Kurt Wallander - He works tirelessly, eats badly and drinks the nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. Still, he tackles some pretty incredible cases --

Here are the titles in the series (with a few extras) -

Faceless Killers
Dogs Of Riga
White Lioness
The Man Who Smiled
Sidetracked
The Fifth Woman
One Step Behind
Firewall
Return Of The Dancing Master (a Stefan Lindman mystery)
Before The Frost (actually a “Linda Wallander” mystery)

An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, victims of violence beyond reason. . . a teenage girl douses herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day Sweden's former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped in a murder that has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer… four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are found with their throats slit in an Algerian convent, while in Sweden, a birdwatcher is skewered to death in a pit of carefully sharpened bamboo poles… a Swedish housewife is murdered execution-style in a string of events that uncovers a plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela involving the South African secret service and a ruthless ex-KGB agent… an old acquaintance of Wallander’s, a solicitor, who is tied to an enigmatic business tycoon hiding behind an entourage of brusque secretaries and tight security, turns up dead, shot three times after his father dies in a traffic accident (or was it an accident?). . . In woodland outside Ystad, the police make an horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, the pages marked with handwritten corrections. A string of macabre incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, has been taking place, a group of religious extremists who are bent on punishing the world's sinners. … On Midsummer's Eve, three friends gather in a secluded meadow in Sweden. In the beautifully clear twilight, they don costumes and begin a secret role-play. But an uninvited guest soon brings their performance to a gruesome conclusion. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect. Three bullets, three corpses… An unknown killer is on the loose, and their only lead is a photograph of a strange woman no one in Sweden seems to know…A life raft washes ashore in Skane, Sweden, carrying two dean men in expensive suits, shot gangland-style. It is discovered that the men were Eastern European criminals… A man stops at an ATM during his evening walk and inexplicably falls dead to the ground. Two teenage girls brutally murder a taxi driver They are quickly apprehended, shocking local policemen with their complete lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without a trace. A few days later a blackout cuts power to a large swath of the country When a serviceman arrives at the malfunctioning power substation, he makes a grisly discovery… a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden by the anonymity of cyberspace. . . and we haven't even gotten to Kurt Wallander's personal issues!

Henning Mankell's Swedish detective Kurt Wallander continues his ruminations on a changing society with this tale of a female serial killer out to settle past scores for women wronged by men.

For the longest time, the investigative team tries to apply all their knowledge to the capture of a male killer. It never occurs to them that it could be a woman. The crimes are too gruesome, too cunning, too physical, too planned. The killer becomes infuriated at their failure to imagine a woman killing men and sends them a clue. Even then, they only begin to imagine a woman as an accomplice.

As the team unravels the crimes behind the murders and all the criminally murdered and abused women whose damaged lives were never recognized by the justice system, they acknowledge the killer's intelligence and need for revenge. There is recognition that so many crimes against women are unreported, unsolved, unbelievable. The men sow the seeds of their own destruction; more modern women are less likely to let them go unpunished.

A subtheme is how the Ystad police force has come to embrace their first female detective, but fail to understand her life among them. Wallender is increasingly dependent on her as a crime-solving partner and comes to understand at last, how much more complicated her life is as the mother of two small children and the wife of a highly skilled engineer who spends most of his time on oil rigs around the world.

Impatience at her irregular schedule and lateness as she depends on a neighbor for childcare is completely foreign to her fellow male investigators who have never had to give it a thought. That's the job of their wives. Wallender grows in his understanding and sees her additional burden; accepting the need for accommodation and providing it without resentment.

✍️ Knjiga mi je od samog početka bila zbunjujuća, puna likova, imena, datuma i događaja koji se prepliću. Nekad mi je delovala kao da čitam izveštaj policije, a ne roman. U nekim momentima bila mi je za dve zvezdice, pa bi naišla neka zanimljivija scena i možda podigla ocenu na tri... ali ipak, kraj me vratio na dve.

Radnja ima potencijala: ubistva, osveta, policijska istraga, zagonetke... ali mi se sve nekako činilo razvlačeno i predvidivo. Već sam na polovini knjige naslutila ko bi mogao biti ubica i koja je njena motivacija.

Pohvalila bih delove gde se istražuje prošlost, gde se otkrivaju lične tragedije i momenti koji su doveli do osvete. Tu knjiga ima dušu. Ali sve ostalo — previše podataka, previše likova, a emocije nekako hladne i udaljene.

Kao što sam rekla — Peta žena mi je bila kao ringišpil: zavrti me, pa me izbaci. Ipak sam je pročitala do kraja, stranicu po stranicu, ali se ne bih ponovo vraćala ovom romanu.

Nisam uživala kao u nekim drugim pričama koje su me držale budnom do kasno u noć. Ova me više umorila nego što me uvela u svet misterije.

Zaključak:
Zanimljiva ideja, ali razvučena i pomalo suva realizacija. Knjiga za zaborav, a ne za pamćenje.

