Customer Reviews

Firewall (Vintage Crime)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Maybe it's not a coincidence that the best police procedural series since the Martin Beck series also comes from a Swedish author. These deliberate, dark novels are not to everyone's taste, but if you liked Martin Beck, you'll probably like Kurt Wallander.

Firewall starts with two seemingly random events-- a reclusive computer expert drops dead in front of an ATM machine, and two teenage girls bludgeon and stab an elderly taxi driver to death. At first it seems that there couldn't possibly be any connection between the two, but the police investigation into the murder of the taxi driver is like kicking over an anthill. It seems as if a dozen incomprehensible things happen in rapid succession, including the killing of the prime suspect in the murder case. Inspector Kurt Wallander leads a dogged team of detectives in a search for the key to the baffling series of events, even though he has been accused of brutality toward a juvenile suspect and seems to be harboring a traitor among the cops on his team.

These cops work long hours, drink endless cups of coffee, and stop for numberless hamburgers and pizzas. But they also have home lives, do their laundry, take care of their sick kids, and struggle with car repairs and getting their errands done. Wallander, a divorced man in his mid-50's with diabetes and an advanced case of loneliness, balances action with thought, not all of it pleasant or useful. His resemblance is Martin Beck is strong, but this cop and his colleagues operate without the black humor that made Sjoewall and Wahloo's novels so fascinating. If society looked hopeless in the 1970's, it looks much worse in the late 1990's, and Wallander and his fellow cops see enough brutality and senseless violence to make anyone a pessimist.

The best thing is, however, that the story really works. After pages of relentless police work, including much attention to the efforts of a young hacker coopted to help the police break into a seemingly impregnable computer, the pieces start falling into place. The pace quickens, and the police keep getting closer, but
Wallander continues to make mistakes, not knowing how complicated the plot he is investigating really is. One realistic touch is that the book doesn't end with the climax, when the puzzle finally finds it solution. Instead, it meanders on for a bit to let the reader see the let-down at the end and the chance for Wallander to re-focus on his own life and priorities. The traitor on his team is still there. The mistrust of his superiors has not abated. But Wallander decides to continue to do his job because he hasn't any other option. It doesn't get much more real than that.

What a relief it is to read a modern thriller/police procedural whose characters seem real. Mankell's protagonist, Swedish police officer Kurt Wallander, is not a super-hero who outwits and outfights legions of bad guys. Nor is he as phenomenally lucky as the heros in many American thrillers. Wallander, a dedicated cop, has a believable internal life. His real-world personal problems include loneliness, distance from his adult daughter, and a threat to his position from an ambitious younger officer. His horrendously long hours make him feel exhausted; he gets frustrated with baffling evidence and failed plans. Yet he persists in trying to understand the connections between the deaths he is investigating. Different pieces of the puzzle appear at well-paced intervals during the story. There are surprises that don't fit theories. The conspiracy that emerges turns out to reach far beyond local events. Though the chief villain gets nailed at the end of the book, Mankell does not wrap things up in a neat package. The threat is still out there.

Subsidiary themes of the book include the vulnerability of our technological society, and resentment of the growing concentration of wealth. There are a few problems. Many of the Swedish names sound alike, making it difficult to separate some policemen and policewomen from others. Mankell's writing, translated from Swedish, sometimes produces short, choppy sentences. There is a peculiar fixation on checking the time. Nonetheless, this book rises far above most mysteries.

Henning Mankell is one the finest mystery writers in the world. He understands plotting, the building of tension and the pacing of a story. In terms of craft, he is right up there with P.D. James. Mankell's talent as an author explains why a series of books about a gloomy, middle aged detective from a small town in Sweden has developed an international following.

The one problem with such a strong writing talent is that it sometimes allows an author to camoflouge a weak and unbelievable plot line. Kurt Wallander is a detective in small town Sweden and yet he stumbles onto a conspiracy with world wide implications. The scale of this conspiracy is far too great for Wallander's provincial world. For this novel to work, it requires more than virtuoso writing. The scale of the crime must fit in the scale of the hero's world. This is a very well written crime novel but in the end, I found it unbelievable.

If you like police detective novels that have a dose of realism in plot and setting, the obsessions of Mankell's Inspector Wallander provide a fine antidote to the usual run of serial/maniacals. The mystery is composed of subplots that come together slowly until they quicken as the end nears. What drives the plot is a larger-than-life, computer-enhanced doomsday clock, but Wallander's family in and outside the office give a strong sense of the man who makes it all come together. The brooding and well-realized town where the story takes place seems like the home you always wanted to run away from.

When I read a thriller or crime story I do not expect much, but I do expect that the mysteries are unveiled, the riddles solved and everything makes some kind of sense in the end. Unfortunately this expectation remains unsatisfied by this book. The last chapter (40) is basically a record of all those questions that remain unanswered for eternity. It is fair to say that I feel cheated somehow, because all those parts were used throughout the book to keep my attention and were used to generate the thrill and suspense in the first place. Rarely felt so disappointed! (The story itself was not bad until chapter 40...)

