Kurt Wallander - He works tirelessly, eats badly and drinks the nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. Still, he tackles some pretty incredible cases -- Here are the titles in the series (with a few extras) -Faceless KillersDogs Of RigaWhite LionessThe Man Who SmiledSidetrackedThe Fifth WomanOne Step BehindFirewallReturn Of The Dancing Master (a Stefan Lindman mystery)Before The Frost (actually a “Linda Wallander” mystery) An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, victims of violence beyond reason. . . a teenage girl douses herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day Sweden's former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped in a murder that has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer… four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are found with their throats slit in an Algerian convent, while in Sweden, a birdwatcher is skewered to death in a pit of carefully sharpened bamboo poles… a Swedish housewife is murdered execution-style in a string of events that uncovers a plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela involving the South African secret service and a ruthless ex-KGB agent… an old acquaintance of Wallander’s, a solicitor, who is tied to an enigmatic business tycoon hiding behind an entourage of brusque secretaries and tight security, turns up dead, shot three times after his father dies in a traffic accident (or was it an accident?). . . In woodland outside Ystad, the police make an horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, the pages marked with handwritten corrections. A string of macabre incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, has been taking place, a group of religious extremists who are bent on punishing the world's sinners. … On Midsummer's Eve, three friends gather in a secluded meadow in Sweden. In the beautifully clear twilight, they don costumes and begin a secret role-play. But an uninvited guest soon brings their performance to a gruesome conclusion. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect. Three bullets, three corpses… An unknown killer is on the loose, and their only lead is a photograph of a strange woman no one in Sweden seems to know…A life raft washes ashore in Skane, Sweden, carrying two dean men in expensive suits, shot gangland-style. It is discovered that the men were Eastern European criminals… A man stops at an ATM during his evening walk and inexplicably falls dead to the ground. Two teenage girls brutally murder a taxi driver They are quickly apprehended, shocking local policemen with their complete lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without a trace. A few days later a blackout cuts power to a large swath of the country When a serviceman arrives at the malfunctioning power substation, he makes a grisly discovery… a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden by the anonymity of cyberspace. . . and we haven't even gotten to Kurt Wallander's personal issues!
“Qualcuno deve pur farlo” (Kurt Wallander)Quinta donna ma, per me, quarto romanzo con Wallander, in una serie che purtroppo mi è capitato di leggere in ordine sparso; quindi non sono in grado di formulare giudizi sull’evoluzione del personaggio e delle storie, ma mi è sembrato inferiore al cronologicamente successivo “Delitto di mezza estate” benché comunque ben congegnato e, anche a giudicare dal ritmo con cui ne ho concluso la lettura, avvincente.Due difetti mi hanno impedito di apprezzarlo fino in fondo: uno, evidenziato anche da altri lettori, è l’eccessiva insistenza sul “punto delle indagini” e le riflessioni dibattute fra i detective ad ogni, anche minimo, nuovo dettaglio emerso. Si sa che Mankell è un autore particolarmente meticoloso nella costruzione e nell’evoluzione delle trame, povere dei colpi ad effetto che altri accumulano nei loro thriller con intenti mozzafiato, ma proprio per questo molto realistiche e vicine, viene da pensare, a come si dipanano le inchieste nella realtà. L’autore svedese tuttavia qui esagera un poco nel sottoporre il ritmo della narrazione alle incertezze, ai ripensamenti, ai vicoli ciechi in cui Wallander e i suoi incappano non di rado.Un altro dubbio, che ho rilevato solo io e quindi deriva forse da una mia crescente insofferenza per gli ingredienti del genere serial killer, risiede nello spazio riservato ad inserti delle azioni vissute dal punto di vista del killer che inframezzano le fasi dell’indagine. Questo espediente è stato sfruttato da molti altri autori, Deaver in primis col ben diverso intento di produrre depistaggi non solo negli inquirenti (come ogni serial killer che si rispetti…) ma anche negli stessi lettori. A mio parere, all’interno di “La quinta donna”, ciò finisce invece per produrre una sensibile riduzione della componente di mistero e di suspence, ammortizzando sia i colpi di scena intermedi sia le sorprese nel finale.Resta comunque un poliziesco di ottima fattura, cosa che con Mankell è quasi superfluo sottolineare, contenente, come sempre in un autore così socialmente impegnato, importanti messaggi e riflessioni sulla china che sta prendendo la socialdemocrazia svedese e il mondo occidentale più in generale, molto umano nel disegnare i rapporti interpersonali fra i personaggi senza retorica ma con una sensibilità psicologica non comune. A ben riflettere, per esempio, la parte iniziale di Wallander col padre non ha importanti riflessi sull’intreccio dell’indagine ma aumenta lo spessore e l’umanità del personaggio e dimostra come Mankell sappia comunicare anche al di fuori dei canoni del poliziesco.
What do You think about The Fifth Woman (2004)?
Just received the rest of the Henning MAnkell books... back to Det. Wallender. :)This novel begins when a woman receives a letter stating that her mother has been murdered along with four nuns in an African convent - the crime has been hidden so that no one know about it. Then an old man who writes bird poetry is impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes embedded in a ditch on his property while a person watches from his bird tower.As the police are trying to comprehend the man who was impaled... they learn that another man has gone missing. When this man is found murdered in a different but equally brutal fashion - they begin to connect the two murdersA lot of twists and turns. The reader knows information about the killer early in the book that the police don't know - we also get to follow the killers thoughts and plans. It is interesting to observe the police following the clues in order to reach the understanding as the reader has from knowing the killers thoughts.
—Linda Branham Greenwell
I gialli di Mankell si attestano decisamente tra i miei preferiti. Quando sono in preda alle paturnie da lettrice (tipo ora, da quando ho letto IJ non riesco più ad avere il solito rapporto con la pagina scritta), ne prendo uno in mano e la lettura scorre serena, onesta, senza grosse emozioni e senza scossoni destabilizzanti. Mancano alcuni cliché che detesto dei thriller moderni (il detective smandruppato che regolarmente fa fiki fiki con una strafiga che inspiegabilmente fa la poliziotta invec
—Cristina
In this the 6th book of the Wallander series, our hero has just returned to Ystad from Rome with his ailing father as the story opens, and it seems he is just in time to get to work on an incredibly brutal crime. A man is found impaled on sharpened sticks in a pit. As usual in a Mankell novel, this is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of a number of cruel and torturous murders. While Wallander's style is to thoroughly examine every aspect of these crimes, there is a move afoot among some of the public to form a citizens' militia, making the job of the police even harder and putting them under a great deal of pressure to catch the murderer. But these are no ordinary crimes and their perpetrator no ordinary murderer -- and Wallander and his team have their work cut out for them. Mankell's excellent writing will keep you reading until the end. In his hands, Wallander becomes quite real, and you can clearly see that he is a flawed but steady individual, an excellent investigator and a workaholic, who is always pushing his team to work harder. Mankell's plotting is exquisite and believable, and the author manages to capture the nuances of a disgruntled public and a Sweden that is changing rapidly and not always for the better. The Wallander series overall is excellent; one of the best out there. I would highly recommend this book (as well as the series) to anyone who enjoys great crime writing in general and Scandinavian mystery novels in particular. Do not let this book be your introduction to Kurt Wallander -- defintely start with the first one in the series and read them in order.
—Nancy Oakes
