One Step Behind

At the beginning of this engrossing, cerebral crime novel, narrator Dick Hill's reading has a chilly, remote quality that seems in keeping with the Swedish environs where the book takes place. And surely that is part of Hill's clever approach in this work, in which series regular Inspector Kurt Wallander pursues a brutal killer who seems intent on wiping out young people for no greater sin than finding moments of joy. Hill's strategy becomes clear as the tensions rise, the emotions tighten, and the bodies accumulate, including one belonging to a close colleague. Hill's detachment eventually gives way with concussive impact, and he reveals himself as a master performer who has been unfolding a plan from the start. We have always been in expert hands. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

January 21, 2002
In his fifth U.S. appearance in this taut, intricately plotted series (The Fifth Woman, etc.), Swedish detective Kurt Wallander pursues a long, complex case sure to please those who like weighty police procedurals. Six weeks after three college students are murdered during a Midsummer's Eve party, their bodies hidden to prevent discovery, Wallander's secretive colleague Svedberg is found at home with half his head blown off. Wallander's persistent, occasionally brilliant, investigation points to a connection between Svedberg and the disappearance of the three young people. Soon after their bodies surface, a fourth friend, who was too sick to attend the party, is killed. More murders follow, with the exhausted, understaffed detectives just too late each time to prevent the next crime. Eventually the reader meets the killer, whose bizarre motive and methods the author gradually reveals. The dyspeptic Wallander, whose frazzled personal life is further impaired by the diabetes he ignores, works himself to exhaustion, sidestepping official procedure and making intuitive leaps to find the cold-blooded killer. The glum tone of the book, despite the setting during a warm and luxuriant late summer, reflects a crumbling Swedish society: government corruption is widespread; honest cops are disillusioned by abuses in high officialdom; rifts among social classes and between Swedes and recent immigrants abound. Mankell's writing is deadpan and stark, the plotting meticulous and exacting. (Feb. 28)Forecast:Though a bestseller in Europe with both film and TV adaptations to his credit, Mankell has so far failed to take off here. Alas, Scandinavian dreariness just doesn't seem to have broad appeal to American readers.