A series of horrendous murders takes place and the evidence increasingly points to a woman as the culprit. The detective, Kurt Wallander, is interesting and likable—divorced with a grown daughter, no life but a love interest in the background if he can set aside his work a bit. Lots of speculation about how Sweden is going to the dogs. One character opines that it’s because no one darns socks any more—tip of the iceberg sort of thing—and then sits next to a woman on the plane who’s—you guessed it—darning a sock.

Those who watch Wallender may have discovered all this, but this is my first experience. Wonderful, sad, thoughtful book, a mystery in which all but the culprit's name is clear early on; solving the mystery means Wallender delves deeper and deeper into human motivation and bitterness. We watch him patiently sift through facts, weigh remembered conversations, think about centuries of human history, ponder the nature of evil and hurt, till he comes to a solution that leaves one more numb than satisfied. I have never been to Sweden, but the western society reflected here bears little resemblance to America, making it possible to draw conclusions about civilization in both great nations. Mystery writing at its best.

Just reading about the people in Sweden is amazing, but the Swedish character as seen by Kellman is strong and multifaceted. The mystery and the way the police solve it are interesting, too.

This is the first Kurt Wallendar detective book I have read (I have seen a couple of the movies with Kenneth Branagh). I must say, the Swedes can write fantastic police procedurals and crime novels. First Stieg Larrson with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO books and now Henning Mankell with his detective Wallendar. THE FIFTH WOMAN was very hard to put down, the writing is brisk, detailed, but never boring and the characters are vividly portrayed and described. Highly recommend. I can't wait to read more in this series.

I enjoy each book in this series better than the last. This one is especially detailed and inventive.

The reader learns about a long-ago incident that may have triggered Wallander's divorce.

One delightful aspect of the Wallander mysteries is the use of Swedish names.

"Does the name Harald Berggren mean anything to you?"

"No. Nothing. But I could be mistaken. It's a common name."

The bit about a train encounter at the end was the icing on the cake.

Reading two Kurt Wallander/Henning Mankell books in a row--in the middle of a sometimes grey November--is almost enough to put a person into a permanent funk. The Fifth Woman, however, is an interesting study in obsession, both Wallander's and the person responsible for the serial killing of men who have brutalized women at one time or another. A nice addition to the cast of characters, Ann Hoglund, new to the Ystand police force, adds some lightness to balance Wallander's heaviness. Also, in this book, Mankell reveals more of Wallander's nature, a nature that suits the work he has to do as a cop.

His investigative work seems to be his raison d'etre. When anything resembling a personal life intrudes, he loses his balance. Yet, there's hope. At the end of book, after he's tucked in all the loose ends of the investigation, he goes in search of a dog. Life may be good for him after all--if he can tolerate it.

non so se i gialli svedesi equivalgano, nella futile vita di un lettore, a una pervesione. Quando arriverò a quelli islandesi andrò in analisi.

3.5/5 Since I very rarely abandon books, I am also wary of picking up 500+ page books - especially crime fiction. Even crime fiction books of half the length regularly disappoint, either with the motive or investigation. But I am a Mankell fan and this was my 4th such 500+ page police-procedural by him. Needless to say, all previous 3 had been satisfying reads - infact Sidetracked is a must-read even for non-Mankell fans.
This was also my 7th novel by him and none of them contained even a single light moment ! Wallander and co. are continuously gloomy and brooding. Also each work also contains some critical commentary on some aspect of contemporary Swedish society. Ironically, what is my dominant feeling after finishing a Wallander novel - HOPE. Let me explain.
Wallander is as unlike Sherlock Holmes as a detective can be. Or shall I say that he is John Le Carre's Smiley to Ian Fleming's James Bond (or Daniel Silva's Allon)
Wallander is intelligent but this book features Wallander in his most workman-like avatar. As with most other Wallander novels, the crime(s) are extremely difficult and you cant make head or tail out of them. Wallander and his colleagues kept working, interviewing, searching, arranging what little they had to ultimately solve the crime(s). And Mankell knows how to place a red herring or two !
The hope is that police officers who are mere mortals like us can solve difficult crimes if they are diligent. We do not need "Dark Knights", which is also a message of this book.
The Wallander series has 11 books but will be reading one more which is #8-Firewall and skipping the last 3 as the reviews are not that good. Will be a little sad when I finish it. Despite his faults and the perpetually gloomy Wallander, each book has been a very good read.

‘It occurred to Wallender that no matter when death comes, it disrupts everything. Death always arrives at the wrong time - something is left undone.’

I always feel sad at the end of a Wallender. Not just by the content but the fact that the books are finite and one day I will be reading the last one. Well ok I read the actual last book recently. But was happy to understand that I had not finished all the intervening works.

This book was an absolute cracker. A great police procedural work. I remember the first murder in the tv series of the book but fortunately little else.

Kurt’s relationship with his father has always been strained. But the trip they were to make to Rome alluded to in the last book came off.

Great story that starts with Congo mercenaries and finishes in a bird watching tower in Ystad. Loved it.