February 3, 1948

What is it about Nordic scenery and effects. The geography seems to produce such a sensible people and yet, this streak of psychological bleakness runs through it. Or so it seems if all you know is the Wallander television series. That author, Henning Mankell (February 3, 1948 to October 5, 2015) also kept a home in Mozambique. But when he summed up by saying he "is a European" there seem to be echoes. This cover for a children's book doesn't help:







His covers seem to both say and hide:





something.

The picture and title below, at first benign,






seems to reference an unfamiliar world.

His website glosses the last story this way:


This is the story of young Lucas who gets a most precious present for his birthday, a black kitten which he calls Night. Lucas becomes very attached to Night but one day Lucas comes home from school and discovers that his beloved cat has disappeared. He is desperate and no one is able to console him. He searches for Night everywhere and doesn’t stop hoping for his return.
It’s only sometime later that Night appears in his dreams and tells him that he had to leave to see the world, just as Lucas will do one day when he has grown up.


That is not a help. They don't have cars in Sweden? A wandering cat is a cat in danger.  Yet who cannot love Wallander, I mean Mankell.