The Man Who Smiled

Depressed and world-weary after having killed a man in the line of duty, Detective Kurt Wallander returns from two years of wallowing in guilt to investigate the murders of a father and son, both prominent lawyers. His investigation takes the brooding Swede into an intricate web of deception and horror. Dick Hill's performance is a prime example of art that is so finely crafted that it draws no attention to itself. Hill rattles off Swedish character and place names as naturally as a native speaker, and he's beautifully understated as the gloomy Wallender agonizes over his personal failures. There are currently nine Wallender novels. This one, the fourth in the series, is guaranteed to have listeners looking for more from Mankell, Wallender, and Hill. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from July 24, 2006
First published in Sweden in 1994, Mankell's terrific fourth Kurt Wallender mystery opens with the kind of startling image typical of this internationally bestselling series (Firewall
, etc.): a lawyer, driving home through the fog, stops after he sees "a human-sized effigy" propped on a chair in the middle of a deserted highway. Gustaf Torstensson gets out of the car to investigate, is hit from behind and was "dead before his body hit the damp asphalt." The police accept the assailant's claim that it was an accident, but when Torstensson's son, Sten, is shot dead just two weeks later, the brooding Wallender, who's on sick leave and vowing to retire from the Ystad police force, decides to pursue the killer and resume his career. The chief suspect—a powerful, globe-trotting Swedish businessman who's the smiling man of the title—leads Wallender on an exquisitely plotted search for motive and evidence. Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order.