Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander mystery series

Read the Kurt Wallander series in its entirety, in order, starting either at the beginning with Faceless Killers, or in the margins with Return of the Dancing Master. If you want to try just one, read The White Lioness.

I don't recall ever being taken in by the serial in serial fiction—not even as a child when I read Encyclopedia Brown and the Three Investigators (The Hardy Boys were too bland). The Wallander series adds up to more than the sum of its mysteries. Kurt Wallander's relationships with family and lovers develop as the real plot, and the various criminal enterprises that intersect (oddly) in small-town Sweden reveal a map of the contemporary world. These serial fictions seem to take place in real time, with the year of publication corresponding to the year in the drama. I suspect that Wallander cranks these out at a yearly pace to fund his other literary projects, and the more noble work he does in the African theater. If you read the series in order, you get the larger story of Kurt Wallander's declining health, accumulative failure to start or sustain a relationship, and how Sweden has gone to hell in a handbasket what with the general breakdown of law and order. Because these can be the sorts of books you wish would never end, thinking of them as one extremely long novel is pleasant. I am not sure whether all the series has been translated, which adds some confusion, as there are references to past events that seem to precede the first English title. After Michael Gizzi recommended Mankell to me, and I came across a few remaindered copies in Providence's to-drool-for Symposium Books, I read the series out of order while coping with a bitterly cold winter, a bitterly cold MFA program, and bitterly cold housemates. The following year I reread the series in order to create stability and comfort while an unemployed and houseless refugee from English studies. Yes, studying literature has driven me to read genre fiction, just as dieticians probably eat fast food. At that point I promised myself that when I finished the series, including the new translation, I would get rid of the books and get back to the real work of picking my way through important works of contemporary literature that bring me no pleasure and have no relevance to the urgent crises of the twenty-first century.

There is nothing overtly remarkable about Mankell's language—no circumlocution, no density, few literary metaphors, and no allusions—instead he offers an effortlessness of reading with generous, almost Marksonesque paragraph breaks. There are a few resonant, stellar paragraphs—perhaps one per volume (such as the Lativan detective's explanation of why he prefers his poverty-ridden and strife-torn country to the socialist utopia of Sweden in The Dogs of Riga)—but Mankell is not an author who likes to stand on his head and say look at me look at me. His writing is immersive, sympathetic, and while it no doubt borrows many details from the author's own life and world, it is not about him.

Faceless Killers. 1991.
English translation 1997 by Stephen T. Murray.

Prose as undiluted as the Scanian snowfall describes an overweight, aging, melancholy Swedish detective's several-month effort to locate some murderers. The complexities of a puzzle plot are unraveled through a tedious police procedural. If anything gives this book strength, it is its restraint and clarity, making it believeable to the point of dullness, making solving a murder a job. The crime novel takes place against a background of crimelessness, an agrarian southern Sweden, and even the fact of the crime colors the story with the grey onset of post-modernity and its senselessness. By 1991 the twentieth century appears poised to overtake Sweden. It's like an American detective novel, with a fierce, perpetually impending winter as a backdrop instead of a violent society. But Kurt Wallander, a cop whose subtly macho methods are a step ahead of his crumbling physique, is flawed and likeable in that you never envy him. Astute racists may note that, by the end, the submerged ideological conflict between Swedish supremacists and refugee-welcoming liberals has come down on the side of the Swedish supremacists—the murder was inexplicably cruel and inexplicably foreign, its exact method and the type of knot used to craft the noose used to strangle the old woman are, finally, OTHER.

On my second reading, I was impressed both by the elusive power of the language, which never flexes its muscles, and by the fact that the book hangs together even though almost every single clue is a red herring.

A note on the typography: using small caps for acronyms is a classy touch. A note on the editing: British people are better proofreaders than Americans. A note on the design: the recurring image of the rope is interesting but unecessary, though I have some respect for the fact that the reader is reminded of this important clue every chapter even as the detectives overlook its significance.

The Dogs of Riga. 1992.
English translation 2001 by Laurie Thompson.

If you can buy that an overweight and mild-mannered police officer from a quiet Swedish village, using his already-broken hand, can deck a Latvian thug, or can, in one hour, in an aircraft hangar-sized warehouse of filing cabinets, find a filefolder deliberately hidden among tens of thousands of filefolders, all in a language he cannot read, then you won't find the climax of this novel contrived.

