Kurt Wallander

12 primary works • 13 total works

Faceless Killers

by Henning Mankell

Published 20 April 2000

Kurt Wallander is a hard-drinking, opera-loving Swedish police inspector. His personal life is falling apart. His wife has left him, his daughter won t acknowledge him and even his ageing father barely tolerates him. Then he is forced to confront an appalling crime. An old couple are brutally murdered in their remote farmhouse and suspicion falls on the immigrant community. Right wing racists are stirred into action by reports of the murder in the press. In Wallander Henning Markell has created an old-style policeman obliged to come to terms with a modern Sweden riven by violence and racial tension. In the first of the acclaimed Wallander novels, he mixes the elements of American noir fiction with a very European sense of melancholia and mortality. It is a world where crimes are solved as much by tireless drudgery as by flashes of inspiration and where truth, although still worth seeking, is elusive.

The Dogs of Riga

by Henning Mankell

Published 18 October 2001

Sweden, winter, 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team receive an anonymous tip-off. A few days later a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead.

The dead men were criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect. Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea, to Riga in Latvia, where he is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police surveillance, scarcely veiled threats, and lies.

Doomed always to be one step behind the shadowy figures he pursues, only Wallander's obstinate desire to see that justice is done brings the truth to light.

The White Lioness

by Henning Mankell

Published 11 June 1998

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award In peaceful Southern Sweden Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team are called in to investigate. As Inspector Wallander is introduced to this missing person's case he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer and the origin of the crime. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela has made his long walk to freedom, setting in train the country's painful journey towards the end of Apartheid. Wallander and his colleagues find themselves caught up in a complex web involving renegade members of South Africa's secret service and a former KGB agent, all of whom are set upon halting Mandela's rise to power. In an increasingly globalised world Wallander and his team are faced with international terrorism which knows no frontiers - they must prevent a hideous crime that means to dam the tide of history.

Man Who Smiled

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 September 2005

A disillusioned Inspector Kurt Wallander is thrown back into the fray when he becomes both hunter and hunted in this adventure from the pen of Sweden's master of crime and mystery. Crestfallen, dejected and spiralling into an alcohol-fuelled depression after killing a man in the line of duty, Inspector Kurt Wallander has made up his mind to quit the police force for good. When an old acquaintance, a solicitor, seeks Wallander's help to investigate the suspicious circumstances in which his father has died, Kurt doesn't want to know. But when the solicitor also turns up dead, shot three times, Wallander realises that he was wrong not to listen. Against his better judgment, he returns to work to head what may now have become a double murder case. A rookie female detective has joined the force is his absence, and he adopts the role of mentor to her as they fight to unravel the mystery. An enigmatic big-business tycoon, who hides behind an entourage of brusque secretaries and tight security, seems to be the common denominator in the two deaths. But while Wallander is on the trail of the killer, somebody is on the trail of Wallander, and closing in fast.

Sidetracked

by Henning Mankell

Published 30 January 1998

His long-awaited vacation interrupted by two deaths, Inspector Kurt Wallander begins trying to piece together how the brutal murder of a former minister of justice is related to the self-immolation of an unidentified young woman.

The Fifth Woman

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 January 2000

Inspector Kurt Wallander is home from an idyllic holiday in Rome, full of energy and plans for the future. But when he investigates the disappearence of an elderly birdwatcher he discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder - a body impaled in a trap of sharpened bamboo poles. Then another man is reported missing. And once again Wallander's life is on hold as he and his team work tirelessly to find a link between the series of vicious murders. Forever battling to make sense of the violence of modern Sweden, Wallander leads a massive investigation to uncover a brutal killer.

