FACELESS KILLERS [Hardcover]

HENNING MANKELL (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: New Press (2002)
• ASIN: B000ZGW6QU
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries are global bestsellers and have been adapted for television as a BAFTA Award-winning BBC series starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Macallan Gold Dagger and the German Tolerance Prize, among many others. He divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Strong Debut Novel--Great New Mystery Series!, March 18, 2002

By 

Craig Larson (Maple Grove, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Faceless Killers: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Paperback)

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.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Swedish Series Debut, April 16, 2005

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Faceless Killers: The First Kurt Wallander Mystery (Paperback)

Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo invented the modern Swedish police procedural with their ten-book Martin Beck series, which ended in the late 1970s. Mankell picks up where they left off, introducing a new weary policeman with this first in the Kurt Wallender series, which was originally published in 1991. Just as the Martin Beck series was a lens for the authors' liberal view of a changing Swedish society, Mankell uses the crime novel as a way of addressing the dilemmas of modern Sweden. In this first book, an elderly couple in the southern coastal town of Ystad are brutally tortured and murdered, and the only clue is the word "foreigners." As there are a number of refugee camps in the nearby countryside, the issue of immigration and asylum becomes central to the story.

With the chief out of town, Wallender spearheads the investigation into the apparently motiveless crime, while at the same time struggling to cope with his disintegrating personal life. His wife has just left him, his teenage daughter is estranged from him, and his aging father gives new meaning to the word cantankerous. It doesn't help that Wallender eats junk food for meals and drinks himself to sleep. Soon a firebombing of a refugee camp increases the pressure for a quick solution, and then a Somali is shotgunned to death, making for even more problems. Despite the best efforts of Wallender's team, they just can't seem to get anywhere as the months drag on. The breakthrough that leads to the solution seems to come out of nowhere, but it works nonetheless.

The story is written in prose that can perhaps best be described as methodical, and when combined with the bleak weather, it ably captures the reserved nature of Scandinavia. The immigration issue is handled fairly well and raises difficult questions. Wallender, probably like most of his countrymen, finds himself troubled by the situation and straddling the fence in many ways. Alas, other than Wallender, who himself is a borderline parody of a middle-aged alcoholic mess of a cop, the characters aren't developed very much. One gets the sense that some, such as his father, daughter, and the new prosecutor will be developed in the future, but his colleagues all blend together in a faceless mass. This is a disappointment, for as sympathetic a character as Wallender is, he can't really carry the book on his own. Hopefully future installments will see a more well-rounded cast of supporting characters. Still, the procedural aspect is very good and the overall atmosphere will be interesting to those who like crime novels from foreign climes.

Note: The book was made into a 3 1/2 hour mini-series for Swedish television in 1994 which is apparently unavailable in English.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining procedural let down by poor translation, October 9, 2000

By 

"scottish_lawyer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faceless Killers: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Paperback)

Henning Mankell was a new writer to me, but having seen comparisons of his genre fiction with that of Ian Rankin I tried this novel.

This is the first in Mankell's Inspector Wallander series. Set in rural Sweden it is a police procedural. The opening chapters of the novel are gripping. It begins with a vicious murder to which Wallander is called. There are few clues, other than the last word of the second murder victim, "Foreigners". When news of this leaks out Wallander is drawn into a series of racially motivated incidents, and investigations around camps holding asylum seekers.

The tension is built up well in the first half of the novel, and the investigation of the murder, and the racial incidents, maintains high interest. The second half of the novel is more slackly paced, the denouement slightly disappointing.

Wallander is a fascinating character, and while the novel is third person narrative, so much is written from Wallander's perspective that the novel might as well be in the first person. Wallander is not the most likeable of characters. He has a strained relationship with his father and daughter, has recently separated, and falls into a number of stereotypes as the "loner" cop. Wallander's flaws, his racism (his observations on asylum seekers, for example), and his misogyny, for example, create a rounded well-drawn character. You may not like Wallander but so crafted is the character that his motivation is comprehensible.

However, the depth given to Wallander means that supporting characters suffer. Wallander's father - never satisfied, slightly ill-tempered, and suffering from a serious illness - has potential to be an interesting character, but seems instead to act as a checkbox to note Wallander's famly troubles. Others have a poorer fate. The prosecutor (and putative lust interest) Ms Brolin is one character that seems particularly flat. So ill-drawn are some of the characters that one wonders if a first person narrative may suit Mankell more, allowing Wallander the depth, and giving the excuse of Wallander's perception of others to justify their poorer treatment.

With this flaw, Wallander's work reminds me more of RD Wingfield's Frost series than Rankin's Rebus - where incidental characters tend to be fleshed out.

Most serious flaw in the novel, though, is the translation. Mankell's prose is rendered in a stilted manner, with a number of glaring grammatical problems. Mankell seems ill-served by a tin-eared translation.

This was an enjoyable novel, that started very well, but tailed off towards its conclusion. Wallander is a character I would like to see more of, and I intend to read other books of Mankell's. The series does hold much promise. But if you're looking for the new Ian Rankin try elsewhere (e.g. Denise Mina).