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(61148)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
3.8(21779)Add rating
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.
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(623)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(18199)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
448 pages
16 hours of reading
4.1(21240)Add rating
Four nuns and a fifth woman, a visitor to Africa, are killed in a savage night-time attack. Months later, in Sweden, the news of the tragedy sets off a cruel vengeance for these killings. But when inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of an elderly bird-watcher he discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder.
7
One Step Behind
Henning Mankell
448 pages
16 hours of reading
4.1(15390)Add rating
It is Midsummer's Eve, three young friends gather in a wood. In the still-sunlit, Scandanavian dusk, they don costumes joyfully to enact - or so it appears to an unseen observer - a kind of masque. The hidden watcher soon brings their performance to an end. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect - three bullets, three corpses. The murderer, then, carefully photographs the grisly tableau. The Ystad police station, meanwhile, is experiencing a summer lull, indeed Inspector Wallander is at last at liberty to attend to - albeit reluctantly - his deteriorating health, but his peace of mind is shattered when one of his colleagues is murdered. An unknown killer, seen by no-one, is on the loose, and the police's only lead is a photograph of three dead young people in costume. Forced to dig more deeply than he would have wanted into the personal life of one of his colleagues, Wallander's investigation reveals something none of his team could ever have imagined. However, they remain tantalisingly, terrifyingly one step behind the lethal progress of a killer Wallander would have to suppose was deranged if his methods were not so meticulous and his victims so clinically targeted.
8
Firewall
Henning Mankell
544 pages
20 hours of reading
4.0(14206)Add rating
Stopping to get money from a cash machine one evening, a man inexplicably falls to the ground: dead. A taxi dirver is brutally murdered by two teenaged girls. Quickly apprehended they appal local policemen with their total lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery. Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery of betrayals in his own team, lonely and frustrated, Wallander begins to lose conviction in his role as a detective. The search for answers leads Wallander dangerously close to a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden within the anonymity of cyberspace. Somehow these criminals seem always to know the police's next move. Wallander finds himself fighting to outsmart them In their gripping police procedural about our increasing vulnerability in the modern digitalised world.
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
520 pages
19 hours of reading
3.9(6192)Add rating
Herbert Molin, A Retired Police Officer, Is Living Alone In A Remote Cottage In The Vast Forests Of Northern Sweden. He Has Two Obsessions: One Is The Tango And The Other Is A Conviction That He Is Being Hunted, Constantly Pursued By 'Demons'. He Has No Close Friends, No Close Neighbours, And By The Time His Body Is Eventually Found, Molin Is Almost Unrecognisable. Lindman, A Police Officer On Extended Sick Leave, Hears Of The Death Of His Former Colleague And, To Take His Mind Off His Own Problems, Decides To Involve Himself In The Case. What He Discovers, To His Horror And Disbelief, Is A Network Of Evil Almost Unimaginable In This Remote District, And One Which Seems Impossible To Link To Molin'S Death.