Eventually the reader meets the killer, whose bizarre motive and methods the author gradually reveals. More murders follow, with the exhausted, understaffed detectives just too late each time to prevent the next crime. Soon after their bodies surface, a fourth friend, who was too sick to attend the party, is killed. Wallander's persistent, occasionally brilliant, investigation points to a connection between Svedberg and the disappearance of the three young people. Six weeks after three college students are murdered during a Midsummer's Eve party, their bodies hidden to prevent discovery, Wallander's secretive colleague Svedberg is found at home with half his head blown off.

Alas, Scandinavian dreariness just doesn't seem to have broad appeal to American readers.Swedish detective Kurt Wallander pursues a long and complex case. 28)įorecast: Though a bestseller in Europe with both film and TV adaptations to his credit, Mankell has so far failed to take off here. Mankell's writing is deadpan and stark, the plotting meticulous and exacting. The glum tone of the book, despite the setting during a warm and luxuriant late summer, reflects a crumbling Swedish society: government corruption is widespread honest cops are disillusioned by abuses in high officialdom rifts among social classes and between Swedes and recent immigrants abound. The dyspeptic Wallander, whose frazzled personal life is further impaired by the diabetes he ignores, works himself to exhaustion, sidestepping official procedure and making intuitive leaps to find the cold-blooded killer.

appearance in this taut, intricately plotted series ( The Fifth Woman, etc.), Swedish detective Kurt Wallander pursues a long, complex case sure to please those who like weighty police procedurals.

One Step Behind by Henning Mankell