This was my first Wallender mystery and I am totally hooked. I absolutely couldn't put it down. The story flies along and the plot turns are so very interesting! Mankell really knows how to tell a mystery story; some details are important, others aren't, so that the reader is truly guessing the whole time. New twists and events pop up so quickly that (as I already said) it's hard to stop reading!

The protagonist is a complex, intriguing, drinks a lot of coffee, mixes big-deal police incidents with getting his car fixed, etc. so that he seems very real.

My only complaint, and maybe this is just Mankell's style, is that here we have a plot zipping along at a fast pace, and then you all of a sudden you're through the climax and the book's over. The End. Maybe I'm too accustomed to the Hollywood crescendo but the climax really caught me by surprise, left me saying "that's it?" Plot-wise it was pleasantly satisfying, wrapping up what needed to be, and was clever enough, lengthy denoument even, but it just could have used some extra buildup or suspense right at the end.

Other than that...this is the best book I've read in awhile. Interesting, suspenseful, great techno thriller plot, complex characters. If you're looking for a new author here's one to try.

It's true that while the invention of cyberspace has made the flesh-and-blood world more efficient -- no matter where you are geographically, as several of the characters in this novel point out, you're always in the center of the world -- it's also made people and their institutions much more vulnerable. The story opens with the sudden death at an ATM of someone who is deeply involved in a worldwide plot involving computer networks and large financial institutions. Then two teenage girls stab a taxicab driver to death -- for the money, they say, though there's a great deal more to it than that. This sounds confusing, and it is. I suspect Mankell is not entirely comfortable with computers himself because his depiction of a young hacker and of what Inspector Wallender and his cohorts observe on the monitor is pretty shaky. Still, it's a pretty good story. Wallender is still a lonely man, searching for a viable port in his personal storms, and is betrayed not only by a woman but by one of his subordinates, someone he had thought was a friend. He comes close several times to chucking the whole thing, from frustration and despondency, but then his daughter, Linda, gives him a new focus: She's going to the Police Academy, following in her father's footsteps. There's more than one sort of "firewall" in this story. Not bad, but not one of the author's stronger efforts.

Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallander is back with another crime puzzle that demands that he use all his experience in police work as well as take chances, bend the police department rules a bit and depend on his own intuition. (Would he like the recently published book in the U. S. called BLINK I wonder?) Wallander is altogether likeable-- at least for me. He is bright, complex, vulverable and sensitive. He listens to "La Traviata" and Jussi Bjorling, misses the companionship of a woman, wishes he had a better relationship with his grown daughter and thinks a lot about his own mortality. At the age of 50, Wallander has no more life-altering decisions to make. And in a particularly poignant moment he thinks of an old friend who will soon be moving away. "Their friendship had come to an end. Or rather: they had finally discovered that it had ended a long time ago. . . Widen [his friend] was going to disappear from his life. Who was left who connected him to his earlier life? Soon there would be no one." The inspector has hit on a melancholy universal truth that most of us will experience if live to see middle-age-- and all this coming from a police officer in a mystery story. Wallander behaves the way we expect from characters in literary novels; but that is essentially what we have here-- in addition to a story about betrayal, rape, murder, international intrigue, terrorists, computer hackers et al that is no engaging that you literally cannot put it down.

The only thing cold about this thriller is the Swedish autumns.

There are two primary plot lines in Firewall--a potential crime and the personal life of Inspect Wallandar, the police lead on the case. Mankell's smooth writing allows the reader to keep pace with a detailed plot. The introduction of new characters into the story is always well timed, in that they continue to hold the reader's interest and are congruent with the the story line.

Inspecter Wallandar is a very human police inspector, struggling with loneliness, job anxiety, and retirement at some point in the future. His reflections on his personal relationships and career transcend both age and nationality.

The translation of this book from Swedish is appears to be seamless and is easy to understand with apparently no loss of local color. This is the first Inspector Wallandar book I have read, and is good enough to entice me to seek out the others.

Wallender is a veteran detective operating in a small police department in a southern Swedish town. He has become world famous and is portrayed with brilliance by Kenneth Branagh on the PBS Masterpiece Mystery series.
Firewall is one of the most intriguing page turners in the Wallender canon! A computer geek turns up dead at one of the twon's three ATM machines. Meanwhile a 19 and 14 year old girl murder an elderly cab driver with the use of a knife and a steel bar. How are the two incidents related?
Detective Wallender is assigned to the cases. He is 50ish and longs for retirement. Wallender also deals with a feud with fellow detective Martinson and his love life is in shambles. Daughter Linda is a student in Stockholm; he does not see his ex-wife Mona. He longs to revive his romantic relationship with a Latvian widow he met and feel in love with in the novel "The Dogs of Riga." During the telling of "Firewall" he will meet and be attracted to a new woman with lovely legs.
Firewall refers to an access blocking computer wall preventing hackers from obtaining computer information. It also refers to the emotional firewall existing in Wallender's relationships. The novel travels from Angola where we meet the mysterious man who is at the head of an international plot to control the financial markets of the world.
Firewall is set in a brooding, cold and atmospheric Sweden. It is long for a detective novel logging in at over 400 pages in the English translation by Ebba Segerberg. If all you know about Swedish detectives is derived from the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson you owe yourself a favor by reading Mankell's novels!