After spending the past two weeks in the world of Inspector Kurt Wallander and his crime encounters, it was difficult to extract myself out of Ystad, the small southern Swedish town and jump into other books by Henning Mankell. I managed to do so by bringing along "Italian Shoes" onto the plane bound for Yogyakarta and settling down to explore a completely different genre - aging and death. The book is a moving account of Fred Welin, a retired surgeon living in semi-exile alone on a small island, who is forced to confront his troubled past, when the woman he abandoned forty over years ago suddenly appears and makes him honour a promise made many years ago. Harriet is dying of a terminal illness and hopes to make a final journey across the desolate snowscape together with Fred in search for a beautiful pool among the forests of northern Sweden. It is also a journey where the two re-visit the poignant memories of the past and reaches a cusp when Harriet uncovers a little surprise for Fred at the end of the journey.
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