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The Pyramid is a collection of 5 short stories which gives readers more insight into the personal life of Kurt Wallander. While it was written after the 8th novel, Firewall, the events depicted in The Pyramid take place well before Faceless Killers, making it 1st chronologically in the series. The first story takes place in 1979 while the final occurs in 1989. In the stories, the reader sees Wallander on his first case and also before he meets his future wife Mona.

While a couple are short enough to be called short stories, at least the last two are long enough to be called novellas.

* Wallander's First Case
* The Man with the Mask
* The Man at the Beach
* The Death of the Photographer
* The Pyramid

They trace Wallander's relationship with Mona, who will become his wife, then his ex-wife; with Linda his daughter whom he recognises holds the marriage together long after he and Mona have decided it holds nothing for them; and his father with whom he has an almost love-hate relationship. They also trace Wallander's growth as a detective, from when he is mentored by Hemberg, when he is still basically a cop on the beat, through to his rise as a detective, and his relationship with Rydberg, the mentor who replaced Hemberg, until Wallander was promoted over him.

As you do in the novels of Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell and Donna Leon, the reader becomes aware of social change, as refugees flood into Sweden, and drug trafficking replaces the old ways criminals used to make money. Mankell sees himself as a social commentator, and Kurt Wallender as his mouthpiece: (this is from the Foreword to THE PYRAMID)
"... the books have always been variations on a single theme: 'What is happening to the Swedish welfare state in the 1990s?..'.....
Wallander has in a way served as a kind of mouthpiece for growing insecurity, anger and healthy insights about the relationship between the welfare state and democracy".

I really enjoyed THE PYRAMID. Other reviewers have commented on a certain lack of tension in the short stories but then that is possibly the nature of a short story. I did feel a little as if this Kurt Wallander wasn't quite the same as the one we get in FACELESS KILLERS onwards. He is not the innocent depicted in his first case; he learns gradually not to "go it alone", after his impetuousness gets him into life threatening situations; his intuition is more carefully laid out for us than I remember in later novels.

THE PYRAMID is eminently readable, and if you are already a Henning Mankell fan, then you won't want to miss it. ( )

If you liked other Wallander Books by Mankell you will enjoy this one about Wallander's days as a young policeman. Rumoured that this might be the last of the Wallander books.

http://its-criminal.blogspot.com/2008... ( )

I must admit I am an unabashed Henning Mankell and Wallander fan; when a business trip to Germany beckoned for my husband his shopping list included Wallanders erster Fall, since its release in English was still unannounced.

Wallanders erster Fall (English Wallander’s first case) contains a collection of five Wallander short stories, some very short, some quite long, and in a preface Henning Mankell explains that he wrote them at the request of his many readers who were asking about the early years of Wallander to whom he had become a "real" character. He calls these stories a ‘prologue’ and emphasizes that they aren’t an ‘epilogue’ even though they were published after Firewall, the last Wallander story.

In Wallanders erster Fall we meet a young, impressionable Wallander confronting his father with the decision to become a policeman, which his father never quite manages to accept and which dominates their difficult relationship throughout their lives. We also get to know the young Wallander as he falls in love with Mona and over the course of these few stories their relationship falls apart. But most of all, Wallander matures to become the intuitive, inquisitive investigator helped by his two mentors, who feature prominently.

As individual stories there is likely little remarkable about them, but as a whole spanning the gap from young Wallander to just the beginning of Faceless Killers it is a very satisfying and thoroughly engaging read as each story contributes another fitting piece in the puzzle of the Wallander character. I found the entire experience, but especially Wallander’s first case and The Pyramide to be thoroughly enjoyable and not to be missed by any Wallander fan. ( )