Inspector Wallander who is the sleuth in Henning Mankell’s novel is a casual being who doesn’t have the urgency or excitement of Holmes. He is prone to all sorts of human follies and foibles. A middle-aged and melancholic male detective who returns to his empty home every day. The home reminds him that he once had a family. “Every time he came home in the evening after a stressful and depressing workday, he was reminded that once upon a time he had lived there with a family. Now the furniture stared at him as if accusing him of desertion,” (The Troubled Man, 2009) In a way, the corruption and decay found in the hero is an echo for the corruption and decay of the society around him. The first novel which I read in the Wallander series was Sidetracked which was followed by Dogs of Liga and Faceless Killers. My fascination towards Swedish crime thrillers began with the Girl with Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson. When we read a series, we get so used to the characters and their life. We know the characters inside and out and it creates a kind of fascination. Maybe that’s the reason why Henning Mankell wrote nine novels which were all made into movies. The BBC series Wallander made the author famous in the English-speaking countries along with the translated works. This crime novel is about the deaths of three young Swedes and the death of Wallander’s colleague.
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