![]() ![]() ![]() Cases can be devised that draw both detectives and readers into new territory–social, political, intellectual, even philosophical. A procedural can become rich and interesting if the contexts and the characters are developed enough and the police’s discoveries aren’t all strictly literal. James has pointed out, nowadays it’s really the only way to write realistic mysteries, after all. Lots of very good crime novelists use the procedural form–as P. Because it’s a procedural, solving the case is a matter of following along as the police do their job, which necessarily makes us more passive as readers–we have to wait for their discoveries to be delivered to us. By the end the necessary information has been gathered and the pieces fitted together. How good is Faceless Killers by this measure? It’s fine, I guess. Perhaps the “very best kind” of “terrific” thriller doesn’t need great prose, just an interesting and well-constructed plot (a double-standard, of course, as if genre fiction should not be expected to be well written in every respect). He gets the job done, but do reviewers really have such low expectations for crime fiction qua fiction that something so flat gets so much praise? On the night of the murder they had been staying in a boarding house in Bastad. A man and a woman went on a robbery spree and then left the car in Halmstad. Naslund came back to work and succeeded in solving the problem of the stolen car. He found himself thinking about them in the plural.įor the next three days nothing happened. After the case meeting in the morning he had spent his time organising the hunt for the murderers in Lunnarp. that afternoon Wallander discoverd that he was hungry. Its starkness does seem suited, after a while, to the bleak landscape–both literal and emotional–of the novel, but that didn’t rescue it from seeming perfunctory, as writing, rather than artistic or literary: it often seemed as if Mankell was just working his way down a checklist of things to include or describe:Īt 4 p.m. Maybe the fault lies with the translators, but there is no elegance, no rhythm, no color to the prose at all: it’s just one statement after another. The style is almost unbearably plodding–not quite as dreary as the Stieg Larsson books (or the 1.5 of them I managed to wade through), but close. But I honestly can’t see why this book, or its author, would stimulate such enthusiasm. I’m not in a position to generalize about Mankell, or Wallander, after reading just one novel in this series. “An excellent thriller…A terrific novel.” ( The Independent ). “Beautifully constructed plots.” (New York Post). “A thriller of the very best kind.” ( The Times ). “An especially satisfying crime novel” ( Wall Street Journal). “Sweden’s greatest living mystery writer!” ( Los Angeles Times). Prevailing circumstances pull him down in a slump, and he begins to doubt everything, including his ability as a police officer.Īudio:DTS 6.1 ES, Dolby Digital 5.My copy of Faceless Killers is littered with snippets of praise, both for Mankell in general and for the book in particular. He sees little of his daughter and struggling to connect with their partner. Meanwhile, Wallander's personal life is a mess. When police accidentally leak it to the press blowing it up as "racism" in the media. Before she slowly walks away, she has time to whisper a word that sounds like "Aliens". An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife is badly injured but still alive at the man's side. Wallander is called out to an isolated farm, where he met with a terrible bloodbath. The films have made a success in English TV winter and spring of 2010. Adaptation of Henning Mankell's books are recorded in the beautiful southern landscape and interpretation of Inspector Kurt Wallander is much appreciated. ![]() The multiple Oscar ® nominee and Emmy Award-winning Irish actor Kenneth Branagh playing Wallander. ![]()
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