Faceless Killers

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Mankell thus sets the stage for a clever police procedural set against the larger social issue of how welcoming Sweden--or any other country--should be to growing numbers of immigrants. Wallander is typical of the breed of plodding Scandinavian detectives who refuse to give up until they have deduced the solution to the case. At times, though, you find yourself wondering why he soldiers along in the face of the overwhelming personal problems in his life off-duty. Struggling with the death of Rydberg to the big C, Wallander takes comfort in having dialogues with Rydberg's ghost instead. Alone and miserable in Riga he is drawn to self delusion: convinces himself that he is in love with the wife of the murdered detective, the crime he is there to solve at the bequest of the Latvian police. But, is love really love when its origins lie in a another person's need for him? Kurt prefers not to dwell on that, prefers his momentary delusions.

The Courier ( Kuriren) A murdered drug courier leads to a local biker gang who threaten Isabelle and Svartman. A young recruit in the gang is their chance to infiltrate and break up the vicious drug ring. As the novel begins, Maria and Johannes Lövgren are found at their rural farm. Johannes has been gruesomely killed, and Maria has been strangled with a noose and is barely alive. Detective Kurt Wallander is called in to investigate. Wallander's wife has recently left him, and he's lost touch with his daughter since she tried to commit suicide four years ago. I really did not get into the writing in this one and the flow was really poor for the first part of the book. The whole thing drags and I contemplated DNFing it after a while.Still more typical of modern life is Wallander’s strained relationship with his aging father, who lives on a farm near Ystad, where he paints Swedish landscapes, alternately with or without a wood grouse. His failed attempts to reconcile himself with his stern father’s disapproval of his career as a policeman remains a constant source of consternation for Wallander. Each time he fails to visit his father because of his job, readers cannot help but feel sympathy for this awkwardly helpless guardian of the law. This is only the second Wallander novel, but it ratchets up the character development, and the thriller like atmosphere from the first novel which was mainly detective story. These added elements make for an even more exciting read, and a great way to fully hook me on the series that I already wanted to read anyhow. Whilst I didn't find this novel as enjoyable as 'Faceless Killers, Mankell’s gritty, minimalist, noir writing style is still interesting. Mankell also manages to capture and convey varying feelings and sentiments about the fall of communism, the end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union without indulging in long ideological debates. It is the winter of 1991 and a life raft containing the bodies of two men, dressed in expensive suits, wash up on a beach in Sweden. Kurt Wallander and his team are tasked with solving the crime. During the investigation it soon becomes clear that the victims are Latvian criminals who have been murdered in a gangland hit. When a Latvian police officer who was assisting on the case is murdered Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea to Riga where he is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police surveillance, corruption, barely veiled threats and lies.

When your whole personal life is shit: it is often the job that carries you through the worst parts of it. And Wallander understands that. A lifeboat with two dead Russian thugs, having been tortured and shot, washes up on the shores of Sweden. Inspector Wallander and his shift of Swedish police officers investigate until a Latvian police major arrives. Later, Wallander is summoned to Riga to help the Latvian police and he gets embroiled in the changes sweeping the communist world. The novel was adapted into a four-episode television miniseries, Wallander, by the Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television in 1994. Wallander is played by Rolf Lassgård. Reijnders, Stijn (June 2009). "Watching the Detectives: Inside the Guilty Landscapes of Inspector Morse, Baantjer and Wallander". European Journal of Communication. Sage Publications. 24 (2): 165–181. doi: 10.1177/0267323108101830. hdl: 1765/23621. S2CID 142367134.Wallander got pretty tiresome for me towards the end of the book and reading about his infatuation with a new woman just made me bored. I don't know, I think the only stories that I have actually liked starting Wallander have been the short stories I read. I think I can digest this character in small bites, and not longer novels.