Inspector Kurt Wallander returns in the second of Henning Mankell's award-winning, internationally bestselling detective series, this time to investigate a horrific crime in his Scandinavian homeland somehow linked to a troubled apartheid-era South Africa. When the tenacious sleuth's search for the truth behind the execution-style killing of a Swedish housewife uncovers a plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela, Wallander finds himself in a tangle with...

Inspector Kurt Wallander's long-anticipated vacation plans are interrupted by two horrific deaths: the self-immolation of an unidentified young woman and the brutal murder of the former minister of justice. As the police struggle to piece together the few clues they have, the killer strikes again and again. What connection is there between a retired minister of justice, a successful art dealer, and a common petty thief? Why does the killer scalp his...

On Midsummer's Eve, three friends gather in a secluded meadow in Sweden. In the still-sun-lit northern night, they don costumes and begin to 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. The murderer then carefully photographs the grisly tableau. Meanwhile, the Ystad police station is experiencing a summer lull. Inspector Kurt Wallander...

This collection of five stories traces the growth of Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallander into a first-rate detective, from rookie cop to young father to middle-aged divorcé, illuminating new facets of a now-canonical character.

In "Wallander's First Case," the twenty-one-year-old patrolman's first homicide case involves his next-door neighbor, seemingly dead by his own hand. Wallander is a young father confronting an unexpected threat

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Kurt Wallander moves into a dream home with his girlfriend for a new start for the both of them. Wallander's dog unearths a skeleton buried under fruit trees in the back yard. It's a girl that was murdered 10 years ago. Wallander tries to solve the case as quickly as possible. At the same time a disembodied arm is found washed up on the beach at Ystad and he finds himself investigating two cases, years apart.