Kurt Wallander Series

The Kurt Wallander series, created by author Henning Mankell, follows detective Kurt Wallander as he grapples with dark and complex crimes in the picturesque Swedish town of Ystad. The series explores not only the investigations themselves but also Wallander's personal struggles and moral dilemmas. Alongside thrilling plots, it reflects social and political issues of contemporary times. Wallander becomes a symbol of the modern detective facing not only crime but also his own demons.

Recommended Reading Order

1
Faceless Killers
Henning Mankell
298 pages
11 hours of reading
3.8(61147)Add rating
One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call-out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath. An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, both victims of a violence beyond reason. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign. When this is leaked to the press, it unleashes racial hatred. Kurt Wallander is a senior police officer. His life is a shambles. His wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him, and even his aging father barely tolerates him. He works tirelessly, eats badly, and drinks his night away in a lonely, neglected flat. But now, with winter tightening and his activities being monitored by a tough-minded district attorney, Wallander must forget his troubles and throw himself into a battle against time and against mounting xenophobia. (back cover)
2
The Dogs of Riga
Henning Mankell
336 pages
12 hours of reading
3.8(21779)Add rating
Second in the Kurt Wallander series.Sweden, winter, 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team receive an anonymous tip-off. A few days later a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead. The dead men were criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect. Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea, to Riga in Latvia, where he is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police surveillance, scarcely veiled threats, and lies. Doomed always to be one step behind the shadowy figures he pursues, only Wallander's obstinate desire to see that justice is done brings the truth to light.
3
The White Lioness
Henning Mankell
448 pages
16 hours of reading
3.8(989)Add rating
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander • From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the third riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series. The execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife looks like a simple case even though there is no obvious suspect. But then Wallander learns of a determined stalker, and soon enough, the cops catch up with him. But when his alibi turns out to be airtight, they realize that what seemed a simple crime of passion is actually far more complex—and dangerous. The search for the truth behind the killing eventually uncovers an assassination plot, and Wallander soon finds himself in a tangle with both the secret police and a ruthless foreign agent. Combining compelling insights into the sinister side of modern life with a riveting tale of international intrigue, The White Lioness keeps you on the knife-edge of suspense.
4
Mannen som log
Henning Mankell
3.9(622)Add rating
Staying alive becomes a precarious task for Inspector Kurt Wallander as he plays both hunter and hunted in a terrifying game of money and power. Two men have died and an enigmatic business tycoon who hides behind an entourage of brusque secretaries and tight security seems to be the link between the two deaths.
5
Sidetracked
Henning Mankell
4.1(18198)Add rating
Midsummer approaches, and Wallander prepares for a holiday with the new woman in his life, hopeful that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without hi,. Bit his summer is ruined when a fir l commits suicide before his eyes, and a former minister of justice is butchered in the first of a series of apparently motiveless murders. Wallander's hunt for the girl's identity and his furious pursuit of a killer who scalps his victims will throw him and those he loves most into mortal danger.
6
The Fifth Woman
Henning Mankell
4.1(21240)Add rating
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander • From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the sixth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series. In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander’s strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.
7
One Step Behind
Henning Mankell
4.1(15389)Add rating
"It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unknown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is it the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind."
8
Firewall
Henning Mankell
416 pages
15 hours of reading
4.0(14205)Add rating
Inspector Kurt Wallander begins to suspect a connection between a series of crimes--the murder of a taxi driver by two teenage girls, the escape of one of the culprits, a power blackout, and a grisly discovery at the malfunctioning power station
9
Before the Frost
Henning Mankell
384 pages
14 hours of reading
3.9(9555)Add rating
In woodland outside Ystad, the police make a horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, the pages marked with scribbled corrections.
10
An Event in Autumn
Henning Mankell
169 pages
6 hours of reading
3.7(4367)Add rating
The eleventh riveting installment in the mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander • Wallander is "one of the most impressive creations in crime fiction today.... An old-fashioned moral force and sense of disquiet of the sort rarely found in contemporary crime fiction." —The Guardian After nearly thirty years in the same job, Inspector Kurt Wallander is tired, restless, and itching to make a change. He is taken with a certain old farmhouse, perfectly situated in a quiet countryside with a charming, overgrown garden. There he finds the skeletal hand of a corpse in a shallow grave. Wallander’s investigation takes him deep into the history of the house and the land, until finally the shocking truth about a long-buried secret is brought to light. Includes an afterword by the author.
11
The Troubled Man
Henning Mankell
3.8(346)Add rating
When Kurt Wallander is called into the case of the disappearance of a retired naval officer, coincidentally his daughter's future father-in-law, he becomes embroiled in a story of Cold War espionage.
The Pyramid
Henning Mankell
496 pages
18 hours of reading
3.9(672)Add rating
Detective Wallander is haunted by the spectre of a murder he was unable to prevent as a young policeman. Years after the event, the daughter of the murder victim, now a heroin addict, dies of an overdose. A distressed Wallander is assigned to investigate the crash of a light airplane and a detonated armour piercing shell is found in the wreckage. A few days later, two elderly sisters are killed in an explosion in a sewing supplies shop. Traces of an advanced explosive are found in the burnt-out shop and evidence soon mounts to indicate that both events are tied to a showdown between two rival narcotics gangs.
The Return of the Dancing Master
Henning Mankell
3.9(6192)Add rating
This tale marks the end of the Kurt Wallander mysteries and yet leads back to Wallander's Ystad, where a new series of thrillers can begin. Stefan Lindman investigates the murder of a former police colleague and to his horror uncovers links to a global web of neo-Nazi activity.