Sunday, February 27, 2011

Okay, I Get it, Sweden is Really Fucking Cold!

11.  Faceless Killers
Mankell's name has been all over the place since the incredible success of Stieg Larssen's Millennium Trilogy, and the other day I picked up one and recognized the name of his detective Wallander and so decided to give the first book a try.  It was a fine, pretty standard mystery, but I did think the ending fell a bit flat.  the truth is that I think I may have liked it better had I not read it on the heals of Theorin's Darkest Room.  Both have a bit of the aimless Scandinavian bloat, and it seems they all take place in the heart of winter with the below zero temperatures and brutal wind.  But this one just didn't live up to the pace of the other.  Although I read it in two days so I have to give it some credit, I just am not left with a great desire to pick up the next in the series or a real trust in Wallander. 

We see him after his wife and daughter have left him, his amount of alcohol intake is jarring, he has an odd meeting with a former best friend who he then leaves to flap in the wind, has a horrible meeting with his father and also leave him but in far more dire straits.  He forgets all the plans he makes with people, essentially assaults a colleague, and we are supposed to find him upstanding?!?  I can't imagine how hard it would be to live the life of a police officer but certainly in order for them to be effective in their job they must have a handle on themselves, and I am not sure Wallander does.  Maybe just seeing how he ends up would be enough to get me back to the series?  Guess we will see.

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