhere where there was red dust. He was obsessed too with the conspiracy theory about what happened to the late President Kennedy's brain before his autopsy. Parts of his brain - and evidence about the entry and exit wounds - simply disappeared. Louise can't rest, won't rest until she finds out what happened to Henrik.

If this book appeals to you then you might also enjoy [[The Pool of Unease]] by Catherine Sampson.

{{commenthead}}

|name=Brian Hannigan

|verb=said

What a disappointment! I of course can't say how Mankell reads in his native Swedish, but in English, much of his prose is flat and plodding. The characters are poorly developed. The plot line is confusing and also ill-developed. If I hadn't spent about 10 Euros on it, I would have abandoned it halfway across the Atlantic. As it was, I stuck with it through the end, hoping that Mankell would somehow redeem himself by tying at least some of the loose ends together in a coherent way. But such was not to be.

Brian Hannigan

Arlington, Virginia, USA

}}