Kurt Wallander Mysteries to Air on Masterpiece Mystery!

The Kurt Wallander Mysteries by Henning Mankell have been picked up by Masterpiece Mystery and will air on KUED starting in May 2009 - starting on the 10th. The series stars Kenneth Branagh and will start with Sidetracked on the 10th , Firewall on the 17th, and One Step Behind on the 31st. The shows on Masterpiece are typically excellent, so I'm very excited for May to arrive.

Mankell is a Swedish author who's written 10 novels in the Kurt Wallander series. This is a series that is on my 'to read' list. It sounds really good and I've heard some great things from patrons who've already read the series.

Below I've listed Mankell's Wallander books in the order they were published. You've may still have time to read the first one before it airs. I'd check it out, but I'm in the middle of a British police procedural right now. For now Mankell will have to remain on my 'to read' list. But I definitely know where I'll be Sunday nights in May!

Elizabeth

Faceless Killers By Mankell, Henning 2003/01 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031573 CHECK CATALOG First in the Kurt Wallander series. It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn't present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word is "foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have-and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require ...More

The Dogs of Riga By Mankell, Henning 2004/04 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031528 CHECK CATALOG Second in the Kurt Wallander series. On the Swedish coastline, two bodies, victims of grisly torture and cold execution, are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain he has the ability to solve a case as mysterious as it is heinous. But after the victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, a country gripped by the upheaval of Soviet disintegration, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes over the investigation. Thinking his work done, Wallander slips into routine once more, until suddenly, he is called to Riga and plunged into an alien world where shadows are everywhere, everything is watched, and old regimes will do anything to stay alive. ...More

The White Lioness By Mankell, Henning 2003/05 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031559 CHECK CATALOG Third in the Kurt Wallander series. The execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife looks like a simple case even though there is no obvious suspect. But then Wallander learns of a determined stalker, and soon enough, the cops catch up with him. But when his alibi turns out to be airtight, they realize that what seemed a simple crime of passion is actually far more complex--and dangerous. The search for the truth behind the killing eventually uncovers an assassination plot, and Wallander soon finds himself in a tangle with both the secret police and a ruthless foreign agent. Combining compelling insights into the sinister side of modern life with a riveting tale of international intrigue, The White Lioness keeps you on the knife-edge of suspense. ...More

The Man Who Smiled By Mankell, Henning Thompson, Laurie 2007/09 - Vintage Books USA 9781400095834 CHECK CATALOG The long-awaited fourth mystery in the bestselling Kurt Wallander series finds the detective deep in crisis after killing a man in the line of duty. Vowing to quit the police force, he instead becomes involved in solving a friends murder. ...More

Sidetracked By Mankell, Henning 2003/05 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031566 CHECK CATALOG Fourth in the Kurt Wallander series. In the award-winning Sidetracked, Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden's former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. But his investigation is beset with a handful of obstacles--a department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policeman's widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the young girl who set herself on fire. Fascinating and astute ...More

The Fifth Woman By Mankell, Henning 2004/04 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031542 CHECK CATALOG Fifth in the Kurt Wallander series. In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander's strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman. ...More

One Step Behind By Mankell, Henning 2003/01 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031511 CHECK CATALOG Sixth in the Kurt Wallander series. On Midsummer's Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander's most trusted colleagues-someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime-also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can't begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father's death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind. ...More

Firewall By Mankell, Henning 2003/09 - Vintage Books USA 9781400031535 CHECK CATALOG Seventh in the Kurt Wallander series. 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. ...More

The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries By Mankell, Henning Segerberg, Ebba Thompson, Laurie 2008/09 - New Press 9781565849945 CHECK CATALOG Filling in the missing pieces of the internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander mystery series, "The Pyramid" tells the story of Wallander's beginnings through five gripping short mysteries. ...More

Before the Frost By Mankell, Henning Segerberg, Ebba 2006/01 - Vintage Books USA 9781400095810 CHECK CATALOG Already an international bestseller, "Before the Frost" inaugurates Mankell's new mystery series about Linda Wallander, daughter of Inspector Kurt Wallander, and also features Stefan Lindman of "The Return of the Dancing Master." ...More