However, the novel Before the Frost (Innan frosten) appeared in 2002, shifting the focus of the stories to Wallander's daughter Linda, who has joined the police force and is assigned to her father's station in Ystad.

[5] A first edition run of 125,000 copies was published in Sweden by Leopard förlag on 18 August 2009 with plans for an immediate second impression due to the significant advance orders.

[1] In the United Kingdom, Harvill Secker, publisher of the British first editions of all the Wallander books, bought the rights to the translation in 2009.

[9] In Dagens Nyheter, Lotta Olsson wrote that some clues were unaccounted for at the end of the novel, and had "an annoying suspicion that Mankell started typing without really knowing where the story is heading".

Olsson concluded by stating that although the ending, with its sense of things just "fading away", might have reflected the aging Wallander's reality, it was "not sufficiently interesting to read about".

[10] In Sydsvenskan, Eva Ström had a greater appreciation for the writing style: "Mankell pilots the reader through the plot with a secure hand."