It was nice of those Latvian expatriates to wash his car though.

This is one of the more ambitiously thematic Kurt Wallander novels, dealing with the turbulence of the Baltic states during the collapse of the Soviet empire. After my first reading, I felt that it fell so far from the high standards of serene dullness that I hold Mankell to that I might as well have rented a Schwarzenegger film. On my second reading, I developed a greater appreciation for the story, the cross-section of history it attempts to show, and even the violence and implausibility. A touch more characterization might have done wonders for the suspense, enhancing for the reader the significance of which of the two Latvian police officers turned out to be evil. On the other hand, characters such as Major Liepa were so vivid and believable I was almost sick from inhaling his second-hand smoke.

I like the hero Kurt Wallander precisely because he is not a tough guy, is lonely and hopelessly bad at flirting, and has a troubled relationship with his father. The intrepid heroism he displays here (he leaves Sweden!) seems out of character, though hardly inappropriate for a mystery novel.

A few insignificant lapses in point of view (66, 78, 174) are natural, though it is not clear what purpose they are meant to serve, other than a rehearsal for the next novel.

The White Lioness. 1993.
English translation 1998 by Laurie Thompson.

I thought I could handle it. But. I am a Mankellaholic. I’ve been chain-reading to get me through the winter. The White Lioness got me hooked and really is the best Mankell ever, Michael Gizzi says so. It’s on a par with the Little Drummer Girl as a genre novel with an international social conscience. Mankell’s passion for Africa expresses itself in an elaborate plot of great consequences, some well-wrought paragraphs, and a formal structure more complex and daring than any other Wallander mystery: innumerable points of view spanning two continents, and an elaborate chronology in which events are replayed from different perspectives. The preface aside (and maybe it should be left out for this reason), the reader's first hint that this novel is a Kurt Wallander mystery embedded in a novel about South Africa is the unexected and alarming discovery by a Swedish police dog of a severed black finger, a nicely grim bit of foreshadowing. The passage in which the out-of-work KGB murderer must contemplate a career change and find a country with a suitably repressive government to work for is a quietly, unsettlingly hilarious, but convincing view of the late twentieth century world from the perspective of a professional murderer (138-139).

In the Black Lizard edition I found five or more typos and a number of flaws in the storytelling. On page 156, Mabasha considers killing a thirteen-year-old girl so there will be no witnesses to his robbery, even though the man behind the counter was undoubtedly a witness (the man collapses and dies of shock but Mabasha did not see this happen). On page 223, Konovalenko ditches a BMW he had already ditched on page 145. Later that same page, he finds out from Mrs. Nilson that Linda and her father Kurt have left town, although it is revealed on page 220 that he had earlier met Mrs. Nilson and pretended to be Linda's father (surely she can tell the difference between the Swedish detective and the short, scary Russian). If the author made these mistakes, I would have expected the editors or translator to discover them. Regardless, a few tiny mistakes do little to mar this thrilling, touching, compassionate novel.

The Man Who Smiled. 1994.
English translation 2005 by Laurie Thompson

As of this writing, The Man Who Smiled was the newest translation, and the fact that it was originally published between two of my favorites suggested it might have a similar energy. It was, of course, addictively compelling, but seemed to revolve around an overdone stereotype of a successful, ruthless Swedish international businessman. I was disappointed that Mankell's criticism of transnational capitalists wasn't more convincing. Black market organ sales and defrauding the Swedish government are certainly nefarious crimes, but don't strike me as good ways to amass billions. That Wallander would not only have a carbomb in his old Peugeot, but would somehow guess it was there, was contrived enough to undermine a sexy, powerful scene. Despite its weaknesses, this book belongs in the series and is the official introduction of Ann-Britt Höglund to the Ystad police force.

Sidetracked. 1995.
English translation 1999 by Steven T. Murray.

In this bloody bloody Hollywood bloody book a methodical axe murder dispatches an ugly ring of misogynist entrepreneurs. A good book to read on the Playa la Ropa in Zihuatanejo, and perhaps the most wrenching Wallander mystery. At the book’s terrifying climax, when he must confront the axe murderer, Kurt Wallander even, with obvious distaste, carries his pistol. But he is never forced to use it, nor is the misogynist-killer harmed in any way before being taken into police protection.

