▷▷▷▷▷ Check Out The Man Who Smiled: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (4) (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) for $8.01

The Man Who Smiled: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (4) (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Review

In "The Man Who Smiled" Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell's alter ego, Detective Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police has been on leave from his job for over a year. He had to kill a man in the line of duty, but the event has caused deep depression and bouts of binge drinking. Readers of this detective series will recall that even in the best of times Wallander was an unhappy, melancholy person, a sad sack of a Swede, introspective, lonely, and aimless most of the time except when pursuing a case. The book is shrouded in the fog of "Swedish gloom."
He's in bad shape, but he snaps out of it when a lawyer acquaintance of his who had sought his help was found murdered. Only a few weeks before the lawyer's father, also a lawyer had been killed in a car crash after visiting the castle of his client, the unscrupulous international millionaire businessman, Alfred Harderberg.
When he gets back to work, Wallander learns something that readers already know from the book's hook: the father was murdered.
From the get-go we know who the one responsible for the murders is so this isn't a whodunit, but a will-they-be able-to-catch-the-culprit mystery. It has a very long, intensive, slow-moving investigation. Hired killers try to knock off one of the witnesses with a land mine planted in her garden, and Wallander barely escapes death when an explosive device is planted in his car, and the vehicle is destroyed.
Wallander's father has been painting and selling duplicates of the same landscape, some with a grouse and some without, for decades. When he's tracking down a killer, Wallander feels he's on a mission just as does Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch or the Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo's detective Harry Hole. All three have rather difficult and lonely personal lives.
In this one promising detective Ann-Britt Hoglund, has joined the force, and she helps Wallander in his investigation. Wallander, to the distress of readers interviews the lawyer's secretary a few too many times. Mankell's books are slow-moving, very methodical procedurals.
The man the cops are going after, Alfred Harderberg, has complex tentacles that are even involved in the sale of human organs and their harvesting from people killed for those organs. They fear going after the magnate because "Sacred cows must graze in peace." This one is worth reading but get ready for a slog.

The Man Who Smiled: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (4) (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Feature

ISBN13: 9781400095834
Condition: New
Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Man Who Smiled: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (4) (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Overview

After killing a man in the line of duty, Kurt Wallander resolves to quit the Ystad police. However, a bizarre case gets under his skin.

A lawyer driving home at night stops to investigate an effigy sitting in a chair in the middle of the highway. The lawyer is hit over the head and dies. Within a week the lawyer’s son is also killed. These deeply puzzling mysteries compel Wallander to remain on the force. The prime suspect is a powerful corporate mogul with a gleaming smile that Wallander believes hides the evil glee of a killer. Joined by Ann-Britt Hoglund, Wallander begins to uncover the truth, but the same merciless individuals responsible for the murders are now closing in on him.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Customer Reviews

Dark, Powerful and Very Good - Island Dreamer - Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
Investigator extraordinaire Kurt Wallander of the Ystad Police Force in Sweden has been kind of down, living in isolation for the past year, because he had to kill a man on his last case. Then an old friend, Sten Torstensson, who needs help, because he doesn't believe his father committed suicide, asks Kurt for assistance, but Kurt begs off. He seemingly has no stomach for anymore police work. Then Torstensson dies under suspicious circumstances and now Kurt can't stay away. He ends his sabbatical and goes back to work.

It's not long before Kurt, who is taking anti-depressants and drinking a lot of alcohol, ties in the death of his friend and his friend's father with to a guy who has more money than anybody ought to have, more power too. A rich and powerful guy who kills without a blink, a man who can kill with a smile.

This is the fourth book in the series and was originally published in Sweden in 1994, but they were translated out of order, so sadly I had to read them out of order, but that didn't take away any of the enjoyment. I love the way Mr. Mankell weaves the very essence of Sweden into his stories and they way he makes his people, especially Kurt Wallander, live and breath. Like each and everyone of the books is in the series, once started, I couldn't put it down.

Fun on vacation - Richard Peel - Switzerland
The Man Who Smiled was my first Wallander book. The book was better written than many of the two-pages-per-chapter thrillers that are a dime a dozen, but saying more is difficult as the book wasn't written in English. I guess Mankell is an old-fashioned crime writer - there is no high-tech CSI crime fighting going on here, which I am thankful for. But sometimes the police in the book seem like bad junior detectives when, for example, they seem dumbstruck as to why anyone might want to kill a lawyer, before eventually figuring out that lawyers might know some secrets that their clients don't feel comfortable with. This was a case where the reader could see from the start who the killer was and feels a bit frustrated that the police take so long to figure it out. But this isn't so much about whodunnit but is rather about who the characters are and what drives them. In other words, it leans more towards literature than most other examples of the genre. I also like how Wallander is no James Bond: he is often frightened when the going gets rough and you don't get the feeling he would ever try to punch someone, let alone jump from a building onto the top of a moving bus or similar hero gymnastics. I am looking forward to reading the first Wallander book and seeing how that one goes.

More Sandwiches Please - Joel Graber - New York City
"Reinterpreting the hard-boiled detective," as one review said, in spades, but not Sam Spades. Wallender, a deeply melancholy personality already, goes into an 18-month drunken tailspin, on a leave of absence, traumatized after shooting a perp (the details of which event Mankell doesn't bother to explain). Oz Fuzis (Guerra) this is not.

The tedium of Kurt's angst - he can't sleep, flips paper clips, incessantly contemplates quitting, adolescently fantasizes about The Woman In Riga, as he autistically cannot connect with another human being - burdens the reader with a pervasive sense of inconsequentiality. The depiction of the evil corporate mogul, the man who smiled, the killer, who trades in body parts no less, is broad, and implausible. Predictably, the provincial Ystad police department spins its wheels throughout but for the hero's brilliant intuitions, though, as reviewers have said, much is obvious from the get-go. The ridiculous finale, which seems scripted for an action film, lamely reprises the scene in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly: "When you have to shoot, don't talk, shoot." The evildoer doesn't shoot hence Wallender wins the day. Puhleeze! Not to mention that these cops, in Sweden's wisdom, are unarmed.

For those whose introduction to Scandanavian crime novels began with the Millenium Trilogy, this work was not up to snuff. Better: Mankell's The Man From Beijing, and better still Camilla Lackberg's Ice Princess.

Page turner, but some problems - Jeffrey A. Thompson - Iowa City, IA USA
I found the book hard to put down so there are a lot of positives. The pacing is good. It is a very good police procedural. Wallender is an fascinating creation. Wallender is a middle-aged guy with self doubts, but who is a good investigator. The author also does a great job of the atmosphere. He is also great in showing how Wallender guides his team in the investigation.

There are a few negatives. I find the translation quirky. Some of the idioms seem out of place. Wallender makes some incomprehensible decisions. He finds a mine and decides to explode it rather than calling for backup. (Another thing, why would the bad guys use a land mine? It so obviously a bad choice of weapon here.) His forensic guy does give him a hard time. He invades a castle alone with only radio backup. A man invades his home and he does nothing but hides. This also has the some of the same problems as other mysteries. The first murder is so clever, but the following cover-up murders are so obviously murders. For example, Michael Clayton has this problem. The first murders are nigh undetectable, but the bad guys try to kill Clayton with a car bomb.

In summary, this is a typical Wallender mystery. The plot doesn't quite hold together, but the characters and the atmosphere make the book worth reading.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 13, 2010 09:00:09

Books Mystery & Thrillers

Monday, September 13, 2010