Just Superb for 400 Pages, But Then It Has an Improbable Ending

books:


	• The Man Who Smiled (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Henning Mankell Vintage, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 31 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Mystery delivers the goods

I read three or four mysteries a month. I am very critical. Lots of mysteries start off well but fizzle, some writers never come through with believable plots, characters or dialogue. Henning Mankell is so thoroughly enjoyable, I am just in awe. Truly. In this case, it's not necessarily the plot that's good but the way he tells the story. I enjoy learning about Sweden, its police culture, etc. Very thoughtful writer. Very rewarding.

"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain:
At least I 'm sure it may be so in Denmark." Hamlet.

And I'm sure, after reading Henning Mankell's "The Man Who Smiled", that it may be so in Sweden as well.

"The Man Who Smiled" is the fourth book in the popular Inspector Kurt Wallander mystery series. An aging attorney has been found dead on a desolate strip of road. The local police think it is an accident brought about by the dense fog that surrounded the area that night. The man's son, also an attorney, seeks out is friend Kurt Wallander to ask for help. He thinks his father has been married. Wallander isn't really interested. He'd killed a man in the line of duty and has been on leave ever since. He has no taste for police work, is loaded up with antidepressants and drinks to excess. But when his friend is found murdered, the same guilt that drove Wallander away from police work compels him to return to help solve the murder of the friend and what may be the murder of the friend's father.

As Wallander returns to work he finds himself thinking that one of Sweden's richest men may have some part in the murders. He is very rich and very powerful. So powerful that he can afford to keep a smile affixed to his permanently suntanned face. It is a smile of condescension and smugness. It is a smile that says "I am untouchable." Wallander battles to put his life back together while he struggles to put together the pieces of a very complex crime puzzle.

Mankell's Kurt Wallander series is often compared to the Martin Beck detective mysteries authored by the husband and wife team of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. Wallander, like Beck, is a police detective in Sweden. Unlike Beck, whose beat was Stockholm, Wallander works in the small southern-Swedish city of Ystad. Wallander's work performance is 99 per cent driven by perspiration and only 1 per cent driven by inspiration. He is not Sherlock Holmes but he is smart and he is persistent. As noted, "The Man Who Smiled" is the fourth in the Wallander Series. They have all been enjoyable to read even if the series has its ups and downs. As with any series the reader is either drawn to the main character or bored by the main character. Although Wallander is stoic and a bit plodding I somehow find him to be a compelling character. Mankell has also done a good job in fleshing out the characters of Wallander's police unit.

Ultimately, there is nothing new or unique about the structure of the Wallander books. However, the setting (southern Sweden) and the cast of characters created by Mankell makes these books easy to pick up and a bit harder to put down. If you like police procedurals "The Man Who Smiled" is well worth reading. L. Fleisig

for more information click here

Just Superb for 400 Pages, But Then It Has an Improbable Ending

Just as a point of trivia but in Europe and in Sweden, detective Kurt Wallander's home, the spelling is sometimes Wallender or Wallander. One encounters both spellings on amazon.

I thank fellow reviewer Leonard Fleisig for bringing this author to my attention. The writing is simply superb, and I am very interested in reading more books by the same author.

As done by Len, I gave the book 4 stars. I thought that "The Man Who Smiled" was a good book until near the end. Up to that point I thought that Mankell was doing a great job with the novel. The novel reminded me a bit of the Peter Robinson Inspector Banks series, but here the policeman is more involved; actually, he becomes too involved and that is what slightly spoils the book.

The book opens with a map of southern Sweden, and a second map of the town of Ystad. The latter is the primary setting, although the crimes are spread around the southern part of Sweden in this novel. The police station is located in Ystad, near the most southerly part of Sweden, south and east of Malmo, and on the Baltic. Malmo itself is just 10 km across water from Copenhagen. Part of the tale takes place in Denmark.

I will not give away the plot and the essential plot elements are outlined by the publisher: a police inspector on a stress leave is drawn back to work by the murder of a friend. The policeman, Kurt Wallender, takes a personal interest in the death of two lawyers, one who he knew professionally, and who had approached him about a case a week before his death.

This is a great and a fast read that I was able to read with a great deal of enjoyment in less than a day. I read it while staying at a hotel in southern Sweden, not too far from the crime scene, and that the details and descriptions of the places, people, and other details are made to seeme authentic.

This is a book that I highly recommend, but because of the ending it merits 4 stars. The writing is smooth and flawless.

for more information click here

Deep in Swedish Noir, once again

As I have recently learned, there is a title for this type of book, "Swedish Noir". There are those who do not like this type of brooding, intense, emotionally wrenching story, but there are a lot of folks who do, and not just among Swedes. I have been following many of Mankell's book as well as other authors in the Scandianvian mystry genre, and have tried to read them in sequence. This one escaped me so it was taking place early in the author's series, but basically that does not matter, it is a terrific, detailed, intense story. Kurt Wallender is real and flawed and yet manages to be bigger than life despite it all. I have enjoyed all of Mankell's books that I have read, and this one ranks among the best of that bunch. A fine read.

for more information click here

IF you love Crime/fiction READ ALL WALLANDERS!!

out of the wallander series - so good!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

search for books
man who smiled, black, crime, lizard, man, smiled, vintage, who

Impressum / about us