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Published Sep 2008
400 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
The missing piece of the internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander mystery series: the story of Wallander's beginnings, told in five gripping short mysteries.
"What happened to Wallander before the series began?...Several years ago, right when I was done with the fifth book, Sidetracked, I realized that I had started to write stories in my head that took place long before the start of the series."—from Henning Mankell's foreword
At last, a key addition to the Kurt Wallander mystery series: the book of short mysteries that takes us back to the beginning. Here we meet Wallander the twenty-one-year-old patrolman on his first criminal investigation, Wallander the young father facing an unexpected danger on Christmas Eve, Wallander on the brink of middle age solving a case of poisoning, the newly separated Wallander investigating the murder of a local photographer, and Wallander the veteran detective discovering unexpected connections between a downed mystery plane and the assassination of a pair of spinster sisters. Over the course of these five mysteries, he comes into his own as a murder detective, defined by his simultaneously methodical and instinctive work, and is increasingly haunted from witnessing the worst aspects of an atomized society.
"Starred Review. Like the Wallander novels, these stories rank among the finest police procedurals being written today." - Publishers Weekly.
"Four OK stories capped by a perfect gem of a novella, "The Pyramid," which no fan of Wallander...should miss. " - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about The Pyramid was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Author Henning Mankell was the acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries plus more than 20 other novels, both series and stand-alones. The Kurt Wallander series has been published in thirty-three countries and consistently tops the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes (including the UK's Golden Dagger Award in 2000) and generating numerous international film and television adaptations.
Born in a village in northern Sweden in 1948, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique until his death in October 2015 from cancer.
Kurt Wallander Series Order (dates are English-language publication dates):
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Stolen Child
by Ann Hood
An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate.
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it
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