In this the 6th book of the Wallander series, our hero has just returned to Ystad from Rome with his ailing father as the story opens, and it seems he is just in time to get to work on an incredibly brutal crime. A man is found impaled on sharpened sticks in a pit. As usual in a Mankell novel, this is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of a number of cruel and torturous murders. While Wallander's style is to thoroughly examine every aspect of these crimes, there is a move afoot among some of the public to form a citizens' militia, making the job of the police even harder and putting them under a great deal of pressure to catch the murderer. But these are no ordinary crimes and their perpetrator no ordinary murderer -- and Wallander and his team have their work cut out for them.

Mankell's excellent writing will keep you reading until the end. In his hands, Wallander becomes quite real, and you can clearly see that he is a flawed but steady individual, an excellent investigator and a workaholic, who is always pushing his team to work harder. Mankell's plotting is exquisite and believable, and the author manages to capture the nuances of a disgruntled public and a Sweden that is changing rapidly and not always for the better.

The Wallander series overall is excellent; one of the best out there. I would highly recommend this book (as well as the series) to anyone who enjoys great crime writing in general and Scandinavian mystery novels in particular. Do not let this book be your introduction to Kurt Wallander -- defintely start with the first one in the series and read them in order.

Buch war brutal gut aber gibt es in Schweden nichts außer belegte Brötchen zum Essen???

روان و خوشخوان با نقدی بر جامعه سوئد که بر جذابیت های آن اضافه می کند. متاسفانه ترجمه خیلی خوبی ندارد و کمی اذیت می‌کند.

I wasn't expecting to upgrade the rating on this one partway through. Don't get me wrong, it was a solid 4 stars. But I've often found the Wallander series to be a little exposition heavy. We spend a lot of time in Kurt's head.

In this book, some of my biggest beefs with the series suddenly came together for me (yeah, I'm a little slow) and I think I get it now.

I read these as police procedurals. Which, they are. We follow Wallander and his team as they investigate murders. But underneath that, we have political commentary (for a book written in 2000, much of it is eerily relevant 26 years later). We have Kurt's struggle to maintain balance in his life between work, his daughter, his father and other relationships.

And we have some overarching themes through the book. I don't want to give any spoilers so I won't go in depth, but as in previous books, you're left wondering who really is the victim, who is the perpetrator and how so many people can actually be both.

Loved it. And I should probably go back and read 1-4 again (5 was recent enough that I probably don't need a refresher It was probably the proximity of 4&5 that let me get more out of this one)

Tengo muchos sentimientos encontrados con esta historia. Pero me gustó. O sea, probablemente hay sesgos de género pero sí me llega mucho cuando toca estos temas Mankell. Es un señoro muy agradable que realmente lo intentó. En esta entrega el detective Kurt Wallander se enfrenta a la violencia de género en todo su esplendor y sobre todo a esa fantasía que muchas tenemos de venganza. ¿será que es posible que una mujer vengativa pueda ser un monstruo o simplemente una víctima más del sistema en el que nos movemos?

Seride bir yerden sonra her kitap için serideki en iyi kitap diyerek kendimi tekrar ediyorum. Ama üçüncü kitaptan itibaren Mankell muazzam romanlarla devam etmiş seriye. Beşinci Kadın da şok edici bir sahneyle açılıyor. Afrika’da işlenen cinayetle İsveç’te bir cinayet dalgası başlıyor.

Polisiye olduğu için dikkat etsem de spoilerdan çekinenler reviewi okumayı es geçebilir. Wallander nihayet babasıyla Roma tatiline gitmiştir. Babasıyla seneler sonra yakaladığı yakınlığı pekiştiren bir tatil olur. Akdeniz sıcağı ve babasıyla olan iletişimleri sayesinde Wallander keyifle döner ama her şey yine karışmıştır. Polisiye kurgusu üst düzey. Kuş gözlemciliği yapan, şiir yazan, tek başına yaşayan yaşlı bir adam kendi arazisinde açılan bir çukurda kazığa oturtulmuştur. Araziyi ararken gördükleri manzaradan tüm dedektifler etkilenir. Yavaş ve çok acılı bir ölüm görürler. Bunu bulduktan sonra boş zamanlarında özel dedektiflik yapan bir çiçekçi öldürülür. Öldürülen erkekler arasında bir türlü bağlantı kuramazlar. Devamının da geleceğinden korkarlar.

Kitap dört bir yandan garip ipuçlarının bulunmasıyla devam ederken hiç çekinmeden katilini de anlatıyor. Katilin gizlendiği romanlar değil. Hatta bazı romanlarda katili kimliğine kadar biliyoruz. Mankell katilin motivasyonu konusunda okuru merakta bırakıyor. Katili aramaktan çok neden cinayet işlediğini anlamaya çalışıyoruz. Mankell en bireysel görünen suçların bile sistem tarafından tetiklendiğini gösteriyor. Bu romanda da katilin çok vahşice planladığı birkaç sahne var. Fırın sahneleri okuyan herkesin aklına kazınacaktır sanırım.

