Read by Dick Hill
8 hours, 59 minutes
Published March 1997 by The New Press
Publisher's Summary:
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. 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.
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. 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.
My Thoughts: I've been hearing about the Kurt Wallander series for years (heck, I've even seen some the PBS adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh). When I was looking for an audiobook that was available immediately, I wasn't so sure that this was going to work for me, though. I didn't know how graphic it might be, how tense it might make me. Lately I've been drawn more and more to softer fare in books.
This one surprised me. I didn't find it overly graphic; which isn't to say that there's not some very brutal violence, but Mankell doesn't dwell on it or make it the focus of the book. Instead, Mankell spends a great deal of time focusing on developing his characters and the relationships between them so that while the tension is enough to pull the reader through the book, it is never overwhelming.
Wallander is a complicated man. His mother died when he was young, his father (an artist who has painted essentially the same painting 7,000 times and makes a living doing that) is beginning to suffer from dementia and never lets Kurt forget how disappointed he is that Kurt chose to become a policeman, his wife has left him, he and his daughter are estranged and Kurt is not entirely sure why, he drinks too much, he eats too much junk food, and he has no moral qualms with having an affair with a married woman. He loves opera, has very few friends, is devoted to solving crimes, and, in this book at least, has a real problem with immigrants (which makes it a timely read but didn't help me to like him).
Wallander screws up, puts himself in peril repeatedly, and doesn't solve the crime nearly as quickly as they do on television. Months pass between the night of the murder and Wallander and his team solving the case, but I appreciated that things didn't just fall into their laps - it felt much more realistic that way and allowed time to develop the relationships between Wallander and the other characters.
Will I read more Kurt Wallander? Definitely. Although I wasn't ready to listen to the next book right on the heels of this one, it won't be long because I don't want to lose my familiarity with these characters.
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