London, Oct 5 (IANS): Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, whose series featuring the dour Inspector Kurt Wallander were among the first in what is now famous as the Scandinavian crime fiction or Nordic Noir, has died. He was 67.

Mankell was suffering from cancer, reported the BBC on Monday. He had announced he had the disease in a newspaper column in January 2014 and had also written about his experiences in the recently published "Quicksand: What It Means To Be A Human Being".

The son-in-law of famous Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Mankell was also known for his political activism, which also saw him on board a flotilla that had tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in 2010.

He also wrote books for children, but his most famous were the best-selling Wallander series, which like the iconic Martin Beck series of the husband and wife series of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall, attacks the ills of the Swedish welfare society.