The Man Who Smiled ( Mannen som log – 1994) Hunter and hunted switch sides in this harrowing thriller that culminates in a tense shootout. By the time he sorts it out, Wallander realises he must go to South Africa to prevent an assassination attempt that threatens to destabilise the whole country. But when an explosion happens to lead him to the body, he also finds the remains of a terrorist outpost: a sophisticated radio, a weapon, and a severed human finger of African origin are found in the ashes. When a local real estate agent disappears, Wallander’s instincts tell him she is dead. Wallander’s murder investigations once again take him to a far-flung location. The White Lioness ( Den vita lejoninnan – 1993) This title shows Mankell’s personal convictions and his gift for penning complex, suspenseful thrillers. He falls in love with the major’s widow Baiba, and they both narrowly escape alive.
Wallander goes to Riga and encounters a deeply corrupt post-Soviet apparatus. Major Liepa is sent over to assist, after which he returns to Riga only to be murdered himself.
As if to justify his despair, the bodies of two tortured Eastern Bloc gangsters are found huddled in a beached dingy which is traced back to the Latvian city of Riga. With the death of his mentor Rydberg, Wallander’s personal anxieties threaten to debilitate him. The Dogs of Riga ( Hundarna i Riga – 1992) Amid latent xenophobia that escalates into violence and vigilantism, Wallander faces pressure from the press and prosecutor Annete Brolin, to whom he is attracted. An elderly man is found beaten to death and his wife dies after uttering the word ‘foreigner’. We meet the rest of the squad, Wallander’s mentor Rydberg and the rookie Martinsson, as they respond to a homicide on a remote Skånian farm. His daughter is not talking to him, and his eccentric father still disapproves of him joining the force.
#Wallander faceless killers knot series
The Glass Key Award-winning debut of the series introduces Kurt Wallander, a divorced, heavy-drinking detective in his 40s. The books, 1991-2009įaceless Killers ( Mördare utan ansikte – 1991) Mankell refers to the Wallander series as novels of Swedish unrest. With this guide we take a retrospective look at the books in turn, many for the first time here on Crime Fiction Lover, and then outline the various video adaptations that are available – some of which are excellent. Following the tradition laid down by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, Wallander’s investigations expose the dark underbelly of society hidden just beneath the promised land of Sweden’s social democracy. Like the Martin Beck series which inaugurated the genre in the 1960s, Wallander combines procedural detail and social commentary with an emphasis on the bleak Scandinavian landscape that mirrors the brooding protagonist. Many readers have discovered the books thanks to the global success of the television series starring Krister Henriksson. Mankell’s Wallander series began in 1991 with Faceless Killers and ended in 2009 with The Troubled Man, which was translated into English in 2014. Wallander is synonymous with Nordic noir, a crime fiction genre that Mankell’s melancholy hero helped usher into the mainstream, inspiring readers and crime fiction writers worldwide. When his thankless job, loneliness, and the fear of death tug at him, Wallander consoles himself with the deep feeling of responsibility instilled by his former partner Rydberg, whose investigative proverbs continue to fortify Wallander’s conscience and sense of duty throughout the series. But most of all, we get involved in Wallander’s life and existential concerns. Here’s what the reader of Wallander gets: an engrossing and complex procedural, a suspenseful plot, and along the way the Swedish landscape, strong seasons and regional dialects. With the same financial worries and physical complaints as the citizenry he’s sworn to protect, he is a cop who unhesitatingly puts public safety before his own. We accompany him through the intimate milestones of his life as he searches for justice, as well as a girlfriend, a new house, a dog. Their success may boil down to the simple fact that Wallander is at once hero and everyman. The Wallander books by Henning Mankell (pictured) have become international bestsellers.
Wallander’s tiny social circle includes his perceptive daughter Linda and his father, an eccentric painter. Wallander is irritable, peevish, and has a strong distaste for politics that get in the way of police work. The quintessential bloodhound, Wallander takes his cases home where, with his opera collection and a glass of wine, he tries to ward off the evil that men do… and his own despair. His peculiar urkraft consists of making unconscious observations that nag him until they manifest in the nick of time for him to nab a murderer. Kurt Wallander, a detective in the small Swedish coastal town of Ystad, is a fiercely dedicated cop with a knack for reading crime scenes.
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