Wallander Mystery Series By Henning Mankel — The Dean of #NordicNoir

6 min readJul 2, 2020

Henning Mankel’s Kurt Wallander series is enjoyable in the same lines as English author Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse, Inspector Lewis) and American author Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch)

Slightly more gory, simpler villains (no grandeur ambitions of world domination — just plain & simple old-fashioned greed), very local and way low tech — quaint sleuthing, finely honed intuition and a dash of good luck.

Mankell is an adept thriller writer, and he excels at the crescendos and rhythms that sweep the reader along through his snow-scape. He describes the sounds of crime beautifully — writes NYJournal of Books.

A welcome diversion from my escapades into intergalactic sci-fi soap operas !
I just finished The Expanse !

The location and the motif is Swedish … brings a little bit of nostalgia — I used to work at Volvo, have Swedish friends and have visited Gothenburg and Stockholm a few times. I could recognize & enjoy the Swedish tinge in Henning’s writing …

Unfortunately Henning Mankell passed away in 2015

Like the detectives I had mentioned earlier, Wallander has his own personality that reflects the way a crime is solved; the cast of supporting characters add interesting colors and their own (Swedish) charm. I found the villains to be ordinary and not that memorable, victims of the events that unfold …

An amazon reviewer aptly captured the essence of Henning’s writing style “witty, slightly sardonic and grumpy style in the handling of the characters and for its perfect description of the physical context. The reader is in direct contact with the principals and the landscape from page one”

The story arc captures one’s imagination and keeps the reader engaged — you would want to finish the book and not distracted by daily trifles like family and work ! A good diversion during these times of the Covid-19 induced reclusion …

Usually something happens that disturbs a pattern, which in turn sets a chain reaction in motion that usually results in multiple murders … of course, we see it in reverse chronological order …

An interesting motif in all his books is the treatment of the RedShirts — the characters who get murdered very early. Mankell spins an extremely interesting dense story around those tiny characters that we feel extremely sad when they lose their life and we don’t want them to die at all ! This is akin to the characters in Henning’s favorite author John le Carré. [7/11/20]

BTW, the term RedShirt comes from Star Trek where the Captain is accompanied by some of his crew when they land in planets with alien species. Of course, the aliens attack and the story needs dramatic death to show their deadly capabilities. But we can’t kill the Captain or his Science Officer or the good Doctor. The crew who gets killed are the ones wearing red shirts. Hence the convention that if you land in a new planet with the Captain and you are wearing a red shirt, your death is imminent — usually in a very flamboyant fashion …

As I don’t want to add any spoilers, I will write first impressions here …

The reading order of the Wallander Series is straightforward, read the Pyramid first and then the books in the publishing order. Even though the Pyramid is 9th in the publishing order, reading the book first introduces the author, the style and a good background material on the main character — the then policeman and the future Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander …

Faceless Killers and The Road to Riga both are good reads. The road to Riga is much better.

Then I took a detour and read The Return of the Dancing Master — an excellent story !!

The story moves very well and the detective Stefan Lindman is very interesting — we could literally feel his agonies and ecstasies …

This book also has some musings on how the Swedish society is evolving …

The only hint I can give is — Pay attention to ALL the story arcs !

As The Guardian puts it “Nothing, it turns out, is black and white in a Henning Mankell novel — more a murky grey, the color of day-old snow”

This prompted me to veer away from Kurt Wallander and explore The Man from Beijing.

An interesting book and also a movie ! Unlike many book-to-movie attempts, this movie kept the essential story arc — I am interleaving the book and the movie … [7/6/20] Finally finished the book and the movie … An interesting experience … Lots of insightful observations about China — the book was written 13 years ago in 2007.

…

Before reading more of Mankell, taking a detour via Scalazi’s Redshirts !!!

This is the RedShirt I was talking earlier (even though I wrote that paragraph much later!!)

…

Will definitely be back for more Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander …

…

…

The White Lioness is next. As of June 11,2020, am at ~ 30%. Very interesting and fast moving … Has all the elements of a typical Henning Mankell mystery … Probably the best in the Wallander series …

From Germany & Beijing in earlier books, we move to South Africa !

…

Would love to hear from you, … of course, after you complete the series !!!

Before finishing the series, I got sidetracked into espionage … (blog here)

Back to Wallander …

One Step Behind is an interesting story

We do lose one of our own. Good suspense, excellent deduction plus human elements.

You literally walk miles in Kurt Wallander’s shoes, in fact live a month with him and his colleagues !

I like Firewall just for narrative style, the story is excellent too …

Mankell gives us enough glimpse into what is happening — short chapters into the world of the villains. We don’t know much, but enough to see where the police is not yet caught up with and the red herrings.

Of course, we are helpless, we can’t warn Kurt or his team !