Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Well, I took the plunge. I finally read my first Scandinavian crime thriller: Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell. It's the first book of his Wallander series which follows the exploits of Kurt Wallander, a police detective in the town of Ystad in Sweden. I had seen the movies in the Millennium series based on Stieg Larsson's books and watched a BBC documentary called Nordic Noir: The Story Of Scandinavian Crime Fiction so I knew going in that the book would be gloomy. But holy crap! Faceless Killers was one of the most depressing books I've ever read. It was the book equivalent of The Wall. Just this unrelenting journey into perdition.

It opens in the antelucan hours of a cold January day. A farmer named Nyström wakes up and thinks about how he is growing old and about his marriage. He notices that his next door neighbor's kitchen window is open and that their horse is not neighing so he wanders over to investigate. Nyström discovers Johannes Lövgren has been brutally murdered and his body mutilated. Johannes' wife Maria has been savagely beaten and left to die with a noose around her neck. Luckily she is still alive.

Wallander gets the call a bit after 5AM. Let's see here…he has a keen interest in the bottle, is divorced, estranged from his daughter, and his father is a crotchety old bastard with whom he barely gets along. The folks in Abba always seemed nice and cheerful but now I have to wonder if they were like this too once the cameras were off. I got about 3 chapters in and worried for Sweden because Mankell populates the southern coast with people who are depressed and/or alcoholics.

The investigation begins. We are introduced to Wallander's fellow officers. There's the obligatory rookie along with more grizzled veterans like our hero including Rydberg who battles rheumatism and cancer as well before the book is over. See, Mankell just loves to pile on the misery. Maria was unconscious when she arrived at the hospital and she is awake just long enough to mutter “Foreigner” before she kicks off.

This emphasizes and brings into the investigation the whole issue of immigration in Sweden which is a theme here. I know nothing about Sweden's immigration issues but here there are camps of immigrants scattered across the landscape where those seeking asylum are housed in fairly primitive conditions until the proper government officials get around to doing the paperwork. These camps house a mix of Africans and Eastern Europeans looking to start anew and, in Mankell's world at least, there are many blonde-haired, pale-skinned natives who aren't too keen on welcoming foreigners. And so, not only do the police have a brace of grisly murders on their plate, they also have xenophobic racists to contend with as well.

The story kind of bounces around amongst the immigration/racism theme, Wallander's less than optimal personal life and psyche, and the investigation of the Lövgren murders. The last of these is notable because, instead of a series of clues giving us a more or less direct path to the identity of the killer(s), we get a series of dead ends. It seems only appropriate considering that Wallander's life is much the same. While Mankell is keen to pile the personal troubles up, he at least had the graciousness to give the reader a modicum of relief towards the end of the book. I mean, he's got another 10 sequels after this so his character can't go over the edge. Too far, anyway.

I am ambivalent about Faceless Killers. On the plus side, it's a good yarn. As a police procedural/murder mystery it works well. I didn't feel disappointed that the leads Wallander followed end up at cul-de-sacs. But Wallander himself is pretty one dimensional. While there are certainly times when the sun appears from behind the clouds, those clouds are dark indeed. The whole depressed and alienated alcoholic thing got tiresome at times. Perhaps he gets developed as the series goes on. But I'll give Mankell credit. Wallander may be a one note character for most of the book but he's still oddly sympathetic. I didn't dislike Wallander, I just wished that Mankell had filled him out more.

Honestly, I'm in no hurry to read the second book in the series but I suppose I'll get around to it someday. And I'm going to read it in the summer. If Faceless Killers is any indication of how this genre works, then I'll certainly read more of it when the air is hot and humid outside. It is really nice to let stories that take place in areas with snow and cold temperatures take me away from heat and humidity.