In 1992, Faceless Killers won the first ever Glass Key award, given to crime writers from the Nordic countries. With a keen eye for the nitty-gritty of real police work, a sure sense of the psychological dimensions of his characters, and a clear grasp of the political and racial turmoil in contemporary Sweden, Henning Mankell delivers a tour de force in Faceless Killers. Questions and Topics for Discussion Segunda novela de la serie Wallander publicada en 1992. Escrita durante el año anterior, está influenciada por el derrumbamiento de los regímenes comunistas que se estaban produciendo al mismo tiempo. Seguramente ese sería el motivo de localizar la historia en Riga, capital de Letonia. A few days later, he's informed that the Latvian detective has been murdered, and their authorities want Wallander to come assist with the case, as he was the last person who spent time with the murdered detective.

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. The mystery is an intriguing one and delves into the secret life of one of the victims. The mystery is not of the solveable variety but that's ultimately not that important. My main attractions to Faceless Killers were the glimpse into Swedish society and Kurt Wallander himself.

Kurt Wallander, Henning Mankell’s Swedish police commissioner from the small town of Ystad, is a perfect example. The over-tired policeman’s health is less than perfect given his preference for fast food, coffee, alcohol, and little sleep. Middle-aged and divorced from his wife Mona (which he still regrets), Wallander lives the familiar life of a solitary detective. Yet he is shy and longs for a woman who will understand him. He is the sort of man who asks each morning whether life has a purpose—not his life, but life in general. In the Footsteps of Wallander PDF document from Ystad Tourist Office with map of places referred to in the novels. Kurt Wallander, Swedish detective, is inexplicably sent to Latvia to investigate the death of a Latvian police officer who was killed ...in Latvia. Das war der Wallander, der mir bislang am wenigsten gefallen hat. Dabei sind viele Elemente im Buch enthalten, die ich an Mankells Krimireihe schätze. So ist die Zerrissenheit des Kommissars bezüglich seines Berufs und sein Hadern mit dem Alter wieder vergleichsweise zu anderen skandinavischen Thrillern hervorragend beschrieben. Doch dieses Buch hat für mein Empfinden zu deutliche Schwächen im Kriminalfall.

He’s also drinking too much. And gaining weight because without his wife cooking, he eats only junk food. Mankell's friend and writer Jan Guillou used Kurt Wallander in the 10th book of his Carl Hamilton-series En medborgare höjd över varje misstanke[ A Citizen Above Suspicion] . Guillou and Mankell also co-wrote the Swedish crime-drama mini series Talismanen and here we also encounter Kurt Wallander as a supporting character, this time portrayed by actor Lennart Jähkel. [12] Young Wallander [ edit ] In charge of the investigation is Inspector Kurt Wallander, a local detective whose personal life is in a shambles. His family is falling apart, he’s gaining weight, and he drinks too much and sleeps too little. Tenacious and levelheaded in his sleuthing, he and his colleagues must contend with a wave of violent xenophobia as they search for the killers.Episode 1 The murder by grenade of student Hugo Lundgren in the same neighbourhood as cop Kurt Wallander has a terrorist tinge. Wallander meets DI Hemberg and Rask, who put him on the case, promoting the reluctant rookie over his academy mate Reza. A Middle-Eastern hooded suspect seen at the scene is sought, but local boy Ibra, an acquaintance of Wallander’s, is held as a suspected accomplice. Wallander recruits the local gang boss Bash to help nail the true criminal. During a white supremacist anti-immigration rally and raid on a church/refugee centre, Wallander spots and runs after the suspect, who knifes him during apprehension and escapes.

Faceless Killers, the first novel in Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series, is a gripping, gritty crime thriller that has inspired a generation of Nordic Noir writers and influenced many contemporary authors across the globe. Kurt Wallander ( Swedish pronunciation: [vaˈlǎnːdɛr]) is a fictional Swedish police inspector created by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell (1948 – 2015). He is the protagonist of many thriller/ mystery novels set in and around the town of Ystad, 56km (35mi) south-east of the city of Malmö, in the southern province of Scania. Wallander has been portrayed on screen by the actors Rolf Lassgård, Krister Henriksson, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Adam Pålsson. Klart för 13 mer politiska Wallanderfilmer" (in Swedish). Dagens Nyheter. 2008-03-25. Archived from the original on 2008-12-08 . Retrieved 2009-11-06.When a life raft with a couple of tortured and murdered bodies washes up on shore, Wallander doubts that there will be any way to solve the crime, and when the victims turn out be from Latvia, he’s all too happy to turn the case over to the Latvian detective sent to investigate. Of course, things don’t go that smoothly and Wallander ends up having to travel to Riga and finds himself wrapped up in dangerous political and police corruption as the country struggles to free itself from the last remains of Soviet communism. There is violence in the story but it's not overdone or gratuitous. 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. The build up of dramatic tension produced more effect than any number of gory details. There are other scenes of violence and death but they're similarly handled. Sexual references are few and far between and I wouldn't think that they could offend even the most prudish.

Another cold and dark place, though with happy trees and surly and reclusive police detectives is Sweden. Henning Mankell’s second Kurt Wallander novel was better than the first, 1991’s Faceless Killers, and much of the enhanced praise comes from Mankell’s use of and exploration of the dichotomy between these northern countries and at this time and place. The novel focuses on Sweden's liberal attitude regarding immigration, and explores themes of racism and national identity. [1] It only describes the situation in the country without any challenge or criticism. [1] Adaptations [ edit ] Mastermind Kurt is distracted from investigating a brutal murder when a fellow cop Martinsson’s daughter is kidnapped. To make things worse, a mysterious mastermind is manipulating events from inside the police force. Wallander continues to be a fairly dour character who is now plunged into a very depressing situation. In other words, although well-written, this is not a book likely to brighten anyone's day. The situation in Latvia is described very believably, and Mankell has clearly done a lot of research. My problem with the book is that, in the end, I could not sustain the level of disbelief required to make the story work. 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.The book was originally written in Swedish in 1991. It doesn't feel like a fifteen-year-old book though as some of the issues, such as asylum seekers and immigration are as relevant today. It was translated into English by Steven T Murray in 1997. I can only judge the quality of the translation by considering the prose as published - I have no way of comparing the English version with the original Swedish. Some of the later Wallander novels are translated by Laurie Thompson and I thought that Thompson produced a better, more flowing text than Murray. It didn't mar my enjoyment of the novel though. Dogs of Riga, the second in the Kurt Wallander series places Wallander outside of his comfort zone: in Riga, capital of Latvia and without the presence of his familiar Swedish colleagues to whom we were introduced in the first of the series. Wallander is a film series based on the Kurt Wallander novels written by Henning Mankell that were adapted into multiple miniseries and TV films by Sveriges Television (SVT) between 1994 and 2006. These Swedish-language films starred Rolf Lassgård as Wallander. The final film Pyramiden (2007) features Gustaf Skarsgård as a younger Wallander. The third series began shooting in Ystad and Riga, Latvia in the Summer of 2011 and continued into the winter. Broadcast in July 2012, it consists of adaptations of An Event in Autumn, The Dogs of Riga and Before the Frost. While the novel Before the Frost has Wallander's daughter Linda as its protagonist detective, the story was adapted for television so that Wallander himself became the lead. It was intended as the first of a spinoff trilogy. However Mankell was so distraught after the suicide of Johanna Sällström, the actress playing the character at the time in the Swedish TV series, that he decided to abandon the series after only the first novel. [5]