There are several brutal crimes in this book that take place mainly against men, actually, with cruel and even seemingly sadistic aspects to them. Questions about just what it is that women are capable of weave their way through this book: Can women be good detectives? Can they be killers? Are they strong enough ? Do they pack a suitcase differently than men? Do they in general think and act differently than men? And in this (by reputation) tolerant country in 1994, what is the extent of spousal/domestic abuse? If women are victims of crimes, are perpetrators prosecuted? Why do men hurt women, and what does this say about the direction of contemporary society? This book opens with an historical incident, the murder in Africa of four nuns and a fifth woman, a Swedish woman, whose death drives all the crimes committed in the book. Mankell is not a nihlist noir author, he's a humanist. We who live in small towns or in our heads have to see the world is changing and respond to that, like it or not. The series takes place in small town, provincial Sweden, which is a country known for a century for its prosperity, tolerance and liberal views of sexuality, but Mankell shows us the ways that Sweden is changing: Less tolerance for refugees, murders of women, racism, and sexism. We see a new (female) police chief, we see a young (female) detective of whom the older more traditional males are somewhat jealous. In the last book we dealt briefly with sex trafficking, but in this book a range of women’s issues are present throughout. Can we take the law in our own hands when we feel righteous wrath?Īs I have observed with earlier reviews, as I see it Mankell intends to infuse an entertainment genre-detective, thriller, police procedural-with global social issues. And that implicates us in the violence in some ways that interestingly complicates the story. I’ll try to explain, if I can do so without too many spoilers, but generally we come to sympathize with the killer in some ways when all is revealed. It’s a serial killer book, sigh, but it complicates our view of the actual killings and isn’t just torture for torture’s sake. The Fifth Woman, the sixth book in the Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell, seems to me the best and most fully realized novel that I have read in his series thus far. This is another very good entry in the series and should appeal to any fan of Scandinavian mysteries. The killer has a long list of potential victims, and Wallander will be sorely tested if he and his team are going to save them. It's often said that a crime novel succeeds only to the extent that the villain is a worthy match for the protagonist, and that's certainly the case here. This is a dark, brooding police procedural with a unique and clever antagonist matched against Wallander and his team. Before long, everyone is exhausted from the long hours spent on the investigation, and it seems as though every time the slightest hint of a break in the case emerges, they have to go back to square one and rethink the entire thing. Nothing seems to link the victims, and Wallander and his team are pressed to the limit. This is especially scary, because serial killers are very rare in Sweden. In the meantime, another man, this one a florist, goes missing, and it seems clear that a diabolical killer is on the loose. Wallander and his team begin the investigation, but there are precious few clues to point them in the direction of the killer. It took a long time for the victim to die, and it seems apparent that someone was really angry with him. His body is later found impaled on bamboo spikes in a trap that has obviously been deliberately set for him. An elderly car dealer, who writes poetry about birds in his spare time, is reported missing. He returns home to Sweden tanned, relaxed and rejuvenated, but that won't last for long. After spending much of the summer in an exhausting search for a serial killer, Kurt Wallander gets away to Italy on an idyllic vacation with his father.
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