![]() That’s why I picked up Mankell’s first Wallander mystery, originally published in English in 1997. While it’s the mystery that makes a good crime book, I wanted to find a detective whom I could care about and whose life I invest in from the beginning, as I explore this literary genre. When this last clue is leaked to the press, it unleashes racial hatred in the community. Only a few clues give Wallander anything to go on: the knot of a noose tied around the wife’s neck, their horse recently fed and watered in the barn, and a last word uttered by the wife, indicating the killers may be foreign. They are strange victims of violence, considering their peaceful life. The sophisticated clues in Faceless Killers kept me from figuring out what happened to cause the unexplainable murder of an old farmer and his wife in Sweden’s countryside. There’s no getting emotionally involved with the suspects or the police force, just wondering who committed the murder and getting swept up in the twists and turns of the clues. They’re an enjoyable change for me from the thought-provoking literary novels I gobble up. ![]() Click here to show all.I finished the first Kurt Wallander book Faceless Killers this past week, by the popular pre-Stieg Larsson Scandinavian crime novelist Henning Mankell. A new paperback edition is being released this month by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, a publishing house devoted to the best of classic crime novels. I’m not a huge detective mystery reader but like the occasional one. May his works continue to prosper with a new and broader audience. Thanks to New Press for introducing Mankell to the United States. The actions inside the book takes several months, not days like in you see in other books. Several red herrings are used throughout the book and none of them are used gratuitously. The police investigate every single lead and the reader is privy to the successes as well as the dead ends. The crime-solving aspect of this book is a treat because everything is not solved with a bow on top. Each one of those things make the character seem a bit more human and causes the reader to be interested as to how Kurt handles his day by day. ![]() The inspector is lonely after his wife left him he has gained weight his father shows signs of senility he is an alcoholic he is in love with a married woman and he wallows in self-pity. There is racism, bigotry, senseless violence, and bureaucracy.Īnother impressive aspect of this debut work is the way the author introduces his main character and all his concerns, knowing that it will not be resolved in one book. The problem affecting most Americans are just the same as in Sweden. The police are no closer to solving the case as they were days ago.įaceless Killers was a pleasant surprise to read. There is a xenophobic vigilante who takes matters into his own hands and threaten to kill a foreigner if the police does not find the killers of Johannes and Maria Lovgren. There has been a series of attacks targeting illegal immigrants kept at camps throughout Sweden. The only word she was able to whisper was 'foreign' and it is creating a problem at the local police department. Before Maria Lovgren died, she was asked who did this to her. In the farming town of Lenarp, there has been a brutal assault against an elderly couple. Faceless Killers is the first book in the series and it is very good. Henning Mankell is a respected writer who has written several plays and has written six police procedural novels featuring Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander. Sweden has provided several great Swedish writers whose works are slowly being introduced to English-speaking audiences. It is nice to know that there are good mystery novels published in other countries where English is not its native language.
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