I got a little over excited about the Kurt Wallander mysteries. I saw the series with Kenneth Branagh and they were great with stunning photography and this very moody glum sort of atmosphere. I read Firewall which is about a very large plot to bring down the world's financial system from a tiny little Swedish town. I'm not used to reading thrillers and it went to my head a little and when they were looking for a navy blue Mercedes van in the book, the murderer's get away car, I was driving to work, saw a navy blue van and almost went off the road with excitement "Kurt! He's here in Swampscott!" I wanted to yell into my cell phone.
Henning Mankell is a very spare writer, nothing extra, I'm not sure if that is due to the fact that it is a translation or to his style. But this is typical: "Linda didn't call back. Wallander went to bed around eleven o'clock.
It took him a long time to fall asleep." That's two paragraphs! He's the Hemingway of Swedish mysteries.
In Firewall there were some murders but offstage, with not too much goriness and I was planning to dedicate my life to reading all of them. I loaded up on all the library copies, told all my friends and bought the chronologically first one, Faceless Killers, read a chapter and realized my life would have to take another direction. A elderly couple on a farm murdered in a very grisly fashion, impossible to read further. I am too much of a coward but maybe someone else can take up this quest for me. They are probably very good.
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