Mankell, Henning. The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases. New York : New Press. 2008. Print
First Sentences:
In the beginning, everything was just a fog.
Or perhaps it was like a thick-flowing sea where all was white and silent. The landscape of death. It was also the first thought that came to Kurt Wallander as he slowly began rising back to the surface. That he was already dead. He had reached twenty-one years of age, no more. A young policeman, barely an adult. And then a stranger had rushed up to him with a knife and he had not had time to throw himself out of harm's way.
Afterward there was only the white fog. And the silence.
Description:
A suicide in the apartment next door to a cop. A murder of an elderly grocery store owner by a suspiciously masked, silent figure. A man who walks on a deserted beach, then dies in the back seat of a taxi. A photographer who creates distorted photos of famous figures is murdered in his studio. Two elderly spinster sisters who both die mysteriously in a fire that engulfed their store.
Traditional murder mysteries introduce readers
to a central crime-fighter, police chief, private detective, etc. who
then demonstrates unique skills and experience to move the plot
forward and eventually solve the crime. These investigators always
employ procedures and techniques obtained from their previous years with murder
cases as well as lessons learned from mentors in that field.
But how did these crime-fighters start out? What made these figures decide to become investigators of crimes? What were the first cases laid on their desks and what were their first stumbling attempts to solve these crimes? Who were their bosses, their families, and the original criminals? How did they succeed or fail in these early years?
In The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases, Henning Mankell reveals in these five crimes stories the first cases of Kurt Wallander, the beleaguered police inspector of Mankell's famous Swedish police procedure series of crime mysteries launched in 1991.
The Pyramid is, therefore, a prequel, showing the young Wallander in his first position as an ordinary Detective Sergeant desperate to get off his patrolman's beat, up to his eventual promotion to police inspector. Each story also introduces readers to Wallander's family, colleagues, girl friend, and the quiet town of Ystad, Sweden.
Through these early cases, Wallander is characterized as a tenacious plodder, a man dedicated to proper police procedure, methodically seeking information in the mundane details of the crime, all traits that are thoroughly reinforced in later books.
Mankell never allows any neat answers to these early crimes. Case work is depicted as methodical, carefully eliminating what cannot be true and then seeing what is left. Wallander is not a heroic figure, but an everyday professional policeman dedicated to solving crimes. Readers are given few insider clues and must examine factors and people slowly along with Wallander to try to piece together what actions to take next.
The frustrations of false leads, the dead days when nothing new crosses the desk, the lies of witnesses that painstakingly have to be unmasked, and the general routine necessary for solving an mysterious crime are compelling in their similarity to the real police world. I love observing the personalities of these policemen with their varying degrees of professional and social skills, thrown together (sometimes begrudgingly) to tackle specific aspects of the case.
While some readers may miss the shoot-em-up action of Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" series or the psychological drama of Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the slower, more realistic case-solving of Wallander presents a refreshing breath of reality I really enjoy.
As a neat twist, the final scene in the final story of this prequel ends with a 5:15am phone call telling Wallander of a brutal murder of two elderly people in an isolated farmhouse. This phone call contains the exact words found in the opening sentences of The Faceless Killers, Mankell's first book in the Kurt Wallander series which was written in 1991.
If you like this character and police procedure mysteries, then keep going and read Mankell's other ten Wallander books. I warn you, though, they soon become addicting.
Happy reading.
A suicide in the apartment next door to a cop. A murder of an elderly grocery store owner by a suspiciously masked, silent figure. A man who walks on a deserted beach, then dies in the back seat of a taxi. A photographer who creates distorted photos of famous figures is murdered in his studio. Two elderly spinster sisters who both die mysteriously in a fire that engulfed their store.
But how did these crime-fighters start out? What made these figures decide to become investigators of crimes? What were the first cases laid on their desks and what were their first stumbling attempts to solve these crimes? Who were their bosses, their families, and the original criminals? How did they succeed or fail in these early years?
In The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases, Henning Mankell reveals in these five crimes stories the first cases of Kurt Wallander, the beleaguered police inspector of Mankell's famous Swedish police procedure series of crime mysteries launched in 1991.
The Pyramid is, therefore, a prequel, showing the young Wallander in his first position as an ordinary Detective Sergeant desperate to get off his patrolman's beat, up to his eventual promotion to police inspector. Each story also introduces readers to Wallander's family, colleagues, girl friend, and the quiet town of Ystad, Sweden.
Through these early cases, Wallander is characterized as a tenacious plodder, a man dedicated to proper police procedure, methodically seeking information in the mundane details of the crime, all traits that are thoroughly reinforced in later books.
Mankell never allows any neat answers to these early crimes. Case work is depicted as methodical, carefully eliminating what cannot be true and then seeing what is left. Wallander is not a heroic figure, but an everyday professional policeman dedicated to solving crimes. Readers are given few insider clues and must examine factors and people slowly along with Wallander to try to piece together what actions to take next.
The frustrations of false leads, the dead days when nothing new crosses the desk, the lies of witnesses that painstakingly have to be unmasked, and the general routine necessary for solving an mysterious crime are compelling in their similarity to the real police world. I love observing the personalities of these policemen with their varying degrees of professional and social skills, thrown together (sometimes begrudgingly) to tackle specific aspects of the case.
While some readers may miss the shoot-em-up action of Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" series or the psychological drama of Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the slower, more realistic case-solving of Wallander presents a refreshing breath of reality I really enjoy.
As a neat twist, the final scene in the final story of this prequel ends with a 5:15am phone call telling Wallander of a brutal murder of two elderly people in an isolated farmhouse. This phone call contains the exact words found in the opening sentences of The Faceless Killers, Mankell's first book in the Kurt Wallander series which was written in 1991.
If you like this character and police procedure mysteries, then keep going and read Mankell's other ten Wallander books. I warn you, though, they soon become addicting.
Happy reading.
Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com
If this book interests you and you want to read more Kurt Wallander mysteries in order (more enjoyable in my opinion, but not required), be sure to check out:
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com
If this book interests you and you want to read more Kurt Wallander mysteries in order (more enjoyable in my opinion, but not required), be sure to check out:
Mankell, Henning. Faceless Killers
Here is a bibliography of all of Mankell's Kurt Wallander books(First book in the Wallander series). Wallander must try to understand why an elderly husband and wife were brutally killed in their isolated farmhouse. Picks up the action exactly where "The Pyramid" short story leaves off.
Sjowall, Maj and Wahloo, Per. Roseanna
(First book in the Inspector Martin Beck Swedish police series). Beck must lead his homicide team to discover the name and murderer for an unidentified body that washed up in Sweden's Lake Vattern (previously reviewed here).