One Step behind

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 January 1999

It is Midsummer's Eve, three young friends gather in a wood. In the still-sunlit Scandanavian dusk, they don costumes joyfully to enact - or so it appears to an unseen observer - a kind of masque. The hidden watcher soon brings their performance to an end. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect. Three bullets, three corpses. The murderer then carefully photographs the grisly tableau. The Ystad police station meanwhile is experiencing a summer lull, indeed Inspector Wallander is at last at liberty to attend to - albeit reluctantly - his deteriorating health, but his peace of mind is shattered when one of his colleagues is murdered. An unknown killer, seen by no-one, is on the loose, and the police's only lead is a photograph of three dead young people in costume. Forced to dig more deeply than he would have wanted into the personal life of one of his colleagues, Wallander's investigation reveals something none of his team could ever have imagined. However, they remain tantalisingly, terrifyingly one step behind the lethal progress of a killer Wallander would have to suppose was deranged if his methods were not so meticulous and his victims so clinically targeted.

Firewall

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 January 1999

The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander.

From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the seventh riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.

A body is found at an ATM the apparent victim of heart attack. Then two teenage girls are arrested for the brutal murder of a cab driver. The girls confess to the crime showing no remorse whatsoever. Two open and shut cases. At first these two incidents seem to have nothing in common, but as Wallander delves deeper into the mystery of why the girls murdered the cab driver he begins to unravel a plot much more involved complicated than he initially suspected. The two cases become one and lead to conspiracy that stretches to encompass a world larger than the borders of Sweden.

Before the Frost

by Henning Mankell

Published 2 September 2004

In woodland outside Ystad, the police make a horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, the pages marked with scribbled corrections. A string of macabre incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, have been taking place, and Inspector Wallander fears that these disturbances could be the prelude to attacks on humans on an even more alarming scale. Linda Wallander, in preparation to join the police force, arrives at Ystad. Exhibiting some of the hallmarks of her father - the maverick approach, the flaring temper - she becomes entangled in a case involving a group of religious extremists who are bent on punishing the world's sinners. Following on from the enormous success of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, Henning Mankell has begun an outstanding new chapter in crime writing.

The Pyramid

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 September 2008

When Kurt Wallander first appeared in Faceless Killers back in 1990, he was a senior police officer, just turned forty, with his life in a mess. His wife had left him, his father barely acknowledged him; he ate badly and drank alone at night.
The Pyramid chronicles the events that led him to such a place. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat whilst trying to solve a murder off-duty; witness the beginnings of his fragile relationship with Mona, the woman he has his heart set on marrying; and learn the reason behind his difficulties with his father. These thrilling tales provide a fascinating insight into Wallander's character, and demand to be read in one sitting. From the stabbing of a neighbour in 1969 to a light aircraft accident in 1989, every story is a vital piece of the Wallander series, showing Mankell at the top of his game. Featuring an introduction from the author, The Pyramid is an essential read for all fans of Kurt Wallander.

The Troubled Man

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 January 1999

When Kurt Wallander is called into the case of the disappearance of a retired naval officer, coincidentally his daughter's future father-in-law, he becomes embroiled in a story of Cold War espionage.

An Event in Autumn

by Henning Mankell

Published 1 January 2014

Some cases aren’t as cold as you’d think

Kurt Wallander’s life looks like it has taken a turn for the better when his offer on a new house is accepted, only for him to uncover something unexpected in the garden – the skeleton of a middle-aged woman.

As police officers comb the property, Wallander attempts to get his new life back on course by finding the woman’s killer with the aid of his daughter, Linda. But when another discovery is made in the garden, Wallander is forced to delve further back into the area's past.

A treat for fans and new readers alike, this is a never before published Kurt Wallander novella

Wallander's First Case

by Henning Mankell

Published 28 August 2014

Kurt Wallander is twenty one and new to the police force - and he won't let anything stand in the way of solving his first murder case

Wallander finds his neighbour dead: a revolver in his hand, and a bullet through his head.

Suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the apparently open and shut case of suicide, Wallander starts an off-the-books investigation - only to find that following his instincts is a very dangerous thing to do.

Discover the case that began Kurt Wallander's career - first published in The Pyramid, a collection of short stories featuring Wallander.

OUT NOW: An Event in Autumn - a new, never before published Wallander novella.