"Because he's a very decent guy ... he doesn't come from the upper classes," says Mankell, referring to Branagh's roots in Protestant working-class Belfast (the actor's father, a plumber and joiner, moved the family to England when Branagh was 9 in order to escape the troubles).
"I can put it in a different way," continues Mankell. "It's no secret that I have earned a lot of money, but it's better that I have the money because I give it away."
Indeed, more than 30 million copies of the 10 Wallander novels have been sold worldwide since the author began writing about his fictional police inspector from Ystad in southern Sweden - Mankell donating much of his profits to various Aids charities and to projects in Africa, especially a cherished theatre, Teatro Avenido, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. The novels have already been filmed twice over in Sweden, first as movies starring Rolf Lassgard as the irascible detective, and then for Swedish TV, with Krister Henriksson in the title role. But it is Branagh's performance that has impressed Mankell the most - leading him to compare the BBC productions to Ancient Greek drama.
"I would say Kenneth and the team have purified the stories, that they have taken away everything that is unnecessary, including unnecessary dialogue. They work on silence, on the man in the landscape," he says, adding that while John le Carre (a role model for Mankell) was put off writing any more George Smiley novels because he felt his spy-chief character had been so totally taken over by Alec Guinness, Branagh's performance could inspire him to write some more. Not that he's going to.
"No, no more - I have so many other things to write," he says. Although he admits that if he ever felt tempted to revisit his old fictional beat in Ystad, he always has Linda Wallander up his sleeve.
"I always have the daughter, who is also a police officer," he says. "So we'll see what happens in the future."
The son of a judge, Mankell was raised in a flat above a courtroom. His mother left his father when he was just 2 years old. Mankell claims to have asked each of his four wives whether they could spot the motherless child within him, and each apparently replied that they could not. His fourth wife is the daughter of Ingmar Bergman, and the legendary film director was apparently an avid Wallander reader. And it was at a Bergman film festival that Mankell first encountered Branagh, and the actor first asked to play Wallander.
The BBC Wallanders are shown at prime-time on Sweden's main channel, SVT1, leading to the odd situation where a Swedish-set drama is shown in Sweden with Swedish subtitles. "It is funny, yeah," says Mankell. "It was quite interesting when Kenneth was having this knighthood, it was written a lot about in the Swedish newspapers. I mean they were a bit proud of what he was doing. But I think it also shows that English audiences can feel at home in Swedish landscapes, because it's not English but it's not strange either. I think it's something very new. The BBC and Kenneth were very brave when they decided to take all the cast and crew over to Sweden."
The three new Wallanders begin with An Event in Autumn, in which young Polish prostitutes are the target of a serial killer, and which opens with the detective finding some sort of contentment with a new home by the sea, and comfort from Vanja Andersson (Saskia Reeves), the ex-lover of one of the murder victims in series two tale The Fifth Woman. He even has a dog - which soon unearths something unsavoury buried beneath the blackcurrant bushes. The two other adaptations in the series are The Dogs of Riga, which was partly filmed in Latvia, and Before the Frost, which centres on Wallander's relationship with his policewoman daughter, Linda (played by Jeany Spark).
Sarah Smart reprises her role as detective Anne-Britt Hoglund, although there is no Tom Hiddleston in the new adventures - he was off playing Loki in The Avengers having earlier been directed by Branagh in the film's predecessor Thor.
Branagh has been at pains to avoid the home-grown Wallanders. "It would just put me off," he says. "It would be very depressing to see how good the Swedes were. I will watch it, as soon as we do three more of these, which, God willing, we would love to do. And then put it to bed, unless Henning really does write some more."
The three final Wallanders that, God (or BBC) willing, Branagh will film are The White Lioness, and a two-part version of Mankell's final Wallander novel, The Troubled Man - "a very dense and brilliant novel".
Who: Sir Kenneth Branagh and Henning Mankell
What: Wallander, latest three-part BBC adaptation of Mankell's Wallander stories An Event in Autumn, The Dogs of Riga and Before the Frost
When and where: UKTV, Mondays, 8.30pm
- The Independent
