Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Faceless Killer is the first of the Kurt Wallander novels by Henning Mankell, but chronologically it is the 2nd, with the 1st being The Pyramid, which is about Kurt when he is first starting out as a police officer. Faceless Killers is set in 1990, when immigration is causing tension in Sweden, often resulting in crimes against immigrants, & immigrants being blamed for the rise in crime.

From Random House:

One frozen January Morning at 5 am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he expects is a routine call out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath. An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, victims of violence beyond reason. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign. When this is leaked to the press, racial hatred is unleashed. Kurt Wallander is a senior police officer at Ystad, a small town in the wind-lashed Swedish province of Skåne. His life is a shambles. His wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him, even his ageing father barely tolerates him. He works tirelessly, eats badly and drinks the nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. But now winter closes its grip on Ystad, and Wallander, his tenacious efforts closely monitored by the tough minded (and disarmingly attractive) district attorney Anette Brolin, must forget his trouble, and throw himself into a battle against time and xenophobia.

While I was reading Faceless Killers I kept thinking about the Yellowbird film series starring Krister Henriksson & in particular the one titled Bröderna (the Brothers), which shares some similarities with the book, or at least that is the way it seemed to me. I really enjoyed the film series & find that they have added to my enjoyment of the books. Krister Henriksson, to me, is Wallander & that is who I picture in my head while reading the books. I flew through Faceless Killers & I eagerly await the delivery of my next Wallander installment!

The Pyramid by Henning Mankell

Purely by accident I happened to stumble on the Yellowbird Films Kurt Wallander series, which were showing on the BBC & fell in love with Wallander. I love his cantankerous spirit. I devoured every single episode & was so sad when the last one aired. Based on what I watched with Wallander (oh yeah, just as a quick aside – to me, there is only 1 Wallander & that is Krister Henrikson, not Kenneth Branagh), I had to read the books.

I decided to read The Pyramid (which was the last Wallander book published) first as it is chronologically the 1st book in the series. The Pyramid is a series of 5 short stories, starting with Kurt as a young police officer in Malmo, on his first case.  Through The Pyramid we get to see Kurt before he became the grumpy disillusioned police inspector. We get to see his relationship with his father, an artist who disapproves of Wallander’s career choice & lets him know it at every opportunity. One of the short stories sees Wallander senior in a very compromising situation in Egypt, forcing the younger Wallander to come to his rescue & providing us further in site into what made Kurt into the man he is. We are also introduced to Mona, the woman who is to become Wallander’s wife, then ex-wife, & to Linda, Wallander’s daughter.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Pyramid and I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series.