Kennedy's Brain: A Thriller

Cannot say I liked this book and cannot say I hated it. Interesting people but too out there. Louise needed to get a grip. She was like a hyperactive kid you need to take a break from. Not my favorite by Mr Mankell.

I had not read any other Mankell books, but this stand-alone work was recommended by a fellow lover of books whom I trust. I was not disappointed. Louise Cantor, a successful archeologist working in Greece, is stunned to arrive home in Sweden to find her only child, her adult son Henrik, dead. While the authorities call it a suicide, Louise knows that can't be so, and embarks on a journey to find the truth about her son and why he may have been killed. She enlists the aid of Henrik's father, her ex-husband, but while he willingly leaves the isolated life he prefers to join in the chase, he soon disappears in Barcelona, where they have just uncovered the first real leads into Henrik's life. Louise doesn't quite know how to deal with that desertion, even though it was always her ex's habit, but she angrily and confusedly keeps going. As she struggles on in Barcelona and then to Mozambique, Louise discovers how little she knew about her son and the tangled life he led, with its secrets (he was HIV-positive) and his lovers and an apartment she never knew he maintained. Louise drinks too much and sleeps too little, but her grief is palpable and propels her forward, even as the people who try to help her vanish or are murdered, some practically before her eyes. It's a story without a neat resolution, but the resolve of the mother to know her son's life and death is rendered pretty fiercely on the pages. The politicalization of the Aids crisis in Africa and the shady practices of health professionals are presented here as a real problem, one the author does not shy away from in an epilogue. The novel is fiction, but the underlying problems are quite real, unfortunately.

In Henning Mankell's latest gift to serious readers, Louise Cantor at fifty-four is a successful archeologist on a dig near Athens. Planning a brief hiatus to attend a conference in Sweden, she goes to the apartment of her only child Henrik, whom she has been unable to reach by mobile phone, to find him lying dead in his bed, clad only in pajamas. When barbituates show up in his system, the authorites rule his death as a suicide, surely one of the most horrific findings that any parent could possibly receive, and a conclusion Ms. Cantor refuses to accept. Thus begins one of Mr. Mankell's best mysteries that has little to do with the genre formulas we expect from this kind of story and rises to high seriousness. Matthew Arnold would approve. Using the skills that she has learned as an archeologist, Louise Cantor attempts to piece together the fragments of her beloved son's life and faces an enigma more difficult than anything she has previously experienced. Her quest takes her to Australia, Spain and Africa where she confronts face-to-face the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Mozambique. Long concerned about AIDS in Africa, Mr. Mankell has written eloquently on the subject previously in the nonfiction book, I DIE, BUT MY MEMORY LINGERS ON, his heartbreaking reflection on what AIDS has done to Africa. He tells the reader in the "Epilogue" to KENNEDY'S BRAIN-- which actually did mysteriously disappear after the President's assassination-- that his anger drove him. That is not to say, however, that this novel is reduced to a polemic about the fact that Western countries are not doing enough about AIDS in Africa. Rather Mr. Mankell has written as good a mystery as you would hope for about things that matter. Can we ever know our children? Ms. Cantor discovers that she hardly knew her son at all. Can a love that is dead ever be rekindled? Although she and Henrik's father Aron have been divorced for many years, she still measures each new man she meets by him-- for all his failures as a husband and a father-- and the others always come up short. Mankell writes with passion about the part that racism plays in AIDS in Africa. Other truths: In his world, all important meetings in life are by chance. As a teenager, Ms. Cantor is faced with the death of a classmate who is run over and killed by a snowplough and realizes at that early age-- Detective Wallander would agree with her-- that death strikes at random. Finally Mr. Mankell writes beautifully, and with as much poetic insight as any writer I can think of, about the ultimate universal loneliness of all of us. Being surrounded by total silence, for instance, deep in a forest, "where both distance and sound can cease to exist," is to experience "severe loneliness." Visiting the deserted excavation site, Ms. Cantor again experiences what she describes as "one of the lonelinest moments in her life. Nothing could compare with the shock of finding Henrick dead in his bed, of course. This was a different kind of lonel

Henning Mankell has written 37 novels, with perhaps the nine Kurt Wallender mysteries best known in the United States. The present novel, while a mystery of sorts, really is a polemic based on the author's frustration with the poverty and disease rampant on the African continent. Indeed, it is a written indictment of the greed which is an inherent part of the African AIDS crisis. Swedish archaeologist Louise Cantor returns home from her job of supervising a Greek dig to find her only son lying in his bed, dead. An autopsy shows the 28-year-old full of sleeping pills, and his death is ruled a suicide. Louise refuses to accept the ruling, believing his death was a murder, and embarks on retracing his various trails to discover the "truth." It takes her to Barcelona, where the son had a secret apartment, to Australia to find her ex-husband, and then to Maputo, Mozambique. Along the way she finds out her sun was HIV positive. Bit by bit, Louise learns how little she knew about her son. In Mozambique she learns an awful truth about an AIDS hospice, and possibly its link to the son's death. Also, there appear to be links between the AIDS epidemic and Western pharmaceutical interests, giving the author more reason to raise criticism. This book is not a joy to read, despite how well-written it is, but then it is not meant to be. While it is a story full of mysteries, it is not the kind of tale a Wallender novel would be. It is more of a psychological inquiry with social overtones.

Amazing deepening of Mankell's always impressive literary skills. A must read for anyone interested in mystery, the worldwide effect of AIDS and poverty and power. His epilogue re his anger at the destruction bred of heedless greed is particularly stunning and honest.

Accomplished master of the police procedural Henning Mankell strays from this genre in his latest novel, "Kennedy's Brain". In his novel, Mankell in the guise of a mystery, has penned what is in reality a social commentary. Mankell who resides at least partially in Mozambique, takes aim at the plight of the African underprivileged particularly relating to the AIDS epidemic and it's exploitation by the pharmaceutical companies. Swedish archaeologist Louise Cantor whose specialty is ancient Greek artifracts is leading an expedition in Greece sponsored by Uppsala university. She happily anticipates taking a break to return to Stockholm and visit her son Henrik. Much to her shock and dismay she arrives at his flat, unable to raise him on the phone, to find him lying dead in bed. She is stunned to learn that an autopsy confirms that he overdosed on barbiturates. Unable to believe that Henrik would take his own life she commences her own investigation. She travels across the world to a remote area of Australia to recruit her estranged husband Aron and inform him of their son's death. Together they go through his papers that direct them to an apartment their son kept in Barcelona. Hacking into his computer they discover that he was HIV positive and that he had business that took him to Mozambique. Louise Cantor proceeds to Africa after the mysterious disappearance of her ex husband. While there she is confronted by danger and the horrors of a village designed to care for AIDS victims where Henrik had worked. She discovers that there is quite a bit more going on there than administering to the sick. Mankell paints a graphic picture of the misery endured by the suffering in Africa while being critical of those who opportunistically use them for financial gain. The plot of "Kennedy's Brain", metaphor for an inexplicable and secretive mystery is very much similar to Le Carre's "The Constant Gardener".