"Herbert Molin, a retired police officer, is living alone in a remote cottage in the vast forests of Harjedalen in northern Sweden. He has two obsessions: one is the tango, and the other is a conviction that he is being hunted, constantly pursued by 'demons'. He has no close friends, no close neighbours, and by the time his body is found, Molin is almost unrecognisable. Stefan Lindman, a police officer on extended sick leave, hears of the death of his former colleague and, to take his mind off his own problems, decides to involve himself in the case. What he discovers, to his horror and disbelief, is a network of evil almost unimaginable in this remote district, and one which seems impossible to link to Molin's death. The Return of the Dancing Master explores a segment of Swedish society far from Kurt Wallander's southern Skane, but one in which civilised behaviour is equally threatened. For sheer story-telling, this novel will be hailed as one of Henning Mankell's finest, as also for its dissection of the dark side of contemporary life in Scandinavia."