After the Fire

"Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old former surgeon who retired in disgrace years ago. He has retreated to a Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island ... He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude--until he wakes up one autumn evening to find his house on fire. Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed boots. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. Fredrik cannot imagine why someone would do such a thing. The police are also stumped, and without another suspect, they begin to think Fredrik started the fire himself"--