A review by saroz162
Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

4.0

Henning Mankell's first Wallander novel introduces us to the weary, self-doubting Swedish detective with a pacy double murder investigation. The crime is vicious, and the emphasis here is on Sweden as a changing world; Wallander constantly reflects on the horrific details that he would not have thought possible only a few years before. Wallander himself is slipping into a graceless middle age of divorce, bad eating and social anxiety, so both man and country are betraying their ideals. Mankell constantly infuses his writing (or, at least, the translated writing) with details that bring Wallander and his world alive as natural by-products of each other. The reader is invited to identify with the detective, not with sentimentality or pity, but with Wallander's own cold realization that all things fall apart. The mystery here is secondary, which for most of the novel isn't an issue; it does start to drag in the later chapters, only to very suddenly ramp up at the end. Taken as a crime novel, Faceless Killers isn't totally satisfying; there are mysteries out there that are simply constructed better, with a tighter grip. As the introductory portrait of a very believable man, however, it succeeds beautifully.