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Most Americans have a rather idyllic view of life in Sweden. In what ways does Faceless Killers contradict that view? Is it disconcerting to learn that Sweden suffers many of the same problems—drugs, crime, racism—that beset the United States? About this Author His mantra was “a time to live and a time to die”. “He had adopted this incantation many years ago, when he was a young policeman, cruising the streets of Malmö, his home town. A drunk had pulled out a big butcher’s knife as he and his partner were trying to take him
Mankell, Henning (2009). "Chapter 30". The Troubled Man. London: Random House - Vintage. ISBN 978-0-099-54840-9.The Missing ( Försvunnen) A little girl slips away from her fighting parents who are both suing for custody. Wallander recruits the help of a suspect from a similar case years earlier to find the missing girl. In Wallander, Mankell has crafted a complicated and darkly charismatic protagonist. With his drinking, poor eating habits, surly manner and clumsy way with close relationships he is almost an anti-hero. Mankell is skilled at painting word pictures of the landscape in this part of Sweden - the Skäne area to the east of Malmö. The story begins in the depths of winter and the descriptions of the frozen landscape and extreme weather conditions actually made me feel cold. The area, particularly along the Baltic coast, seemed desolate and unforgiving. 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. His mantra was “a time to live and a time to die”. “He had adopted this incantation many years ago, when he was a young policeman, cruising the streets of Malmö, his home town. A drunk had pulled out a big butcher’s knife as he and his partner were trying to take him away……Wallander was stabbed deep, right next to his heart. A few millimetres were all that saved him from an untimely death. He had been twenty-three then, suddenly profoundly aware of what it meant to be a policeman. The incantation was his way of fending off the memories.” Mankell refers to the Wallander series as novels of Swedish unrest. With this guide we take a retrospective look at the books in turn, many for the first time here on Crime Fiction Lover, and then outline the various video adaptations that are available – some of which are excellent. The books, 1991-2009
Wallander was born in 1948. [1] His mother died when he was about 14. [2] After completing national service, [3] he joined the police. As a young police officer, he was nearly killed when a drunk whom he was questioning stabbed him with a butcher's knife (this is mentioned in the account of his first case). He has a sister, Kristina. Wallander was once married, but his wife Mona left him and he has since had a difficult relationship with his rebellious only child, Linda, who barely survived a suicide attempt when she was fifteen. He also has issues with his father, an artist who has painted the same landscape 7,000 times for a living; the elder Wallander strongly disapproved of his son's decision to join the police force and frequently derides him for it. Writer Henning Mankell first published Faceless Killers in 1991 and an English edition, translated by Steven T. Murray, was published in 1997. Besides being a good book, this is notable as Mankell’s introduction of his famous detective Kurt Wallander.Mankell thus sets the stage for a clever police procedural set against the larger social issue of how welcoming Sweden--or any other country--should be to growing numbers of immigrants. Wallander is typical of the breed of plodding Scandinavian detectives who refuse to give up until they have deduced the solution to the case. At times, though, you find yourself wondering why he soldiers along in the face of the overwhelming personal problems in his life off-duty. In what ways do the setting, an isolated area of rural Sweden, and the story’s first victims, an elderly couple, make the murders seem especially horrifying? 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. Over the years he has grown increasingly disillusioned with his work and often wonders whether he should have become a police officer at all. He was once falsely sued and harassed for police brutality and still lives with the guilt of having shot and killed a man in the fog, an act which drove him into depression and nearly led to his resignation. His relationships with his colleagues are tentative; they are alternately amazed by his intellect and frustrated by his brusque manner and aggressive tactics. The novel was adapted into a four-episode television miniseries, Wallander, by the Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television in 1994. Wallander is played by Rolf Lassgård.
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. What specifics does the novel reveal about how police investigations are conducted? About the strained relations between the police, the press, and the government? About the connection between sudden insight and the dogged search for clues? One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse, he discovers a bloodbath. The Darkness ( Mörkret) One beautiful summer day, a child is found abandoned in a parked car. Her father is nowhere to be found and her mother, committed to an insane asylum, is not much help to Linda, who must take charge when Kurt falls ill.This series has been on my periphery ever since the first book was published in the early 90s, because one of my friends loved it very much and heartily recommended it. But I was hesitant, I somehow felt it wasn’t for me, and now I hear that the author was a Marxist, and that may explain some of my reluctance😀 anyway, I started reading the first and now I am determined to read the whole bunch. The main crime to be solved is the brutal torture and murder of an elderly farm couple who lived in an isolated house. The only initial clue is that the female victim said the word ‘foreigner’ just before she died. This gets leaked to the press and starts a frenzy of anti-immigrant feelings among the neo-Nazi types of Sweden who want immigration to cease and foreigners to be deported. Wallander and his team have to investigate these additional crimes as these Nazis murder one man, injure others, and set fire to a local immigrant refugee camp. I am not really a big fan of mystery whodunnit books but this one really hooked me from start to finish. The plot is not really focused on who the killer is but on the main protagonist and his life: aging, just divorced, daughter's not communicating to him, father's getting senile, getting fat, postponing his diet, drinking and driving and all of the other matters that make him human and vulnerable. Of course, you'd like to find out who the killer is but that's was secondary to me. I think this is also the first book (1001 or not) that I've read with Sweden as the setting and I found it interesting because I have not been there. Prior to this book, the images of Sweden in my mind were either those beautiful Ms. Universe contestants, milk products with cows and young smiling girls holding a glass of milk on their covers. Funny but that was Sweden in my mind. Viewers familiar only with the Swedish Wallander portrayed by Krister Henriksson will be fascinated to behold the first actor to play the role, Rolf Lassgård. Lassgård is an impeccable actor whose large frame treads through the subdued atmosphere of these slow-burning thrillers made in Sweden. As straight adaptations of the books, these movies were either broadcast serially, released theatrically, or were direct-to-video productions.
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