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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The five stories in this outstanding collection from Mankell (Faceless Killers) provide glimpses into Kurt Wallander's early life as a policeman as well as paint evocative portraits of contemporary Swedish society. An unremarkable businessman is poisoned in The Man on the Beach but—in typical Mankell fashion—the case is larger, more complex and more interesting than it first appears. In the volume's best entry, The Death of the Photographer, Simon Lamberg takes studio portraits of weddings and children, but a couple of nights each week, he uses his darkroom to distort published photographs of politicians and newsworthy people for a macabre personal scrapbook. It's a bizarre hobby, but the cause of Lamberg's brutal, apparently senseless death is an even stranger puzzle. Like the Wallander novels, these stories rank among the finest police procedurals being written today. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"To his legions of North American readers, Henning Mankell is the unrivalled master of Swedish crime fiction and one of the finest practitioners of the genre anywhere."
— Toronto Star
"A marvel of spare, purposeful prose and artful storytelling."
— St. Petersburg Times
"Superb. . . . Mankell has mastered his craft."
— Tampa Bay Tribune
"Sure to bring [Mankell's] fans stampeding back into the fold."
— The New York Times
— Toronto Star
"A marvel of spare, purposeful prose and artful storytelling."
— St. Petersburg Times
"Superb. . . . Mankell has mastered his craft."
— Tampa Bay Tribune
"Sure to bring [Mankell's] fans stampeding back into the fold."
— The New York Times
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wallender as a young man,
By
This review is from: Pyramid and Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)
Kurt Wallander fans have always wondered where this introverted, cranky and hypondriac detective has come from. "Wallander's First Case" is an exquisite illustration of "we do what we are". Kurt was born to be a detective, there was no other option for him. As a detective, he is exceptional although unexpected. This is the most interesting of the stories in this book. The other 3 stories chronicle Wallander through his life, giving us a lot of 'fill-in' data of his earlier life, including a time when his marriage was still successful and he had his children. The story of his other cases nicely supplement the well loved series of his amazing case history as a detective. It will satisfy the Wallander fan immensely. Reading "Wallander's First Case" gave me, a long time and dedicated Mankell fan, the missing Wallander anecdote that I never knew I was missing until I read it. It establishes Wallander on his journey of self discovery through his work; not through his relationships, something many of us can relate to. I thank the author for that. Mankell is a delight for the reader who is also a dedicated professional who shares many of the everyday frustrations as Wallander. Mankell's divergent novels including the Depths, Italian Shoes and Kennedy's Brain give us different incarnations of a Wallander archtype; the self isolating, middle aged, professionally successful man whose deep inner yearnings and sensitivities give us a vulnerable hero who longs for salvation but whose lack of self awareness keeps it from realizing. The male hero of all these novels strikes me as essentially the same man; and Mankell's more recent works (The Depths, Italian Shoes) move this character ever more to the fore. It is only in Italian Shoes that the reluctant hero achieves salvation because of the actions of his old lover, Harriet. Through her actions and revelations, he discovers the key to unlocking his frozen psyche and he is able to rejoin the human race and find redemtion. I cannot wait for Wallander to meet his 'Harriet'.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The missing years,
By Chipiedix (La Malbaie, Qubec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Pyramid: The Origins of Kurt Wallander (Paperback)
Excellent stories about the principal caracter, Kurt wallander, answering all the questions we had about his past.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (60 customer reviews) 174 of 175 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Birth of a Series,
By Ted Feit - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pyramid and Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)
Kurt Wallander, the intuitive inspector, first came upon the scene as a 42-year-old detective with many years of experience in the first novel in the series. After four more novels, Henning Mankell realized that what was missing was Wallander's background. So he started to write several short stories to fill in the blanks. Three more novels in the series appeared before the five short stories in this volume were completed.In the first short story, we find Wallander in Malmo as a uniformed patrolman who bumbles his way into the investigation into the murder of his next door neighbor, the beginning of his career as a homicide detective. It is during this period that he meets and weds Mona. The next story takes the couple to Ystad and the birth of Linda, their daughter. It is, of course, where he spends the rest of his career. The stories trace the development of Wallander's instincts as well as his divorce, relationship with his father and growing daughter. All the characteristics of the novels in the series are present in these short stories. It is essential history and embellishes Wallander's personality. Also, the common thread in all the novels, the deterioration of society, runs through the stories. This book is Mankell in top form. For Mankell/Wallander fans, a must read, and highly recommended. 44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What is it about Swedish mystery writers?,
By Mal Warwick - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
First (at least in my consciousness) there were the ten Martin Beck police procedurals of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, published from 1965 to 1975. Now we flock to bookstores and movie theaters to enter the world of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist, who sprang from the mind of the late Stieg Larsson in the captivating form of the Millennium Trilogy.In between there was Kurt Wallender, the moody small-town police inspector created by another masterful Swedish writer, Henning Mankell. Wallender made his first appearance (in English) in 1997 in the novel Faceless Killers. Wallender lived on through seven other novels, the last of which, Firewall, appeared in English translation in 2002. (An eighth, and reportedly last, Wallender novel is due in 2011 under the title The Troubled Man.) The series has won numerous awards and gained a large audience in the English-speaking world -- deservedly so, in my opinion. The Pyramid is something of an afterthought but no less worth reading than the Wallender novels. It's a collection of five stories that span the time from Wallender's rookie year on the police force until the period when, a mature and respected inspector, the crimes detailed in Faceless Killers took place. As he ages from his early 20s to his 50s, Wallender grows increasingly morose in the face of his dysfunctional family relationships and the senseless crimes he is called upon to solve. The Pyramid lays bare the roots of his problems. For any Kurt Wallender fan, it's well worth reading. Mankell is a serious writer. Like Sjowall, Wahloo, and Larsson, he is a man of the Left, and his writing explores the changes in Swedish society that have come about under the impact of drugs, immigration, and the newly competitive political environment which has brought conservatives as well as socialists into power. (From Mal Warwick's Blog on Books) 36 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Early Wallander mysteries,
By james ward. lee - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pyramid and Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)
The Pyramid introduces reader to character they came to know in later Mankell mysteries. We learn much about why Wallender is depressed and how he views his role as a police officer. His relationship with his father, who succumbs to Alzheimer's, is introduced in the first story in the collection. The writing is as accomplished as in the later Wallander mysteries.
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