Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries [Hardcover]

Henning Mankell (Author), Ebba Segerberg (Translator), Laurie Thompson (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Kurt Wallander Mysteries | Publication Date: September 22, 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.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The five stories in this outstanding collection from Mankell (Faceless Killers) provide glimpses into Kurt Wallander's early life as a policeman as well as paint evocative portraits of contemporary Swedish society. An unremarkable businessman is poisoned in The Man on the Beach but—in typical Mankell fashion—the case is larger, more complex and more interesting than it first appears. In the volume's best entry, The Death of the Photographer, Simon Lamberg takes studio portraits of weddings and children, but a couple of nights each week, he uses his darkroom to distort published photographs of politicians and newsworthy people for a macabre personal scrapbook. It's a bizarre hobby, but the cause of Lamberg's brutal, apparently senseless death is an even stranger puzzle. Like the Wallander novels, these stories rank among the finest police procedurals being written today. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In this retrospective collection, internationally best-selling Swedish mystery author Mankell proves himself a master of the short form. This five-story collection offers a look at how Mankell’s series hero, Inspector Kurt Wallander, came to be the cop he is. In “Wallander’s First Case,” Mankell flashes back to his hero’s first homicide investigation, an off-hours project undertaken while Wallander was still working as a Malmo beat cop. The collection’s title story moves forward in time, picking up Wallander, now the intuitive lead officer of the Ystad violent crimes unit. Wallander’s marriage, separation, and divorce are all examined as well as his strained relationship with his eccentric father and his evolving relationship with his daughter, Linda. Fans of the series will be most interested, however, in the extended portrait of Rydberg, Wallander’s beloved mentor and former colleague, who only appears tangentially in the novels. These stories will also serve as an excellent introduction to Mankell in particular and to Scandinavian crime fiction in general; significantly, the first two stories share much the same tone, style, and setting as the works of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Mankell’s great predecessors. The Wallander series, which Mankell believes should be subtitled “novels of Swedish anxiety,” are essential reading for all crime-fiction fans, and this collection adds an indispensable chapter to the saga. --Jessica Moyer

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; American First Edition edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565849949
• ISBN-13: 978-1565849945
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

167 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Birth of a Series, November 11, 2008

By 

Ted Feit (Long Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)

Kurt Wallander, the intuitive inspector, first came upon the scene as a 42-year-old detective with many years of experience in the first novel in the series. After four more novels, Henning Mankell realized that what was missing was Wallander's background. So he started to write several short stories to fill in the blanks. Three more novels in the series appeared before the five short stories in this volume were completed.

In the first short story, we find Wallander in Malmo as a uniformed patrolman who bumbles his way into the investigation into the murder of his next door neighbor, the beginning of his career as a homicide detective. It is during this period that he meets and weds Mona. The next story takes the couple to Ystad and the birth of Linda, their daughter. It is, of course, where he spends the rest of his career. The stories trace the development of Wallander's instincts as well as his divorce, relationship with his father and growing daughter.

All the characteristics of the novels in the series are present in these short stories. It is essential history and embellishes Wallander's personality. Also, the common thread in all the novels, the deterioration of society, runs through the stories. This book is Mankell in top form. For Mankell/Wallander fans, a must read, and highly recommended.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What is it about Swedish mystery writers?, October 31, 2010

By 

Mal Warwick (Berkeley, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Kindle Edition)

First (at least in my consciousness) there were the ten Martin Beck police procedurals of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, published from 1965 to 1975. Now we flock to bookstores and movie theaters to enter the world of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist, who sprang from the mind of the late Stieg Larsson in the captivating form of the Millennium Trilogy.

In between there was Kurt Wallender, the moody small-town police inspector created by another masterful Swedish writer, Henning Mankell. Wallender made his first appearance (in English) in 1997 in the novel Faceless Killers. Wallender lived on through seven other novels, the last of which, Firewall, appeared in English translation in 2002. (An eighth, and reportedly last, Wallender novel is due in 2011 under the title The Troubled Man.) The series has won numerous awards and gained a large audience in the English-speaking world -- deservedly so, in my opinion.

The Pyramid is something of an afterthought but no less worth reading than the Wallender novels. It's a collection of five stories that span the time from Wallender's rookie year on the police force until the period when, a mature and respected inspector, the crimes detailed in Faceless Killers took place. As he ages from his early 20s to his 50s, Wallender grows increasingly morose in the face of his dysfunctional family relationships and the senseless crimes he is called upon to solve. The Pyramid lays bare the roots of his problems. For any Kurt Wallender fan, it's well worth reading.

Mankell is a serious writer. Like Sjowall, Wahloo, and Larsson, he is a man of the Left, and his writing explores the changes in Swedish society that have come about under the impact of drugs, immigration, and the newly competitive political environment which has brought conservatives as well as socialists into power.

(From Mal Warwick's Blog on Books)

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Early Wallander mysteries, October 24, 2008

By 

james ward. lee (Fort Worth, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)

The Pyramid introduces reader to character they came to know in later Mankell mysteries. We learn much about why Wallender is depressed and how he views his role as a police officer. His relationship with his father, who succumbs to Alzheimer's, is introduced in the first story in the collection. The writing is as accomplished as in the later Wallander mysteries.