Faceless Killers

Faceless Killers
British first edition cover
Author(s)	Henning Mankell
Original title	Mördare utan ansikte
Translator	Steven T. Murray
Country	Sweden
Language	Swedish
Series	Kurt Wallander #1
Genre(s)	Crime novel
Publisher	Harvill Secker
Publication date	1991 (orig.) & April 2000 (Eng. trans. )
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	288 pp (Eng. hardback trans.)
ISBN	ISBN 1860467806 (Eng. trans.)
OCLC Number	43418392
Followed by	The Dogs of Riga

Faceless Killers (1991) is a crime novel by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, and the first in his acclaimed Wallander series. The English translation by Steven T. Murray was published in 1997.

In 1992, Faceless Killers won the first ever Glass Key award, given to crime writers from the Nordic countries.

Synopsis

Inside an almost isolated Skåne farmhouse in Lunnarp, an old man, Johannes Lovgren is tortured to death and his wife Maria savagely beaten and left for dead with a noose around her neck. Inspector Kurt Wallander, a forty-two-year-old Ystad police detective, and his team – Rydberg, an aging detective with a rheumatism; Martinsson, a 29-year-old rookie; Naslund, a thirty-year veteran; Svedberg, a balding, forty-something-year-old detective; Hansson; and Peters – are put on the case. Maria Lovgren is taken to a hospital, but dies anyway. Her last word: "foreign".

Rydberg has been examining the noose around Mrs Lovgren's neck and "has never seen one like it before". He thinks that Mrs Lovgren's last word is accurate, and that the murderers are foreign. But his conclusion leads to several racially-motivated attacks after the information is leaked to the press.

The story focuses on Sweden's liberal attitude regarding immigration, and explores themes of racism and national identity.

Adaptations

The novel was adapted into a four-episode television miniseries by Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television in 1994. Wallander is played by Rolf Lassgård. Faceless Killers has also been adapted into a 90-minute television episode for the BBC's Wallander series starring Kenneth Branagh as Wallander. It was first broadcast on 3 January 2010.

The novel has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 7, read by English actor David Warner, who plays Wallander's father in the British television adaptation of Wallander.^[1]

Fredrik Gunnarsson who played Svartman in the Swedish TV series had a cameo in this episode.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Faceless Killers". BBC Radio 7 Programmes. Retrieved on 5 October 2009.
2. ^ "Fredrik Gunnarsson's IMDB page". http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0348267/. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 

External links

• Podcast of Henning Mankell talking about Faceless Killers on the BBC's World Book Club
• A review