It's not an area with which I'm at all familiar and the map at the front of the book helped me to follow the story. The area, particularly along the Baltic coast, seemed desolate and unforgiving. The story begins in the depths of winter and the descriptions of the frozen landscape and extreme weather conditions actually made me feel cold. Mankell is skilled at painting word pictures of the landscape in this part of Sweden - the Skäne area to the east of Malmö. Sexual references are few and far between and I wouldn't think that they could offend even the most prudish.
There are other scenes of violence and death but they're similarly handled. The build up of dramatic tension produced more effect than any number of gory details. I did think that I was going to find the description of the initial crime scene too gruesome for my taste, but it was handled with sensitivity.
There is violence in the story but it's not overdone or gratuitous. This is essentially a story by a man about men and the women are there as supporting cast. The women in the story are less well developed, as in all the Wallander novels that I've read. His father is an eccentric bordering on senility both are marvellous characters as is Rydberg, Wallander's partner in the investigation. He's a fallible man trying to do his best under pressure. He lives in untidy and neglected flat, drinks too much and his diet is on the dreadful side of poor. His wife has left him, his daughter won't speak to him and even his elderly father struggles to exchange more than a few words with him. I closed the book with a real glow of enjoyment.įew characters arrive on the scene as fully-formed as Kurt Wallander. The ending was ingenious and in keeping with all that had gone before. I found myself reading into the early hours of the morning just to find out what happened. There are enough twists and turns, red herrings and dead ends to keep you turning the pages. This is where the story is based on the patient accumulation of evidence and elimination of suspects. The plot is excellent, particularly if you're a fan of police-procedural novels. This book had me hooked right from the beginning. When the press get hold of this there's a tide of racial hatred, and Wallander is left with a double murder to solve as well as the responsibility for the protection of an unknown number of asylum seekers. All that Maria Lövgren can tell the investigators before she too dies is that the killers were foreign. Instead he finds that the elderly farmer, Johannes Lövgren, has been brutally killed and his wife is near death. When Inspector Kurt Wallander is summoned to an isolated farmhouse one freezing January morning he thinks that it will be nothing more than a routine call-out. Not recommended to buy as there are problems with the editing of the book which make it an annoying read in places.
#Mankell faceless killers summary series#
Summary: The first book in the Kurt Wallander series has a good plot and characterisation - it's a real page-turner.
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