As Wallander himself receives several phone calls threatening retribution and events climax with a immigrant being shot dead, the police come under fire from all angles, all distracting them from the atrocity which unleashed the furore. When this detail anonymously finds its way into the public domain, the rebuttal from the police is not enough to stop a series of attacks swiftly being launched at the growing number of camps which hold the illegal immigrant influx. As she draws her final breath she repeats the word "foreign" on several occasions and opens a can of worms that threaten peace and stability across Sweden. Neither wealthy or known to keep valuables, surely the brutality speaks of a act of revenge and hatred? Rushing Maria to hospital, a bedside vigil is instituted in the hope that as the only witness she can provide a potential clue to the identity of her attackers. With retired farmer Johannes already dead and his wife, Maria, left in a noose and clinging to life, Wallander struggles to comprehend just what can have brought such an act to bear on the remote farmhouse. What greets him is a bloodbath a scene of such brutal violence that he cannot remember being so appalled previously in his entire career. Januin the county of Skåne with snow yet to fall, there is something far more chilling awaiting Wallander at the isolated farmhouse in Lunnarp he is sent to. A double murder and an ensuing manhunt which soon triggers another murder. Lonely, living on junk food and blighted by lack of sleep, Wallander's family dilemmas seem to occupy as much of his focus as the brutal double murder of elderly Johannes and Maria Lövgrens in Lunnarp, a "village where life flows along the creek without vigour or intent". At forty-two-years old he shouldn't feel as apathetic as he does, but with a separation from his wife, sporadic contact and relations with his daughter, Linda, and with a father characterised by erratic mood changes and almost impossible expectations, he doesn't have much to smile about. From his early days as a new recruit in Malmö through to twenty-years later and now in a more remote area and smaller city, Wallander is in a prime position to observe the changing patterns of crime over the years, both their nature and their prevalence. Given that my previous meeting with Wallander came in the form of the final novella of the series, I am struck by how much more gloomy and self-pitying the character seems to be in this first case, noticeably disposed to wallowing. Following his diagnosis in 2014, Mankell wrote a number of articles on his battle with cancer until his death in October 2015įaceless Killers marked the debut appearance of the dyspeptic Ystad detective, Kurt Wallander, and although the Swedish language version was written in 1991, the English translation did not follow until 1997. Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948. In 2008, the University of St Andrews conferred Henning Mankell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience. Mankell devoted much of his free time to working with Aids charities in Africa, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. His books have been translated into over forty languages and made into numerous international film and television adaptations: most recently the BAFTA-award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. His prize-winning and critically acclaimed Inspector Wallander Mysteries have featured in bestseller lists all over the globe for many years. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.Henning Mankell became a worldwide phenomenon with his crime writing, gripping thrillers and atmospheric novels set in Africa. Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the first riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander
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