The man from Beijing

One cold January day the police are called to a sleepy little hamlet in the north of Sweden where they find the victim of a savage murder lying in the snow. As they begin their investigation they notice that the village seems eerily quiet and deserted. Going from house to house, looking for witnesses, they uncover a crime unprecedented in Swedish history. When Judge Birgitta Roslin reads about the massacre she realizes that she has a family connection to one of the couples involved and decides to investigate. A nineteenth-century diary and a red ribbon found in the forest nearby are her only clues. What Birgitta eventually uncovers leads her into an international web of corruption and a story of vengeance that stretches back over a hundred years. -- from http://www.henningmankell.com (June 28, 2011).