I just finished reading the new Henning Mankell book, The Troubled Man , his final book about gloomy, depressive police inspector Kurt Wallander. Mankell is Swedish and his books are set in his native land. In this latest, Wallander is 60, has a new granddaughter, and is obsessing about his past and his future, his relationships and his mortality. As he searches for a his future father-in-law, a former submarine captain who has mysteriously disappeared, and broods about the failures of Swedish society, he also struggles with health issues and episodes of memory loss. I’ve only read a couple of other Wallander mysteries and this one was not my favorite – it’s a bit scattered and oh so somber. I may go back to the first in the series, Faceless Killers, to compare.
I have, though, watched both PBS series about Wallander that the library owns, Wallander: Sidetracked, Firewall
and One Step Behind and Wallander: Faceless Killer, The Man Who Smiled and The Fifth Woman. Each series includes three episodes that are condensed from individual books of the series. Starring Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, they are dark, moody, beautifully filmed mysteries.
~ Dori
Read it or Weep 