Roman katil bulunduktan sonra çok daha anlamlı bir hale geliyor. Wallander çok sevdiğim bir dedektif. Hayatıyla başa çıkmaya çalışması sıradan insanların yaşam uğraşından farklı değil. Bu sıradanlıkları onu sevdiriyor. Gerçekçiliğe takıntılı okurların tanışması gerek. Katile yaklaşımı da okumaktan çok zevk aldığım kısımlar oldu. Bu sefer sistemin gazabına uğrayan kadınları anlatan roman soluksuz okutuyor kendini.

Jedno 200 stranica predugačka, meni ne baš napeta ali zanimljiva premisa.

The Fifth Woman is the sixth in Henning Mankell's series of books featuring the morose Swedish detective Kurt Wallander, and in this one I felt that he finally hit his stride. It was well-written (also well-translated which was important since I was reading it in English) and kept the action moving, which kept me turning those pages. It was interestingly plotted and featured a goodly number of red herrings, some of which were never explained.

By now, we are used to the fact that Wallander is a severely depressive personality who also suffers from hypochondria. He's always imagining he's coming down with something, a common cold, a heart attack, or whatever is the flavor of illness at the moment. But at the beginning of this book, we see a different Wallander. He has made a trip to Rome with his aged father who suffers from the beginnings of Alzheimer's. It is a trip that his father had long wanted to make and that had been long postponed. Both of them understand that it will most likely be their last trip together, but it is a happy time. They grow closer together and Kurt comes home with a Roman tan and a brighter outlook on life.

He decides that he needs to make some changes. Perhaps he will buy a house, get a dog, and finally try to persuade the woman he thinks he loves, Baiba, to move from Riga and live with him. But before he is able to act on that, a man is reported missing and a few days later is found dead, impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes in a ditch behind his farmhouse. The chase is on once again and, with it, all of Kurt's doubts and insecurities return.

Then another man is reported missing. He was thought to be in Africa for two weeks, searching for orchids, but when he doesn't return on time, police discover that he never actually caught his flight out. A few days later, his emaciated and strangled body is found tied to a tree in the forest. It's beginning to look like Wallander's team may have another serial killer on its hands.

Kurt's work is suddenly complicated when his father unexpectedly dies and he is overcome with grief and regrets, but after some time off, he returns to the investigation. No real progress has been made in his absence.

When a third man is found dead in a weighted sack in a lake, the investigative team begins to realize that they are up against a very determined killer who seems able to leave no clues. Moreover, there seems to be nothing linking the murder victims. The highly intuitive Wallander doesn't buy that, though. He knows there must be a link and the key to finding the killer is in discovering that link.

Granted, the actual manner of the killings and the plot which allows the killer to accomplish them is a bit far-fetched. Still, Mankell has obviously planned it as meticulously as his obsessive killer has planned the "executions" that are carried out. For these are executions in the killer's mind and the impetus for them relates back to the prologue of the book which finds a Swedish woman in Africa who was seemingly randomly killed in the political violence there and her murder then covered up by the police.

This is a complicated tale, but, at its heart, it is one in which we see that Kurt Wallander may finally be able to shake off his constant depression and move ahead with his life. It'll be interesting to see whether that is borne out in the several books which follow this one in the Swedish police procedural series.

Mais um excelente romance policial de Mankell, e um reencontro com Kurt Wallander, um dos melhores 'heróis' de literatura policial que conheci. Infelizmente a tradução do livro é tão má que dificulta a própria leitura. Como é que uma editora deixa sair um livro tão mal traduzido, com frases incompreensíveis, com erros crassíssimos?!

Good crime novel. Page turner plot and the Wallander character is always compelling.

Много ме измъчи тази книга. Дотолкова, че - (цитирам Лу) - от един момент нататък ми се изпари желанието да разбера кой е убиецът.
Прекалено разтеглена е книгата, адски мудно и бавно разследване, множество повторения на клиширани изречения в текста, които се набиват на очи и след n-тото им използване стават не досадни, ами направо отчайващо свръх нелепи и скучни. Да не говорим за елементарни пропуски в самото разследване; явно съм "разглезена" доста от CSI, Картър и Чайлд, но това е още една черна точка за книгата. Единствено главният герой ми беше симпатичен; поне той е изграден добре, но това е единственият плюс, който отчитам за книгата.
Не може в един криминален роман, който се предполага да държи в напрежение читателя, от самото начало да са ясни и мотивът, и убиецът. Не, че не може, но не по този плосък, съшит с бели конци начин.
И разтеглено, разтеглено, развлачено и разлято в безсмислените 600 страници. Мога да си представя ако майстор в жанра като Картър беше написал тази история. Щеше да ми отнеме една нощ да я прочета, а не един месец.
Давам две звездички само заради героят Валандер.

One of the best Kurt Wallander books. It kept you guessing all the way through. An odd murder occurs at an isolated farm where an elderly birdwatcher falls into a pit of bamboo spikes. A florist is kidnapped and missing. What do these men have in common? For the first half of the book we, the readers, know that the killer is a woman, but the police are sure it is a man. The threads weave with several red herrings (it is Sweden after all, and they have a penchant for herring). The ending may seem a bit of a fizzle, but it is probably more realistic than most denouements.
It is an entertaining read with, as usual, a good profile of what daily life is like for people and what the process is like for a good policeman in Sweden.