Forget what I said earlier about serene dullness, this is a violent, brutal, violent book. But there's a but. As is usual for Mankell, an astute and international human rights morality underpins this axe-murderer story, and none of the serial killer's victims are innocent. Their murders are revenge for their participation in the female slave trade, in which teenagers from the Dominican Republic are lied to and lured to the brothels of Europe. As a kneejerk feminist, that synopsis might make you worried that the enslavement of teenaged third world women is portrayed uncritically, is titillating, or serves only to provide a background for the men. But the females portrayed in the book do more than get victimized: there are reasonably vivivd and well-developed characters: a female vicar, a suave and intelligent older prostitute, and a female detective. Consider that, after reading every Wallander mystery twice I still can't tell Martinnson from Hannson from Svedberg from Nyberg (save for Nyberg's foul moods), and you'll see that my standards for a vivid character are fairly lax. I also find it relevant that most of the people involved in the prostitution ring are wealthy, including one Swedish Minister of Justice, suggesting that Mankell takes this issue seriously and does not consign it to the lower classes.

The book opens with the unforgettably vivid image of a young Dominican woman committing suicide by self-immolation in a farmer's rapeseed field. It took me a year after reading the book to slap my head and say "oh, *rape*seed." But I don't know whether the word rape holds the same two meanings in Swedish.

The Fifth Woman. 1996.
English translation 2000 by Steven T. Murray.

The winter the winter I first read this novel was positively Swedish, in the drafty house with only the walls of books for insulation. I can’t get enough Henning. Damn you, Gizzi, you didn't tell me this stuff could get you hooked.

Another serial misogynisticide; this time the killer is a woman: the ultimate power structure inversion, especially when she knees the male police officer in the groin, taking his pistol, sending him to the hospital. But, unpredictably, she shoots a female police officer, and this is the turning point and the beginning of her fall. The pacing and escalation of this, along with the cast of eccentric Swedes whom Wallander must interrogate (the translator has a weird tic of lapsing into the third person present when trying to narrate Wallander's thoughts), strike me as gently superior to the other books purely in terms of its buildup of suspense, but it is hard to find a bad Mankell mystery to which to compare this one favorably. The Vintage Crime/Black Lizard edition has the typical fistful of typos. It's a shame that publishers who make money can't afford to do a better job. Or perhaps that is how they make money.

Of course, the real story is Wallander's trip to Italy with his father, who dies in the midst of this, and the slow decay of his relationship with Baiba. In unraveling the motives for the crime, he must confront his own anger toward his lovers. Are the Swedish serial misogynisticides interfering with his personal life, or is he using them to avoid confronting his feelings? And will he buy the rustic farmhouse with the black labrador puppy? Tune in next novel and find out.

One Step Behind. 1997.
English translation 2002 by Ebba Segerberg.

Soft-boiled Swedish investigator Kurt Wallander: obese, hopeless with women, and unable to quit eating pastries.

By this point in the serial fiction, serial killers are getting stale, especially since every serial serial killer is presented as the worst yet. "Sweden is descending into lawlessness!" exclaims a police officer who still doesn't carry a gun. The plots of international intrigue have more to offer (Sidetracked is both). This plot doesn't even offer mysoginisticde or a deeper moral level, save for a fleeting instant when the killer imagines killing an employer who lays off a loyal worker of many years. I get the uncomfortable feeling that Mankell is getting comofrtable with making money off his internationally succesful series. I tend to think that One Step Behind, The Fifth Woman, and Sidetracked would be better if the passages from the point of view of the deranged killers were omitted in whole or in part, as in Faceless Killers. What compells the author to give us information the main character does not have access to? Much subtlety is lost, and deranged italcized narration is not one of Mankells' strengths. Also tiring is a tendency for the deranged serial killers to come after Wallander in his apartment, and Wallander's consistent failure to predict this. So tiring, that chapters 34-35 are worthy of deletion. The only way to save the contrived climax would be if Wallander, the hero, were unexpectedly shot and killed. While a serviceable procedural, this is a low point in the series. But it's sad about Svedberg. Perhaps therein lies the moral: prejudice against homosexuals leads to unnecessary deaths. When a closeted homosexual policeman's drag queen lover kills him, the ensuing police investigation can take a very long time as sexual preferences and genders must be discovered before the killer can be identified. Thus, the lives of the blandly happy newlyweds (perfect Swedish breeders!) who were assassinated during their wedding photo shoot on the beach could have been spared if only Svedberg had been comfortable being out and wearing his wig to meetings. Take note, bigoted Swedish heteros.

