Yvonne, recently widowed, returns to the site of her long-ago honeymoon - a small Turkish village on the coast. Seeking to wrap herself in comforting memories she instead finds herself remembering less pleasant aspects of her marriage and questioning  the life she thought she loved. Things quickly become complicated when Yvonne befriends a small local boy and tragedy soon follows. Vida skillfully weaves themes of memory, grief, aging and culture clash into a sad but lovely meditation on the lies that others tell us and the consequent lies we tell ourselves.

Many of you may be familiar with Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries but did you know he also writes stand alone novels? Italian Shoes tells the story of Dr. Fredrik Welin, a surgeon haunted by a past act who has chosen to remove himself from society to the remote island of his childhood summers. He is a man so emotionally numb that he chops a hole in the ice and lowers himself into the freezing waters of the bay each morning just to feel something. Despite his self-imposed exile the world conspires to intrude starting with the arrival of an ex-lover he abandoned decades ago. We watch Welin get sucked into a whirlwind of endless needs and demands upon him as more and more of his past bubbles up to confront him. While sometimes a dark novel ( Mankell is Swedish after all) I was completely enthralled with the author's deft handling of the complex themes of guilt, family, trust and redemption.