Recently read: Henning Mankell’s The Fifth Woman

I love these police procedurals written by this award-winning Swedish author. His detective, Inspector Kurt Wallander of Skane, is dedicated, likable, intelligent, and fraught with angst. He and his fellow officers must sort through the baffling and gruesome murders of a series of men who appear at first to have no enemies. Clues are sparse at first. We the readers are allowed glimpses into the murderer’s life, but many sleepless nights must pass for Wallander and his team before they can identify and finally capture the murderer. I enjoy all Mankell’s books, which are also translated beautifully. Each novel is worth reading on its own, but if you can start with the first one (Faceless Killers) and proceed chronologically, you can follow Wallander’s personal tribulations more easily. I like having these insights into life in modern Sweden, and the countries that surround it. The only complaint I have about this book—and it isn’t a factor in any of the other five Mankell books I’ve read—is that one series of clues that seems to be a subplot just peters out by the end.