One of the charming techniques used to characterize Wallander is to allow us access to the irrelevant thoughts that pass through his head when, to all outward appearances, he is focused on solving crime. A fine example occurs on page 45 when, in unexpectedly discovering the murdered body of his friend and colleague, he thinks "Now Svedberg will never be troubled by his phobic fear of bees again." I can relate to Wallander's monkey mind in these moments.

Conversely, a technique Mankell uses to demonstrate Wallander's detective chops is to have him almost remember something someone said that he didn't realize was important at the time. Inevitably, this has me turning pages backward trying to find out what he and I missed. Is a tendency to make the reader flip backward an index of a good mystery story? Would mystery stories published in searchable electronic format alter the experience of reading them?

Firewall. 1998.
English translation 2002 by Ebba Segerberg.

Poor Kurt Wallander. Too bad he’ll never get a date, despite his weakness for legs.

He never figured out why they stole the corpse, cut two of its fingers off, and returned it to the site of its death.

Nor why they fried Sonja Hökberg by electrocuting her in a power substation.

Nor why they went to enormous trouble and expense to get the keys and blueprints to this substation to stage this killing.

Nor what they wanted with her address book.

Nor why Eva Persson seemed to know this had happened, though it was not yet announced in the papers.

Nor how two young women could commit such a savage murder, even if one of them had been raped.

And what was up with that secret room/shrine?

In fact, the unanswered aspects of this mystery go on and on.

But I don’t care, it’s still classic Mankell.

What I appreciate most is that the bad guys were out to destroy the World Bank and Pentagon, leaving me, as in the Fifth Woman, and Sidetracked, unsure which side I am on.

Sometimes the serial fiction is undermined. It seems in every novel Wallander is tracking down the most dangerous killer Sweden has ever known, discovers a grisly corpse that is "the worst he has ever seen" (258), all in the midst of "the most complicated murder investigation he had ever been in charge of" (277). To give another example, on 162: "Wallander had never seen anything like this before. The reconstruction of a death, a body returned to the scene of the killing." Apparently Wallander has not read the previous novel in the series, in which three bodies, among the worst he has ever seen, are returned to the scene of the killing, by one of the most dangerous killers he has ever pursued.

The only laugh-out-loud moment of the entire series occurs on p. 268, but only if you know computers.

The Return of the Dancing Master. 2000.
English translation 2003 by Laurie Thompson.

Here is the only Swedish police procedural by Henning Mankell translated into English that does not star Kurt Wallander. A great confusing and slowy unraveling murder mystery from two points of view, plus that of England's greatest hangman in the effective opening chapter. On p.345/406 the author remembers that his publishers and possibly readers expect him to have a conclusion, and things feel a bit rushed from that point on. But it's okay, we know he didn't mean it. Like The Fifth Woman and The White Lioness, this novel's more widely historical/political backdrop offers a glimpse into Mankell's enormous heart: the Nazi killer gets away, never to return to Sweden. The protagonist who provides the second perspective, however, will return. In...

Before the Frost. 2002.
English translation 2004 by Ebba Segerberg.

This is a joy for a Mankellhead and agood choice for someone reading a Mankell for the first time. Kurt's daughter Linda joins the police force during a tense murder investigation that she becomes personally involved in. With a few obligatory passages from the points-of-view of the perpetrators, the novel is entirely from Linda's perspective. From this angle, Kurt Wallander seems a bit hollow: we are deprived of his interior life without really getting to see him from the outside. But Linda is a compelling character, and the strain of the father-daughter relationship combined with the strain of the recruit-police captain relationship adds a rich human dimension to a plot that is otherwise somewhat typical for the series. The novel ends on September 11th, 2001, though it is not clear what significance this has for Wallander or Mankell. Because the novel involves crazy Christian terrorists, possibly Mankell is trying to make the too-subtle point that murderers can be of any denomination. That would be as close as this book comes to demonstrating the larger sociopolitical conscience of The White Lioness or Sidetracked.

It was 11:29 PM, September 27th, 2006.