SPOILER ALERT!

Well, as a fan of Nordic noir and as someone who'd enjoyed episodes of the British Wallender TV series, I had expected more from this "classic". But I must say I was put off by Wallander as a person, not because he was flawed, but because I found the writing uncompelling and flat throughout. Mankell writes too frequently in the passive, with not enough dialogue for my tastes. I finished the book, but felt no interest or care whatsoever in its dénouement.

Moreover, I find I am quite sick of the hackneyed misogyny in so many of these male-penned novels. The description of Wallender's relationship with the lead prosecutor, as well as his dreams of the mysterious black woman who comes to his dreams, is quite off-putting and tiresome. It seemed almost expected that he would make a move on her and that she would eventually go to bed with him, although she did not leave her husband. Moreover, we learned nothing about any of the women in this novel, unless they were somehow useful to Wallender in completing some task or another.

I'm fairly sure I will not venture further into any of Mankell's works. ( )

My first Wallander, and definitely not my last. I love how terrible his indigestion is, and how he's always tired.

Also I didn’t expect action scenes, and this had action scenes! Pretty nifty! ( )

This was more of a procedural than I was expecting. There were two separate cases , both of which involved the social and political atmosphere of the country . There is a lot of somewhat gloomy character development of wallander, the detective. Will have to try more, kept my interest, but I like a bit of humor sometimes in my mysteries ( )

"There is no such thing as the face of a murderer"

"Justice is the pursuit of truth without end."

A solid start to the series. I was a little disappointed by the major drops in intensity. The mystery was sometimes lost in Mankell's realism, earning him the genre name of "police procedural" more than anything else. The thorough characterization of Wallander prepares him to be reused for story after story. I love this curmudgeony cop and will gladly return to the series. The Swedish politics around immigration is the pet topic of the book. And the author is forgiven of his "conservative" stance due to him nodding toward neutrality or multiple perspectives. His opinion was a bit on the nose sometimes. An enjoyable read, I hope the next book is a more intricate/thrilling mystery. ( )

Story: 7 / 10
Characters: 7.5
Setting: 7
Prose: 6 ( )