Rating: 
Summary: A Swedish Rebus?
Review: I read in a Times review that Wallander bore similarities to Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus. Well, having read just this one Wallander novel I can say that they both drink rather a lot, they both seem to find themselves getting involved in the action and wandering around with an increasing number of cuts and bruises. Broader comparisons between Mankell and Rankin can also be made. They are both gritty writers of crime fiction. This is a far cry from murdered vicars in quaint villages. Having never read a book set in Sweden before I was able to learn something of the climate, the landscape, and the 'asylum-seekers situation'. In other words, Mankell sets the scene well just as Rankin builds an incredible portrait/landscape of Edinburgh. There is a sober realism about Mankell's writing. The dialogue has no frills but is not empty of humour. Wallander's character is well-developed although at this stage many of the other detectives do seem to merge into one. Just like Inspector Rebus, he is clearly useless at relationships. His wife has recently left him, his daughter survived a suicide attempt and has now run away. He makes a groping lunge at a married lawyer during the course of this book and comes off with a stinging cheek. Yet, just like Rebus, we sympathize with him. We admire his determination to solve the horrific case of a murdered, tortured elderly couple in a small village. At this point though my positive comparison with the Rebus novels ends. The plot of Faceless Killers is much more simplistic than Rankin's novels. Rankins is able to interweave a myriad of storylines and events. 'Faceless Killers' has two or three plotlines at most. Rankin usually offers us the chance to see a variety of perspectives other than that of Rebus. Mankell sticks to Wallander almost the whole time, with the exception of the opening scene. Strangest to me was the way in which the first three-quarters of the book is held down tightly to the space of only a few days and then suddenly months pass by with the crime unsolved. I won't go into this further for fear of spoiling the story but the ending is disappointing after maintaining the tension so well earlier on. I will probably give Mankell a second chance and read the next one in the series. It is a well-written book but I personally do not read that much crime fiction so am very demanding on what I do read in this genre. After Ian Rankin it is hard to be satisfied. However, if you are a voracious reader of crime stories this should definitely be given a reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Police Procudural
Review: I really enjoyed this book. it is a fairly straightforward plot, but it is interesting nevertheless, and not without some twists and turns. character development is good; i certainly cared about Wallander. the best thing about this book is the haunted character of Wallander, the realistic nature of the story and its impact on the characters, a bit of swedish life and culture, and, best for me, its inside account of police procedure. i absolutely recommend this one for lovers of Rankin, Connelly, Connolly, Pelecanos, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Swedish Mystery with Guts
Review: I snatched this book from our "need to read" pile while bolting out the door for a several-day business trip and found myself stealing time between meetings to finish it. Set in rural Sweden, the story opens with the discovery of the especially viscious murder of an elderly farmer and his wife. The wife's last word, "foreign," doesn't give the police much to go on, but provides sensational innuendo for the local news media. Ystad police inspector, Kurt Wallander, pursues all leads while deftly avoiding enflaming Sweden's smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. Meanwhile, Wallander's messy personal life -- recently divorced wife, estranged adult daughter, and hostile, needy father -- add to the tangle. A yearning for a young, stunning, but married, new prosecuter adds romantic complications. Wallander drinks too much, takes too many risks, and gets battered, bruised, and beat up while pursuing all possible leads. There is the possibility that the "faceless killers" will never be found. The dreary, cold rainy Swedish countryside engulfs the story and adds a fresh twist to the typical urban-decay setting found in most whodunits.
Rating:
Summary: Clever plot and well-developed characters
Review: If you like police procedurals with real people instead of a plot with cardboard characters, Henning Mankell is your guy. His detective Kurt Wallander is a likeable, middle-aged fellow with various personal and family problems, plus having to unravel a really nasty murder. It takes the entire book to to do, and I was totally surprised at how the thing was resolved. Along the way, the story conveys something of the feel and spirit of Sweden, or at least the author's version of it. A point that amused me, as an American accustomed to cops who shoot first and think about it later, is the Swedes' awkwardness when having to find their pistols and go after a nasty character. I've read three of the Wallander books, and all are engrossing throughout. The author composes in Swedish, but the translations are uniformly good, at least as far as this non-Swede can tell.
Rating:
Summary: A Policeman's Lot is Not A Happy One
Review: It is always fun to find a new author to enjoy. I discovered Henning Mackell while discussing books with a friend who's reading interests are even more divergent than mine over cocktails in Bermuda. Not only did she suggest I read the author, she gave me the book to read the next day. A day and a half later I was a fan.Kurt Wallender is not your typical police detective and this is not your typical whodunit. It starts with a next door neighbor in a farming community noting that the sound of the night was different. The next door neighbor's horse was not whinnying. Looking more closely it appearred that the kitchen window was open on a very cold night. Looking more closely, it was clear that it was smashed in. Inside he discovers that the couple have been brutally attacked - the husband has sustained wounds that the M.E. says any four kinds of them would have killed him. His wife is alive, but barely. She has a noose arround her neck. Pretty violent stuff for a poor Swedish farming commmunity. Kurt Wallender has his own problems. His wife has left him. His teen age daughter has gone also. He is drinking too much and dreaming x-rated encounters with a black woman. He is acting chief and mounts the investigation into what seems to be a random crime with no purpose other than to kill. Despite his personal problems, he is a first rate detective and you are drawn along quite easily into what it must be like to really be in this line of work. It is a profession that has much less glamor than many novels give it, but it is also a profession that has exacting standards, required methods and sometimes when all else fails, luck and hunches help. The news of the case horrifies people and when word leaks out that the wife said the word "foreign" before dying, it opens a dark underside in the Swedish populace. Immigration in Sweden is a hot topic and refugees are held loosely in encampments. Threats start to come in against the refugees. One is assaulted. One is killed and a second hunt begins in parallel with the first. A Swedish KKK is on the loose. This is a well told story which will hold your interest and I suspect also interest you in the sequels which follow with Detective Wallender. What more can you ask for?
