Saturday, June 26, 2010

The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell

The Man Who Smiled is a Kurt Wallander mystery.  I'd never read Mankell before and I enjoyed the book.  Kurt Wallander is a Swedish detective who is considering retiring from the police force because he was forced to kill a man in self defense.  Then a friend is murdered and Kurt can't quit the police with the mystery unsolved.  The case gets more complicated as it goes along with an actual attempt on Kurt's life at one point.

I'll admit to being painfully parochial, but from my perspective this book paints the Swedish police as a bunch of wimps.  How they expect to fight crimes committed by people with guns and bombs when they don't even carry weapons of their own is beyond me.  Life in Sweden is apparently very different from life in the USA.  I'm sure the Swedes consider that a good thing.  So do I.  That said it was a good book and a first rate mystery.  Highly recommended. 

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