''Depths'' (''Djup'' in the original Swedish) is a 2004 novel by Swedish writer

Henning Mankell Henning Georg Mankell (; 3February 19485October 2015) was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number ...

Plot

Ever since his childhood Svartman has been obsessed by exactness in the measurement of time or distance. He seeks solace through secretly observing or following people, and at night overcomes fear by cradling his most precious possession, his sounding lead. Svartman's obsessions and growing distrust of others leads him to submerge himself in a web of deceit involving his employer, Kristina and Sara which increasingly threatens to engulf him.

Reception

Writing in ''

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'', Lucy Ellmann criticised the novel's style, deprecating Mankell's writing as "woolly" and "staccato" and his use of metaphor and symbolism as overwrought. For ''

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'', Ian Thomson also criticised the writing as staccato and pretentious, but was more positive about the novel as a whole, praising the evocation of the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

seascape and the novel's "old-fashioned moral force". Paul Binding's review for ''

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'' mostly described the book's plot, but was uniformly positive about its narrative force.

References

2004 Swedish novels Novels by Henning Mankell Novels set in Sweden Novels set in the 1910s {{2000s-hist-novel-stub