ausgezeichneter Krimi, noch besseres Hörbuch: Ein Krimi der absoluten Extraklasse.

Es geht um eine äußerst brutale Mordserie. Kommissar Wallander, konfrontiert mit dem ersten Ermordeten, hat nicht die Spur einer Ahnung, worum es geht und wer diese schreckliche Tat begangen haben könnte. In penibelster Kleinarbeit werden die winzigsten Puzzlestückchen zusammengetragen, Theorien entwickelt, die zum Großteil in einer Sackgasse enden und wieder verworfen werden. Mit dem Wenigen, was ihm und seinem Team zur Verfügung steht und einem unglaublichen kriminalistischen Gespür entwickelt sich eine Fährte.

So oder so ähnlich sind die meisten Krimis aufgebaut.

Was Die fünfte Frau so besonders werden lässt ist die Art, wie Wallander vorgeht. Es geht eigentlich um Banalitäten und Kleinigkeiten, die sich dank aufmerksamer Beobachtung und Wahrnehmung und logischer Überlegungen zu einer Spur und dann zu einer Fährte entwickeln. Da stimmt jedes Detail, die Schlussfolgerungen sind ohne logischen Bruch und ohne jegliche Effekthascherei.

Das, was im Buch für mich etwas überrepräsentiert war (die Einsamkeit von Wallander, seine armseligen familiären und privaten Beziehungen, das permanent schlechte und auf das Gemüt drückende Wetter im schwedischen Spätherbst) ist in der verkürzten Hörbuchversion nicht oder nur in einem Maß zu finden, was den Krimi deutlich erfrischender wirken lässt.

Ulrich Pleitgen liest wunderbar, das Hörbuch ist hervorragend und sehr zu empfehlen.

In this the 6th book of the Wallander series, our hero has just returned to Ystad from Rome with his ailing father as the story opens, and it seems he is just in time to get to work on an incredibly brutal crime. A man is found impaled on sharpened sticks in a pit. As usual in a Mankell novel, this is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of a number of cruel and torturous murders. While Wallander's style is to thoroughly examine every aspect of these crimes, there is a move afoot among some of the public to form a citizens' militia, making the job of the police even harder and putting them under a great deal of pressure to catch the murderer. But these are no ordinary crimes and their perpetrator no ordinary murderer -- and Wallander and his team have their work cut out for them.

Mankell's excellent writing will keep you reading until the end. In his hands, Wallander becomes quite real, and you can clearly see that he is a flawed but steady individual, an excellent investigator and a workaholic, who is always pushing his team to work harder. Mankell's plotting is exquisite and believable, and the author manages to capture the nuances of a disgruntled public and a Sweden that is changing rapidly and not always for the better.

The Wallander series overall is excellent; one of the best out there. I would highly recommend this book (as well as the series) to anyone who enjoys great crime writing in general and Scandinavian mystery novels in particular. Do not let this book be your introduction to Kurt Wallander -- definitely start with the first one in the series and read them in order. ( )

This is a crime thriller, part of the Kurt Wallender series, set in Sweden. Its background is the murder of four nuns and a lay woman in Africa, but it results in a series of horrific murders back in Sweden.

I loved this book! I love crime/mystery/thrillers, I love this sort of thing, and the setting in Sweden was exotic and different, so very exciting! The main character is very sympathetic, perhaps in some ways a stereotypical hard-working policeman who can't sustain a relationship, but it was different enough that I was able to forgive the author for this. Getting inside the head of the murderer in little snippets throughout the novel also left me feeling intrigued and wanting more. The final thrilling conclusion meant that I carried on reading to the end, way past when I should have gone to sleep, as I was a bit tired the next morning... Never mind, it was worth it! ( )

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! ( )

Love the series. Philosophy, life, aging, using intuition, noticing details, investigating. thinking. ( )