A #1 international bestseller: This "exquisite novel of mesmerizing depth" launched the acclaimed Wallander Mysteries and BBC series starring Kenneth Branagh ( Los Angeles Times).Early one morning, a small-town farmer discovers that his neighbors have been victims of a brutal attack during the night: An old man has been bludgeoned to death, and his tortured wife lies dying before the farmer's eyes. The only clue is the single word she utters before she die...

The story of the Swedish detective's beginnings, told in five gripping short mysteries: "An indispensable chapter to the saga" ( Booklist Online).Here are the stories that trace, chronologically, Kurt Wallander's growth from a rookie cop into a young father and then a middle-aged divorcé, illuminating how he became a first-rate detective and highlighting new facets of the character who "remains one of the most impressive and credible creations of crime fic...

Sweden, winter, 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team receive an anonymous tip-off. A few days later a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead.The dead men were criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect. Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea, to Riga in Latvia, where he is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police s...

In 1992, in peaceful Southern Sweden, Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Wallander and his team are called in to investigate.As Inspector Wallander is introduced to this missing person's case he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela has made his long ...

Midsummer approaches, and Inspector Kurt Wallander prepares for a holiday with the new woman in his life, hopeful that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without him.But his restful summer plans are thrown into disarray when a teenage girl commits suicide before his eyes, and a former minister of justice is butchered in the first of a series of apparently motiveless murders. Wallander's desperate hunt for the girl's identity and his furious pursuit of a killer who...

Four nuns and a fifth woman are killed in a savage night-time attack in Africa. A year later, Inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of an elderly birdwatcher and discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder - a body impaled in a trap of sharpened bamboo poles. Then, another man is reported missing.Once again Wallander's life is put on hold as he and his team work tirelessly to find a link between the series of vicious murders.Winner of the ...

Stopping to use a cash machine one evening, a man falls to the ground: dead. A taxi driver is brutally murdered by two teenage girls who demonstrate a complete lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards, a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery...Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery...

The leader of a religious cult in Guyana instigates a mass suicide. He succeeds in killing himself and his whole flock of worshippers, save one.In a wood outside Ystad, the police make an horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, handwritten corrections and amendments on every page.A string of incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, has been taking place and Inspector Wallander fears ...

Kurt Wallander is twenty one and new to the police force - and he won't let anything stand in the way of solving his first murder caseWallander finds his neighbour dead: a revolver in his hand, and a bullet through his head.Suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the apparently open and shut case of suicide, Wallander starts an off-the-books investigation - only to find that following his instincts is a very dangerous thing to do.Disc...

It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unknown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet.Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is it the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.

** The inspiration for the NETFLIX original series Young Wallander - out now **When Kurt Wallander first appeared in Faceless Killers, he was a senior police officer, just turned forty, with his life in a mess. His wife had left him, his father barely acknowledged him; he ate badly and drank alone at night.The Pyramid chronicles the events that led him to such a place. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat whilst ...

Spiralling into an alcohol-fuelled depression after killing a man in the line of duty, Inspector Kurt Wallander has made up his mind to quit the police force for good.When an old acquaintance seeks Wallander's help to investigate the suspicious circumstances in which his father has died, Kurt doesn't want to know. But when his former friend turns up dead, shot three times, Wallander realises that he was wrong not to listen.Against his better judgment, he returns to work to ...