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant surprise
Review: Kurt Wallander is inspector of police in south Sweden. He is confronted with the double murder of an elderly couple. It seems that the murder is committed by foreigners and within no time all kinds of racist groups are starting to interfere with the investigation and a Somali refugee is even executed. This latter murder is rapidly solved, but the solution of the double murder takes much more time and effort, especially since the husband had a secret. A well-written police detective that shows that solving a crime is a combination of bright ideas, good collaboration and especially performing a lot of down to earth routine work. Kurt Wallander is a real person, not some kind of flimsy superhero. I did not know this detective series, but this is a certain invitation to read more of this author.
Rating: 
Summary: The Killers weren't faceless
Review: Much praise is given to this book, yet I like to say it is a sure remedy for insomnia sufferers. Yet, even though the book lacks in the art of spellbinding presentation, I cannot give it only one star and therefore settled in the middle, because the author tackles the "foreigner-problem" in a gutsy fashion, since it is a taboo subject in Europe. This problem, however, is changing the societies in Europe at the present; due to inexplicable laws European countries are forced to welcome asylum seekers, who are often the scum of the countries they leave behind, because they don't fit there either. Often these foreigners present the criminal element, the ones who skim off the assets of their hosts and live out their criminal fantasies.
European countries like Sweden, used to having practically zero criminality, are now swamped with crimes on a regular basis, and the police force is often faced with unsolvable atrocities, in this case double murder and torture. Henning Mankell describes the Swedish mentality, the almost naïve ways of his country's people in which his relentless police officer Kurt Wallander struggles to find the perpetrators. Gerborg
Rating:
Summary: Very Strong Debut Novel--Great New Mystery Series!
Review: Now this was a find. Recently, I was reading book reviews in
either _Booklist_ or _Library Journal_ and came across a rave for the latest Mankell translation, _One Step Behind_. When my next opportunity to order a few books came around, I put several Mankell titles on the list and _Faceless Killers_ is the first in his Kurt Wallander series. Mankell is a Swedish author and his books are translations and have been hailed as the first series to truly live up to the standards set by authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo and their Martin Beck mysteries. I can't comment on that, never having read a Martin Beck, but I sure enjoyed this book. As the story opens, an elderly farmer discovers that his neighbors, also elderly, have been attacked. The husband has been gruesomely tortured and killed and his wife left for dead. Before she dies in the hospital, her last word is "foreign." With anti-immigrant sentiment running high already, the last thing the police need is for this to slip out to the media, but someone in the department leaks the information and suddenly refugee camps in the area are being firebombed. When a Somali refugee is killed, seemingly at random, Wallander and his men have two difficult cases to untangle. This was a very strong mystery, with a great central character and careful attention to settings. Wallander is cut from the same cloth as John Rebus and Alan Banks. He's struggling with loneliness after his wife has unexpectedly left him and his close ties with his daughter have been severed. He has to deal with an aging, possibly senile, father and his attraction to the new female district attorney who is filling in on an interim basis, and who happens to be married. Plus, he's drinking too much and putting on weight due to a steady diet of pizza and fast food. Wallander is a compelling character who spends much of his time brooding about the state of the world and the state of his society and, interestingly, he seems to have some sympathy for the anti-immigrant mentality. He's concerned that just about anyone can come to the country and request asylum, even crooks and shady characters. And, the way the system is painted in the book, with officials unsure of where to locate specific refugees, etc., we can see how the task of the police is made much more difficult than it need be. But tracking down the murderer of the Somali refugee is his job and he does it, even when a former policeman seems to have some connection to the crime. A very interesting mystery and one that held my attention throughout. Even though the murders which open the book seem to be impossible to solve, Wallander will not let them go. He sticks to the investigation, which drags on for quite a long
time, and finally sees it through. I will definitely be reading more books in this series. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The best books ever written!!!
Review: The books about Kurt Wallander are the best ones ever written. Mankell has written about a cops personal side also. He isn't just the macho-guy that most of the cops are in mystery books. Once you start to read a Kurt Wallander book you just can't stop until you have finished it!!! BUY THEM!!!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting character with a simple plot
Review: This first book in the Kurt Wallander series revolves around a very simple plot. The "mystery charm" is not really there, but the main character, Kurt Wallander, is so interesting that you will be hooked to leran more. That is why I am giving this series at least one more shot at improving the plots!
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