Firewall: 8 (Kurt Wallander) - Softcover

Mankell, Henning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400031532 ISBN 13: 9781400031535

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003

Synopsis

From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the seventh riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series, the basis for the PBS series staring Kenneth Branagh.

A body is found at an ATM the apparent victim of heart attack. Then two teenage girls are arrested for the brutal murder of a cab driver. The girls confess to the crime showing no remorse whatsoever. Two open and shut cases. At first these two incidents seem to have nothing in common, but as Wallander delves deeper into the mystery of why the girls murdered the cab driver he begins to unravel a plot much more involved complicated than he initially suspected. The two cases become one and lead to conspiracy that stretches to encompass a world larger than the borders of Sweden.

About this title

Review:

Not too long ago, Henning Mankell was a well-kept secret, but his latest book, Firewall, will be received by readers worldwide with much fanfare, which is as it should be; Mankell is something special. Some of the initial resistance to Mankell's work might be understandable; like one of the greatest of all filmmakers, Ingmar Bergman, Mankell is from a country noted for Nordic gloom and the lazy-minded are not always prepared to go beyond stereotypes. Their loss: like his cinematic compatriot (Mankell is in fact married to Bergman's daughter), this is an artist of rare achievement.

Firewall continues Mankell's unvarnished portraits of modern life, in which society and all its institutions (not least the family) are on the edge. Here, his long-term protagonist, Inspector Kurt Wallander, moves into new area of crime: cyberspace. Various deaths have occurred: the user of a cash machine, a taxi driver killed by two young girls. The country is plunged into blackout by an electricity failure, and a grim find is made at a power station. What's the connection? Wallander finds himself on the trail of cyber terrorists with shady anarchic aims. But can his own malfunctioning team of coppers pull together to help catch them--or is there a fifth columnist in the police? Plotting here is impeccable, although Firewall may not be a prime entry point for those new to Mankell. But Wallander (here worried about his diabetes and failure to lose weight) is one of the great literary coppers: enthusiasts need not hesitate. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"Well-paced...a thinking man's thriller." --The New York Times Book Review

"Satisfying.... [Mankell's] Sweden, cold, isolated and brimming with disappointment--is as intriguing a landscape as Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles or Charles Willeford's Miami." --The Wall Street Journal

"Wonderful! Police procedural with personal texture." --Associated Press

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1400031532
• ISBN 13: 9781400031535
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416