This poignant novel explores how a unilateral decision can change a life. Two things are hard for Joel Gustafson to cope with: not knowing why, and not being able to do anything about it. Joel’s father was once a sailor who lived by the sea. Joel’s mother once lived with them. Joel’s father abandoned the sea. Joel’s mother abandoned Joel and his father. While looking out his window one night, Joel sees a lonely dog on the street. Joel spots the animal again and begins sneaking out night after night, trying to find it. During these nocturnal outings, Joel discovers aspects of life he has never imagined. And then one night he discovers that his father’s bed, too, is empty. As Joel investigates his father’s mysterious absences and continues to search for the dog, he discovers his own inner strength and learns about adult disappointments and needs. Praise for Mankell’s Kurt Wallander novels: “The Nordic King of the European thriller writers.” – Observer Henning Mankell is the prizewinning and internationally acclaimed author of novels for both adults and young people. His adult novels dominate bestseller lists across Europe. Born in a village in northern Sweden, Mankell divides his time between Sweden and Africa, where he works with AIDS-related charities. He is also director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique. Mankell's companion novels about Joel and his father are Shadows in the Twilight , When the Snow Fell , and Journey to the End of the World . The dog. That was what started it all. If he hadn't seen that solitary dog, nothing might have happened. Nothing of what later became so important that it changed everything. Nothing of what was so exciting at first, but became so horrible. It all started with the dog. The solitary dog he'd seen that night last winter when he'd suddenly woken up, got out of bed, tiptoed out to the window seat in the hall and sat down. He had no idea why he'd woken up in the middle of the night. Maybe he'd had a dream? A nightmare that he couldn't recall when he woke up. Or maybe his dad had been snoring in the bedroom next to his own? His dad didn't often snore, but sometimes there might be an occasional one, a bit like a roar, and then it would be all quiet again.  Like a lion roaring in the winter's night. But it was when he was sitting by the window in the hall that he saw the solitary dog. The window had been covered in ice crystals, and he'd breathed onto the glass so that he could see out. The thermometer showed nearly thirty degrees below zero. And it was then, as he sat looking out of the window, that he'd caught sight of the dog. It ran out into the road, all on its own. It stopped underneath the streetlamp, looked and sniffed in all directions, and set off running again. Then it vanished. It was a familiar kind of dog, common in northern Sweden. A Norwegian elkhound. He'd managed to see that much. But why was it running around just there, all alone in the wintry night and the cold? Where was it heading? And why? And why did it look and sniff in all directions? He'd had the impression that the dog was frightened of something.  He'd started to feel cold, but he stayed in the window, waiting for the dog to come back. But nothing happened.  There was nothing out there, only the cold, empty winter's night. And stars glittering in the far distance.  He couldn't get that solitary dog out of his mind.  Lots of times that winter he'd woken up without knowing why. Every time, he got out of bed, tiptoed over the cold cork tiles and sat down on the window seat, waiting for the dog to come back.  Once he fell asleep on the window seat. He was still there at five in the morning when his dad got up to make coffee. "What are you doing here?" his father asked after shaking him and waking him up. His father was called Samuel, and he was a lumberjack. Early every morning he would go out into the forest to work. He chopped trees down for a big timber company with an unusual name. Marma Long Tubes. He didn't know what to say when his dad found him asleep on the window seat. He couldn't very well say he'd been waiting for a dog. Dad might think he was telling lies, and Dad didn't like people who didn't tell the truth.  "I don't know," he said. "Maybe I was sleepwalking again?" That was something he could claim. It wasn't absolutely true, but it wasn't a lie either. He used to sleepwalk when he was little. Not that he remembered anything about it. It was something his dad had told him about. How he'd come walking out of his bedroom in his nightshirt, into the room where his father was listening to the radio or studying some of his old sea charts. Dad had taken him back to bed, but in the morning he couldn't explain why he'd been wandering around in his sleep. That was ages ago. Five years ago. Nearly half of his life. He was eleven now. "Go back to bed," said his dad. "You mustn't sit here and catch your death of cold." He snuggled back into bed and liste