From Publishers Weekly
Set against the chaotic backdrop of eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mankell's intense, accomplished mystery, the last in his Kurt Wallander series (Firewall, etc.), explores one man's struggle to find truth and justice in a society increasingly bereft of either. Here the provincial Swedish detective takes on a probably fruitless task: investigating the murders of two unidentified men washed up on the Swedish coast in an inflatable dinghy. The only clues: their dental work suggests they're from an Eastern Bloc country; the raft is Yugoslavian. But their deaths mushroom into an international incident that takes Wallander to Riga, Latvia, and enmeshes him in an incredibly dangerous and emotionally draining situation, battling forces far larger than the "bloodless burglaries and frauds" he typically pursues in Sweden. In Riga, Wallander must deal with widespread governmental corruption, which opens his eyes to the chilling reality of life in the totalitarian Eastern Bloc: grim, harrowing and volatile. Wallander's introspection and self-doubt make him compellingly real, and his efforts to find out what happened to those men on the life raft makes for riveting reading. There's a pervasive sense of Scandinavian gloom, in Wallander and in the novel, that might be difficult for some American readers, but this is a very worthy book-a unique combination of police procedural and spy thriller that also happens to be a devastating critique of Soviet-style Communism.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Dick Hill's portrayal of Mankell's Swedish police detective, Kurt Wallander, is masterful. In this second book in the internationally acclaimed series, two murder victims are washed ashore in a lifeboat on the Swedish coast. Their Baltic origins lead the Swedish detective into a joint investigation with a Latvian policeman. The policeman's murder draws Wallander across the sea to a country just released from Soviet control. Hill's Latvian detectives have just enough of an accent for distinction, and his tone darkens astutely as Wallander begins spiraling deeper into the political underworld of the bewildering country he is reluctantly immersed in. The pacing as danger escalates is engrossing as the law-abiding policeman finds himself doubting, then being pursued by, former allies. D.P.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
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