Sidetracked: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Paperback)

by Henning Mankell (Author), Steven T. Murray (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Told from the perspectives of both cop and criminal, Mankell's third Kurt Wallander mystery revolves around the veteran Swedish inspector's search for a savage serial killer who scalps his victims after delivering a fatal hatchet blow. The novel opens as Wallander is called to a farmer's field, where he helplessly witnesses a teenage girl's self-immolation. The suicide unsettles the inspector, who can't understand why someone so young would kill herself. As the police try to identify the young woman, the serial killer's first victim, a former justice minister, is discovered on a beach in a wealthy neighborhood. Three more people are found murdered and scalped, and other signs of violence suggest that the perpetrator is becoming increasingly agitated. Following standard procedure, Wallander and his crew try to link the four victims, all male, a difficult task because their lives never seem to have intersected. Using American profiling methods as well as his own intuition, Wallander struggles to make headway in the case. What he doesn't consider, and what readers know, is that the murderer isn't a man but a boy, who hopes to revive his catatonic sister by the ritual presentation of the scalps. Mankell's meticulously detailed descriptions of the inspector's investigationAand his often lyrical portrayal of Wallander's struggle to rearrange his thought processes in order to catch the criminalAare masterful. The author's treatment of modern themes such as juvenile killers and broken families adds richness to what is essentially a straightforward police procedural. But above all, the novel stands out for its nuanced evocation of even the peripheral characters. Winner of Sweden's 1997 Best Crime Novel of the Year, this is another terrific offering from the talented Mankell.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
A young girl spends a day almost catatonic in an isolated farm field, then immolates herself. Sweden's retired minister of justiceAa man with a pornographic interest in young girlsAtakes his usual evening walk on the beach and meets a murderer's axe. With these possibly connected cases on his plate, series policeman Kurt Wallander (Faceless Killers, LJ 12/96) and his team interrupt their personal agendas to identify the girl, expose unsavory personal/political secrets, and deal with the subsequent connected murder of an art dealer. Full of emotion yet cleanly written, apparently straightforward yet fraught with intriguing revelations, Mankell's latest mystery is strongly recommended.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: New Press (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565846117
• ISBN-13: 978-1565846111
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #834,809 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars horrendous, beautiful book, February 1, 2005

By	Linda Oskam "dutch-traveller" (Amsterdam Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sidetracked (Paperback)

Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police force in south Sweden has to solve his most challenging murder case yet: somebody is killing off elderly men using an axe to split their skulls and scalping them afterwards. It is clear that the killer is meticulously preparing his killings, staking out the victims and making sure nobody sees him. The team of policemen and -women seems to be always one step behind and even the profiler that has come to help them has problems coming up with a good profile of the killer.

What makes this book special is that the reader also gets the perspective of the killer: it soon becomes clear who he is and why he does what he is doing. This could be a major handicap as the book may loose most of its excitement of the "whodunnit", but here this is not the case. This is mainly due to the fact that Kurt Wallander is a full-fetched character with good and bad traits, doubts, hypochondric moments and moments of sudden,clear insight, making it a pleasure to follow how, in the end, he solves the case.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex psychological thriller, first rate murder mystery., August 7, 2000

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Sidetracked was first published in Sweden in 1995, and now with Steven T. Murray's able translation, the United States audience will be able to read this Scandinavian thriller/murder mystery. Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series is very popular in Europe, and Sidetracked won the Best Crime Novel of the Year award there. Sidetracked is the third Kurt Wallander mystery, following Faceless Killers and The White Lioness. Mankell currently lives in exotic Mozambique. Inspector Kurt Wallander works at the police station in Ystad Sweden. He is divorced, ready to go on vacation with his girlfriend Baiba, and is undergoing the uncertainty of a new police chief, possible reorganization of his department, and a rising caseload. His nightmare begins with the suicide of an unknown girl in a farmer's rapeseed field: "Afterward Wallander would remember the burning girl in the rapeseed field the way you remember, with the greatest reluctance, a distant nightmare you'd rather forget. Even though he seemed to maintain at least an outward sense of calm for the entire evening and far into the night, later he could recall nothing but irrelevant details. Martinsson, Hansson, and especially Ann-Britt Höglund had been astonished by his impassiveness. But they couldn't see through the shield he had set up to protect himself. Inside him there was devastation like a house that had collapsed." Wallander's life becomes more complicated as a series of brutal axe murders surface. The motis operandi is basically the same, but with subtle differences. Wallander becomes obsessed with stopping the murderer and at the same time identifying the poor girl who had appeared in the rapeseed field and killed herself in such pain. Meanwhile, the murders continue, until Wallander becomes aware that the killer might be focusing on him. Sidetracked is a complex psychological thriller and a first rate murder mystery. It is told in the epic saga style of Scandinavia, complete with the dark richness of Sweden. Wallander is human, with limited resources which he stretches for a higher ideal. He is a hero.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important book., August 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sidetracked: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Kurt Wallander Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The fifht book about Kurt Wallander is set on one of the most memorable swedish summers of the 90's, 1994. The weather was wonderful, and all of Sweden were watching the fabolous swedish succes in the soccer world cup in the USA. Therefore it's fortunate that Mankell chose this year as setting for what was to be the Wallander-series masterpiece. Everything the other books tries to be, this one is. It's a horrifying novel of suspense, as well as a sharp comment on the swedish society. Wallander's brilliand mind, which in the other volumes is a bit too brilliant, is here dulled by the tiredness and confusion that springs from the shrewdness of the killer they can't seem to catch. In the most memorable of summers raves the most memorable of killers. Because, without turning this into a spoiler, I have to add that the killer's what gives the book the final touch, and makes it not only a great detective story, but a great novel, to.