Wie schlecht ist das denn?: Mein 3. Wallander und es ist erstaunlich, wieviel Langeweile man auf fast 600 Seiten unterbringen kann. Das Muster ist immer dasselbe: Wallander und seine Mitstreiter sind immer müde; verstehen überhaupt nicht, was vor sich geht; treffen sich immer um 8 Uhr zu Besprechungen (bei denen nur die Ereignisse der letzten 30 Seiten noch mal durchgekaut werden); essen immer belegte Brote und fragen sich immer, wieso sie eigentlich bei der Polizei sind und wie schlecht die Welt geworden ist. Als wäre das alles nicht schlimnm genug, versteht es Wallander immer wieder, durch seine Unfähigkeit andere Personen in Gefahr zu bringen. Und ermittelt wird sowieso nicht, nicht mal einfachsten Fragen wird nachgegangen, Ermittlungserfolge ergeben sich rein zufällig. Fast immer heisst es: "Wir wissen zu wenig", "wir warten noch ab", "wir sehen den Zusammenhang nicht", "vielleicht gehen wir in die falsche Richtung" (äh: welche Richtung???). Und wenn doch mal ein interessantes Ergebnis rauskommt, heisst es: "das prüfen wir später, wir haben wichtigeres zu tun" (was denn???). Als halbwegs intelligenter Mensch fühle ich mich veralbert.

Das ist Trivial-Literatur, geeignet allenfalls für die U-Bahn. Wenn man 2 Wallander-Bücher gelesen hat, kennt man alle und kann sie getrost zum Altpapier bringen (verbrennen darf man Bücher ja nicht mehr).

My third Henning Mankell book, and my least favorite. Plot concerns a cyber-terrorist attack on the global financial system. Wallander remains an interesting character, far more human than most detective heroes. But the plot is humdrum, the denouement humdrum, and there are far too many red herrings. Example, a young girl (murderess, avenging her rape by killing the rapist's father!) escapes. Later she turns up fried to a crisp in an electrical substation. Why? Mankell says "we never figured that out." Pretty poor. ( )

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

Yet another superb police procedural. The crime seems a little over the top perhaps but I enjoyed, once again, spending hours in Kurt Wallander's head. ( )

In this somewhat unlikely tale featuring a plot to destroy the global economy, Kurt Wallander is under investigation for having assaulted a young female suspect, and disappointed in the attitude of his colleagues at the ystad police station who do not give him the support he expects.

While a shadowy American in Angola pulls the strings, people in sweden are murdered: the only clue is a disc, protected by a seemingly impenetrable firewall, and the police use the services of a brilliant young hacker to help them crack the code before it is too late.

Always a loner, Wallander discovers he is even more isolated than he realised when he learns his protege Martisson is undermining him behind his back, and his superior Holgersson has been poisoned and does not trust him.

The story is even more bleak and gloomy than usual: Wallander's wife Mona has remarried, his relationship with baiba is over, his childhood friend Sten Widen has sold his horse stud and moved, and so many of his colleagues appear hostile.

The book ends on a positive note though when kurt's daighter Linda, who has toyed with several careers including theatre and furniture restoration, informs him she has decided to becaome a policeman and intends enrolling in the training college. ( )