Playdate Cardigan and The White Lioness

The knitting: Playdate Cardigan by Tin Can Knits

The novel: The White Lioness by Henning Mankell

When I decided I would write about this knitting project and The White Lioness, I thought the colors in the book cover would match the yarn well.  I didn't think about the juxtaposition of a gun with a tiny baby cardigan.  Actually, the whole plot doesn't fit with baby knit projects.  Oh well!  That's my whole thing here--baby knits and crime novels.  

The Playdate Cardigan is a pattern from the book Max and Bodhi's Wardrobe.  I won it as a prize in a knitalong a million years ago, and have knitted a few patterns from the book but this was the first time I tried the cardigan pattern. It calls for fingering weight yarn. I don't mind knitting with fingering weight yarn but I don't necessarily want to knit a whole sweater out of it (and this comes in adult sizes).  I can make an exception for a baby sweater, though.  I was startled to find out I didn't have enough sock yarn for a sweater--at least not something easy to wash.  So I dug up a partial skein of Woolike (a Michael's brand of yarn) that's a pretty light gray and 100% acrylic for easy washing and drying. This is a gift for a friend's upcoming baby.  

And that's what I kept telling myself as I worked with this e x t r e m e l y lightweight yarn.  If I had had 3 skeins of Patons sock yarn in a solid color, this would have flown off the (Size #2 and #0 needles!) needles.  Skipping the pockets helped speed up the process, though.  And now that it's done, I'm extremely tickled with the end result and will probably make this again (in a sport weight).  Something about this button band just knocks me right out.  Babies are so small!  I made it in the size for 3-6 months, but I heard the parents' birth weights at a Zoom baby shower this weekend and now I'm hoping this fits long enough to take a picture.

Now! On to the knitting: The White Lioness

This book is a LOT.  It's set in 1992, and was published in 1993.  It's nearly 400 pages long.  I always forget that Mankell lived part-time in South Africa, but I do remember the description of one of the South African Boer characters hating not one but TWO women after he realizes they might have inner lives and feelings.  Men are villains, full stop.

There's more, though! Explosions. Assassins.  Racism.  Drunk dialing his sort of girlfriend in Latvia.  Reconnecting with his daughter.  Some detectives wondering about the weird sect of.....Methodists.  (That part made me cackle.)  His daughter was kidnapped!  Some torture that we don't have to read about, but we sure do know it happened.  Gore.  Wallander running around wild-eyed and waving a gun at his colleagues because he's chasing a bad guy and rather than going back and telling them what happens, decides the best course of action is to hide out at his high school best friend's horse ranch and make a plan while drinking all of said friend's whiskey.  

I've done a lot of complaining to my husband on the last 4 or 5 Longmire books I've read that the plots were just too farfetched.  Upon further reflection brought on by re-reading the Kurt Wallander books, I don't know what my standards are.  

The basic plot is that a bunch of racist South Africans scheme to have Nelson Mandela assassinated.  Sweden is a training ground for an assassin.  A real estate agent who is a devoted wife and mother goes missing.  

Also, Wallander's apartment gets broken into and all of his records are stolen and his dad is planning to get married.  Daughter Linda just sort of rolls with it, and colleagues Magnusson and Svedburg try to be supportive but are also...sensible people, so that kind of doesn't work.

The title comes from when a character goes on a safari and sees a white lioness.  He is an advisor to the president of South Africa and I can't even remember his name.  There's a lot happening.    

The next book in the series is The Man Who Smiled.  I almost sort of remember the plot, but we can all be certain that Kurt Wallander will be dealing with the fallout of the events of this book, considering retirement, and doing his sad and irritable thing.  

I can't wait.