Faceless Killers
Familiar Story, Unfamiliar landscapes
Faceless Killer is the first of the Kurt Wallander Novels by the Swedish crimewriter Henning Mankell. The book deals with the double murder of an elderly farmer and his wife in a brutal manner which apparently lacks motive. Subsequent investigation leads the hapless detective, Kurt Wallander, on a trail which brings him face to face with the issues surrounding european refugees, immigration and racism.
A suprisingly engaging read considering that the subject matter does not break new ground. The charcter of Wallander is all to familiar from the many other renderings of dishevelled and emotionally disfunctional detectives that we have become familiar with. The beauty of this book lies in its unique setting. Anybody with a passion or familiarity with Scandinavia and Sweden in particular will feel utterly satisfied with Mankell’s rendering of the changing moods of the area.
Overall this is a nicely rendered story with a sadly all to familiar lead character and story line but set in a well described and unique setting for it’s genre.
Surprise package
I was bought this book as a Christmas present. I had never heard of the author or the detective who is the main character.
However what an absolute delight. A real story about a detective in a small police force in Sweden. Normally he has to deal with petty crime so when a very violent double murder is uncovered our detective “Kurt Wallander” has a problem on his hands.
What is exceptionally good about this book is the development of the main character Wallander. His wife has left him, his father is on the start of suffering from dimentia and his daughter wont talk to him. This is story of a policeman working laboriously through what small clues there are, managing his private life, yet it is done with a very ydry humour through out the book.
Loved it
A Wallender fan
I have read most of the Kurt Wallender books and I just love them. I hadn’t read the reviews and was surprised to find that people seem to find the plots simple. I suppose we all look for different things in our crime books! For me it is the feelings that Wallender goes through in his cases. It is always as if he is drowning in his investigations and blindly trying to reach any sort of grounding to build on. He just seems much more believable than some superhuman detective who forsees everything and will need even more twists and turns from his also superhuman criminal mastermind for the story not to crumble.
I recomend this book, as well as sidetracked, the fifth woman and one step behind especially for those new to Wallander’s books!
