Wallander seems to be almost exhausted most of the time and the detectives he works with are also equally fatigued. In the book Wallander does not use a mobile phone and the book tends to emphasise the back story - the loneliness and isolation of this detective more and also the vast isolation of the farming community in which he lives and works. The book is remarkably different from the TV programme with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, mainly in the fact that there is 20 years of time separating them. The identity of the killers is discovered on an evidence basis and is surprising even though I remember the details from the BBC TV series. The story steams on from one random clue to the next and from the discovery of the murders, to the final arrest of the murderers, it takes many months of steady toil and patient analysis of many clues and data, sometimes requiring travel to other towns to collect it. Unfortunately, an internal leak reveals to the press the last word of the woman and immigrants start getting attacked by fascist groups in Sweden. Wallander organises his detectives to check out the backgrounds of all the people involved and gives a press conference, as his boss is on holiday and he is the ranking detective. But with these very basic facts starts a very gripping police procedural of the highest quality. Wallander is at a complete loss as to whom could have perpetrated this dreadful crime, the dead victims were poor, they did not appear to have any valuables or cash in their possession and had been discovered by their equally poor neighbours, who had been their friends for many years and hadn't heard anything suspicious. Who could do such a thing and why? The victim's last word is hardly confirmation, as it could be interpreted in many ways. Wallander and all his detectives are profoundly shocked at the wanton cruelty of the killings. She is rushed to hospital but dies shortly after.īefore she passed away she uttered the barely audible word "foreigners", which Wallander took to mean was a clue to the identity of her attackers. The woman was tied to a chair but is still barely alive, a noose knotted around her neck. The man has suffered terribly before he died. An elderly, retired, farming couple lived there and they have been tortured in a most bloody, unspeakable manner. Inspector Kurt Wallander is called from his sleep to drive 20 kilometres to this desolate farm where a murder has been discovered. It is 5am on 7th January 1990 and in the middle of a bleak, bitterly cold winter on a Swedish farm in a very remote, rural location. Mankell, Henning - 'Faceless Killers' (translated by Steven T Murray) Review - Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
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