The Troubled Man - (Kurt Wallander) by Henning Mankell (Paperback)

About the Book

When his daughter's future father-in-law goes missing in a forest near Stockholm, brilliant detective Kurt Wallander takes matters in his own hands and gets results. But his findings hint at elaborate Cold War espionage activities.

Book Synopsis

The tenth riveting installment in the mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander - "As satisfying for its emotional depth as its suspense.... A gripping mystery." --PEOPLE Magazine

A retired navy officer has vanished in a forest near Stockholm. Kurt Wallander is prepared to stay out of the relatively straightforward investigation--which is, after all, another detective's responsibility--but the missing man is his daughter's father-in-law.

With his typical disregard for rules and regulations, Wallander is soon pursuing his own brand of dogged detective work on someone else's case. His methods are often questionable, but the results are not: he finds an extremely complex situation which may involve the secret police and ties back to Cold War espionage. Adding to Wallander's concerns are more personal troubles. Having turned sixty, and having long neglected his health, he's become convinced that his memory is failing. As he pursues this baffling case, he must come to grips not only with the facts at hand, but also with his own troubling situation.

Review Quotes

"With his new Wallander novel Mankell ups his game and enters John le Carré territory." --Los Angeles Times

"[The] perpetually dour Swedish detective is at his gloomy best." --The New York Times Book Review

"At once richer in personal detail and more suspenseful than either a work of strictly mainstream fiction or a simple police novel could be. Mankell remains in the vanguard of those writers taking the crime story back to its origins in the realistic novel." --San Francisco Chronicle

"A magnificent finale." --Financial Times

"Arguably Mankell's best Wallander book--which makes the finale for his rule-breaking, overeating, over-drinking, depressed but ultimately good-hearted and righteous detective all the more poignant." --The Plain Dealer

"Mankell's prose is as blunt and pragmatic as his hero." --The New Yorker

"By far the most personal and poignant in this classic and compulsive series." --New York Journal of Books

"Mankell's ability to unspool a mystery and Wallander's ability to solve it are still at the head of the class." --Newsday

"A story that rings deep and hinges on personal stakes. . . . It is the voice of the author--through his hero--and the illumination of layers of life in a thankless profession that lead into a delicious abyss of urgency battling with hopelessness, a rationalization of risk versus a reward already buried under a false headstone." --The Oregonian

"A moving portrait of a man entering old age." --The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"A richly embroidered tapestry." --Providence Journal

About the Author

Henning Mankell's novels have been translated into forty languages and have sold more than thirty million copies worldwide. He is the first winner of the Ripper Award (the new European prize for crime fiction) and has also received the Glass Key and Golden Dagger awards. His Kurt Wallander mysteries were adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique.

www.henningmankell.com