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Faceless Killers: The First Kurt Wallander Mystery |  | Author: Henning Mankell
Creator: Steven T. Murray
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $3.22
as of 9/9/2010 04:33 MDT details
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Seller: bulldogbooks8
Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 3143
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 1400031575
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.7374
EAN: 9781400031573
ASIN: 1400031575
Publication Date: January 14, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
If you remember with pleasure those dark and gloomy Martin Beck mysteries by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, you'll be glad to plunge into the first of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender mysteries to appear in English. Wallender's personal life can occasionally seem more depressing than even a provincial Swedish detective should be asked to bear, but his investigative skills are strictly first rate. And Mankell's story of the brutal murder of an elderly farm couple uncovers an unusual aspect of life in modern Sweden--a streak of fear and prejudice against the many newcomers from Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe who have sought asylum there.
Product Description
First in the Kurt Wallander series.
It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.
Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
 Wish it were shorter August 22, 2010
H. Huynh (CA, USA)
After Dragon Tattoo, I was looking for some other Swedish writers to read and found this heavily promoted writer. So I started with his first book of the protagonist, Kurt Wallander. Boy, was I disappointed!
After the first opening chapter, which was decent setup, the story went nowhere, with nothing really interesting happened. We followed Kurt on his daily routines with some excruciating details that did not help the plot. In fact, this book should have been shortened to a short story for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Then it may have been more intriguing.
Kurt Wallander was not a very effective detective, in fact, he reminds me of Pink Panther, with his bumbling ways. To boost, his moral values are not that high either. It does not compel you to identify with him. Of course, some protagonists are not perfect but they make you feel for them. This one you just don't.
The writing style is flat, in part it may be because of the translation, but I can't imagine it could be much better in its original language. Compared to Michael Connelly, Mankell is like a sorcerer's apprentice.
I am done with Mankell. Back to Connelly.
 A little to fast. August 13, 2010
Hooven Gamer
As an avid reader I was looking for a book series that resembles the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. I bought the beginning of the Wallander series because that is what amazon recommended. I do not believe that this series is anything near the GWDT series. However, I still enjoyed this book just the same. The book keeps you interested and reveals details that make you suspect different people at all times. I liked this book enough to read books 2 and 3 and I just bought book 4. My only problem with this series so far is that the pace is much TOO fast. In one sentence it states that Wallander ate a hotdog. The very next sentence will state he ate it so fast taht he had diahrehea and was on the toilet for an hour. The book just seems to skips hours of time within paragraphs.
Overall the series is good but if your like me and are looking for a title like TGWTDT then try reading In the woods or the likeness by author French.
 Murder Served Up Cold August 13, 2010
Island Dreamer (Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii)
This story takes place in the winter of 1990 and is the first in Mr. Mankell's Kurt Wallander series. It starts out with a brutal murder in a small Swedish town. A farmer is killed for apparently no reason, his wife found with a noose around her neck. She dies the next day, but not before saying a foreigner was responsible for the crime. This is bad news for Police Inspector Wallander, because there is a refugee camp outside of town and there is a racist element that would like to see them seek asylum somewhere/anywhere else.
Someone calls Wallander at home, tells him if he does not bring the foreigners to justice by Saturday that he will. Then someone with a shotgun blows the head off one of the refugees. Now the pressure is really on Wallander to solve the case, before there are more deaths. And on top of this pressure his bosses are on his case, his wife has left him, his daughter doesn't want anything to do with him and his aging father is making his life miserable. Any wonder the man drinks too much.
This is my first Mankell book and I'm glad that I picked the first one in the series. How wonderful to discover a writer this way, with so many more of his books to look forward too. Mr. Mankell draws very believable characters and has his setting down pat. I shivered in the blistering wind of a cold Swedish winter, even though I was toasty warm under a heavy quilt thousands of miles away. And I suffered frustration after frustration with Inspector Wallander as he struggled to overcome obstacle after obstacle to finely solve his case. This is just a super book.
 Unbelievably bad August 12, 2010
Cecilia E. Kirk (Brooklyn, NY)
This is my fourth Henning Mankell and it might be my last. I honestly felt it read as if he'd written it in his sleep. The writing is lazy and perfunctory, the plotting boilerplate. Maybe I've read too many in a row, but I'm starting to feel Mankell uses certain stock phrases/ideas in his mysteries and if he's not inspired, just plugs them in haphazardly. One is, "He didn't know what had happened to Sweden. There was a new order now and he would have to adjust." Another is, "He would have asked for more recruits but the department was too underfunded." There's nothing wrong with these themes but they're starting to appear word for word from one book to the next. (I've just paraphrased them here.)
But the main issue is that this novel felt so uninspired from a writing point of view. The characters didn't seem to engage Mankell so they weren't drawn in the detail he normally uses. Consequently the story didn't become interesting. Other aspects felt uninspired too -- the editing is terrible, with many egregious typos in my edition. The translation felt even clunkier than usual. It was hard to keep my mind on the story because it seemed so phoned-in. And this is coming from a Mankell fan.
Mankell is no Larsson, but.... July 27, 2010
Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is Henning Mankell's first Kurt Wallander crime novel, a case his Swedish detective handled in 1990 when he was 42 years old. But after finishing eight full-length novels, Mankell wrote five short stories, collected in The Pyramid, which describe pre-1990 cases since Wallander started as a police patrolman.
I turned to this Swedish crime writer after reading Stieg Larsson's exceptional trilogy involving Lisbeth Salander because of publicity claiming that those who enjoyed the Swede Larsson's marvelous books will enjoy Mankell. I found I had several problems with the Mankell books. First, as Mankell realized, "facts" about Wallander's life mentioned in The Pyramid are different than in this volume, and this is somewhat annoying, although it does not ruin the story if one thinks that this is a somewhat different character. Second, Mankell is a totally different writer than Larson. Larsson's books are far more dramatic and proactive, with more unusual and interesting characters, and suspense that never lets up. Larsson's people move with emotion and determination, driven by hate and desire and revenge. Mankell's stories move at leisurely pace, driven, so it seems, by fate, the weather, by a man just happening to come into the police station, a man who neither Wallander nor his staff knew about. Mankell fills his tales with information that is unrelated to the story, such as what sweater Wallander decides to wear because of the outside temperature, feelings of loneliness, worry about his daughter, and that he needs to stop during his driving to pee.
Nevertheless, although different, Mankell's books are good. This case involves the murder of an old man and his wife, an old woman, who live in near isolation on a farm. They have a horse that is apparently fed by the murderer or murders after the couple is killed. A rope is tied around the wife's neck for no purpose; it has a knot that is clearly used outside of Sweden. The wife lingers before she dies long enough to say "foreign."
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
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