Scandinavian crime fiction seems to be everywhere at the moment. All the authors are compared to each other, despite the fact their books are very different in style. Henning Mankell has been on my radar for a long time and I was interested to see how his books would compare to the likes of Larsson and Nesbo. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that his books are the weakest of the three, but having only read a small section of his writing I wanted to check that I wasn’t missing out on his best work.
I started to read Faceless Killers (the first of the Wallander books) over the weekend, but I quickly became frustrated and abandoned it after 70 pages. Wallander appeared to be a stereotypical cardboard cutout detective and no attempts were made to bring him to life. There was no atmosphere and the plot seemed implausible.
I also struggled with the poor quality of the writing. The simplicity was almost child-like in places.
Overall, I wasn’t very impressed with the section I read.
Does Faceless Killers have a good ending?
Does the Wallander series improve as it progresses?
Are any of Mankell’s other books worth reading?
Or, should I forget the books and stick to the Wallander DVDs?