The Shadow Girls by Henning Mankell: review But after 20 pages, we are introduced to a new character. Jesper Humlin, one of the most successful writers of his generation, was worried about losing his tan. The change of tone is as sudden as it is surprising - and it launches the book on an entirely new course. For Humlin's tan is not his only problem: his girlfriend, whom he is frightened of, wants a child; his mother, who seems to hate him, is an insomniac working for a sex line for the elderly; a fight breaks out at one of his literary readings. Worst of all, his slim volumes of poetry are not selling, and his publisher - under pressure not to publish anything that doesn't sell 50,000 copies - has decided that Humlin must write a crime novel. If I get it in April, we can have it out by September. The title should be something along the lines of "Deathly Rhyme."" So ubiquitous is the genre that a rival author and Humlin's mother also have ideas for crime novels of their own. These passages are written with some bravura, and a wry smile. They are really funny. But the problem is that Mankell's real interest is in the hidden refugees living in Sweden, but never accorded the chance to tell their own tales. So he collides the escalating farce surrounding the non-existent thriller with Humlin's ham-fisted but well-meaning attempts to help three immigrant girls whom he meets at a literary workshop run by a friend. One is a legal immigrant from Iran terrorised by her family, one is on the run from an Eastern European brothel, and one is Tea Bag. They reveal the horror and sorrow of their lives to Humlin and he resolves that this is the book he wants to write. The stories - told principally in first-person narratives that are woven through the text - are indeed moving. Yet Mankell never really resolves the problem of linking them with the main plot and the novel ends as abruptly as it began. But it is both passionate and entertaining - and a strong indication that the Swedish are not as lugubrious as their crime fiction makes them out to be. The Shadow Girls by Henning Mankell, tr by Ebba Segerberg 336pp, Harvill, t £15.99 (PLUS £1.35 p&p) Buy now from Telegraph Books