Final thoughts on Faceless Killers

So, I'm glad I finally got around to reading the godfather of Scandinavian mystery, Henning Mankell. I liked this and I have the feeling Kurt Wallander grows on you. I definitely want to read the next ten. Also, it appears he wrote one about Wallander's estranged daughter, Linda.

The story is about a particularly nasty murder of an elderly Swedish couple in Scania (Southern Sweden. County seat: Malmo, the third largest city.) The violence of the murder raises the question of the increase in violence in Swedish society. The crime scene is so bloody (the man's nose was cut off, his wife had a noose tied around her neck) that one of the first responders tells Wallander it looks like "an American movie." Ahh, it's great how the rest of the world views us.

I found several things interesting including that Swedish cops at that time (~1990) didn't regularly carry guns although Wallander feels they probably will have to soon. The Swedes are trying to cope with the growing refugees requesting asylum in their best socialist Democratic fashion but the government is inept, the refugees are largely unaccounted for and can easily disappear and the police and populace (particularly the racist elements) are fed up. There are retaliatory crimes against refugee camps: someone throws a sack of turnips (!) at an old man, hitting him in the head. The camp in Ystad is set on fire. Finally, a Somali man is randomly shot and killed as he walks in the woods near his camp. I thought the solving of that crime was a little anti-climactic although I liked the little details like Rydberg and Wallander theorizing there are two perps since the shooter was seen eating an apple but there are cigarette butts around where they think the getaway car was parked. Since someone who gets stressed and eats apples probably also wouldn't be smoking. I think Mankell is more interested in telling a story and getting his points across than in creating suspense. It felt a little like the first episode of Prime Suspect. Oh, it's.....the guy they suspected all along.

The murder of the elderly couple turns out to have been some shifty Czech immigrants (it was a foreigner after all just like the elderly woman said with her dying words to Rydberg) who hung around banks looking for someone making a large withdrawal. The farmer had an illegitimate adult son and was still paying for him. He also had money from some shady business he and his father ran to supply the Nazis during WWII. It involved horses. I don't want to think about it.

Poor Rydberg, who was the only detective that had many distinguishing features besides Wallander, looks to have terminal cancer and won't be back. I wonder if Swedish cops these days are always armed?