The White Lioness /

The White Lioness (Original: Den vita lejoninnan) is a crime novel by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, the third in the Inspector Wallander series. Apart from a prologue following the formation of the Boer nationalist group Broederbond in 1918, the story takes place in 1992. The plot follows two parallel patterns, one during late apartheid South Africa where incumbent president F.W. de Klerk, leader of the Afrikaner minority which is on the brink of losing power to the African majority under the leadership of the ANC, about to end 44 years of suppression by the Broederbond rule. Simultaneously, detective chief inspector Kurt Wallander is investigating a case of a missing female Methodist real-estate agent outside Ystad. Upon the eventual recovery of her body, as well as the discovery of a black cut-off finger at the crime scene, detective Wallander realizes the case has deep roots in the history and current development in South Africa, where an extremist cell of the Broederbond is about to orchestrate the assassination of Nelson Mandela, wishing to plunge the country into a long and devastating civil war. Mankell, who himself is deeply interested in questions concerning South Africa