Product Description

It is winter 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team at the Ystad police station in Skane receive an anonymous tip-off.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1910 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Menkell's knowledge of his topics and his landscapes give a great atmosphere to his stories.'
--www.bfkbooks.com

About the Author
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948. He is the author of many works of fiction, among them the nine novels in the Kurt Wallander series. His books have been translated into 19 languages. He has worked as an actor, theatre director and manager in Sweden and more recently in Mozambique, where he is now head of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He won the Swedish Academy of Crime Literature award for Faceless Killers.

Customer Reviews

In which a dogged Scandinavian detective goes 'Le Carre'
Rather different to the first Wallander novel, this one took me by surprise by venturing into Le Carre territory involving our dogged detective in an international conspiracy in Latvia - so less of a police procedural and more of a spy thriller.
It starts off with two bodies in a life-raft, who turn out to be Latvian. When the Latvian major who comes to Sweden to help investigate is murdered on his return to Riga, Wallander is asked to help the Latvian police, but becomes embroiled in the nationalist struggle to free Latvia from Soviet shackles - it is 1991 and the Baltic states are not yet free.
Although this is only the second Wallander novel I have read, (and I like to stay with the order), I prefer the police procedural - I think it suits the dour Scandinavian inspector's character better. My one quibble with Wallander though is that he is meant to be in his mid-late 40s, but feels ten years older to me with his world-weariness - heavens I'm about the same age as him, but being an optimist mostly feel very much younger!

Entertaining story, but too many twists and turns
This time inspector Kurt Wallander has to solve the murder on two very well-dressed men, who float ashore the Swedish coast on a raft. The trail leads to Latvia. After his Latvian colleague is also murdered, Wallander ends up in a web of intrigues in an unstable country that is unknown to him and where he does not speak the language. Soon he finds out that one of his two nearest Latvian colleagues is the villain, but which one of the two?

In contrast to Faceless killers by the same author, this book contains much more action, but after a while I became quite dizzy with all the twist and turns that the story took. It is an entertaining story, but Wallander appeared less real to me than in the previous book. After reading the whole series this is actually the weakest one.

Wallender is a must read
This is the second novel in the Kurt Wallender series of books translated from Swedish.

It developes the character of Wallender superbly from the first book (Faceless Killers). Wallender's wife has left him, his daughter rarely contacts him and his father's dementia is an increasing problem.

In this book Wallender investigates a couple of bodies found on a dingy. His investigation stake him to a Latvia just coming out of Russian control and full of people eithet taking the party line or in a private revolution. Which one to trust becomes a question Wallender must answer if he is to solve this mystery.

The book is written with extreme care for the character the author has created. A detective as far away from a James Bond character as you could get, Wallender balances his diablical home life with the life of a dedicated detective of the Swedish police.

As ever Wallenders private life and his investigations get intertwined when he falls in love with the widow of the Latvian detective who helps him at the start of the investigation.

The plot is excellent and the atmosphere of a Latvia still torn between state and republic are expressed beautifully.

However the reason for the success of these novels is the incredible depth of closeness the author brings you with the main character. An intelligent and sensitive man with a sense of humour that is becoming more burdoned with his private life and increased loneliness.

A first rate page turning novel. Very recommended.