One night Jose Antonio Maria Vaz hears gunfire from the deserted theatre next door to his bakery. Bemused he races to the uppermost gallery and there beneath him on a spot-lit stage lies the wounded body of Nelio, the fabled street urchin, renowned throughout the city for living on his wits. Gasping, Nelio asks to be taken to the roof to breathe in the beautiful air, fresh off the Indian Ocean. There on the theatre roof, his life ebbing away, Nelio begins his story. At the age of five, Nelio witnessed his village burned to the ground, and the brutal massacre of his people by bandits. He himself escaped by chance; a man handed Nelio a gun and ordered him to shoot another boy, instead he turned the gun on the bandit, shot and ran. He made his way to the coast, encountering bizarre characters en route who gave him guidence. Upon arrival in the city Nelio joined a rough street gang, and began a very different way of life. A dazzling departure from the master of crime, Henning Mankell s Chronicler of the Winds takes us to the African continent, a place for which the author has a great passion. An expertly crafted fable. f