The Fifth Woman (A Kurt Wallander Mystery)

The Wallander books are a great diversion. I was reading this as I worked on a couple other books, but I found myself turning to "The Fifth Woman" more often than the others, eager to follow the mystery of the deaths of several seemingly unconnected victims. Wallander is a great character. As you follow him through one of his cases, you feel increasingly exhausted, just as he does. This is because he pours all his time and energy into his work. In "The Fifth Woman," there are a lot of midnight staff meetings, a lot of late-night interrogations of people connected to the crimes. Nothing can wait until the next morning. As a result, Kurt Wallander doesn't eat well, doesn't sleep much, and runs himself into the ground. The book begins with Kurt taking a much-needed vacation with his father to Rome. Anyone who's read this series knows his relationship with his father is fraught, but the trip draws them closer. Unfortunately--SPOILER ALERT--Kurt's father dies soon afterward, so this death haunts him for the rest of the book. Wallander seems to realize that his personal relationships--with his girlfriend, Baiba, in Latvia, and his daughter, Linda--take a backseat to his work, yet he can't seem to do anything about it. In "The Fifth Woman," he wants a dog and a house but can't make the time to see this through, and he worries about money. His car breaks down, and he cringes at the expenses. As for this particular case, various men are killed in various ways but Wallander concludes these murders are the work of a single serial killer. There's a link to events that take place in Africa, as in previous Wallander books. All the police feel that Sweden is changing for the worse and becoming more violent. The Wallander investigations seem "real," by which I mean that clues sometimes lead nowhere or are red herrings, and sometimes time passes with a frustrating lack of clues. But this verisimilitude also leads to lulls in the writing. I could feel "The Fifth Woman" dragging. Even the sentences came to seem flat, short, declarative, as though Mankell was simply trying to hit a page count. When I read a mystery, I don't necessarily want reality; I want a page-turner. Here there's as much dedication to Wallander as there is to the crimes he investigates, which I like. Wallander tracks down the killer at a train platform, only to have the killer escape. I found the recapture a bit too easy, based on a Wallander hunch with little to support it. My only other minor gripe about this novel was its subplot of a citizen's defense league that was forming and seemed like a real, nationwide threat. This vigilante group was too quickly and easily disbanded, and the subplot simply vanished. This needed a firmer resolution.

I am reading the Wallander series in the chronological order of the stories, not in the order of publication (either in English or Swedish – I can’t read the later anyway). I enjoy the Mankell’s style. However, even if I am not fluent in English, the flaws in the translation are noticeable. They do disrupt the reading quite frequently. Sometimes the lines sound as if I had translated the book myself, using my very limited vocabulary and thus unnecessarily repeating expressions and words in such a way as to cripple the text. Anyway, I have not the competence to criticize the book from that perspective – even if I just did it.What I can say after reading some of the reviews is that Mankels style and Wallander personality are great pars of the book’s qualities. Yes, Swedish police work is a complicated mix of bureaucracy, investigation and discussion of political problems. So much that sometimes the plot drags for quite many pages (or days, if you prefer) or gets stuck in the mud. The weather contributes to that feeling. Those are interesting features of the text, rather than flaws, in my modest opinion. It helps us to get into Wallander skin. Doing so is somewhat depressing, indeed. The difference is that we can get out of it and appreciate the stay (or the journey). Wallander stranged father and their way to cope with that relationship is reflected in postponed or even forgotten phone calls. For instance, the unanswered questions that Kurt poses to himself about his father whereabouts and inner feelings are so common in ordinary life, that complaining about them sounds quite childish to me: those things happen even if we can hardly accept or cope with them ourselves. Characters have personalities (or layers, in Shrek’s famous words). There are no avenues or highways from mystery to solutions (in fact there are many blind alleys), no CSI-like solutions and even mistakes are made in police work. Those, in my view, are also strengths of the book: we don’t rush to solutions; they are carved with bare hands against solid rocks half buried in mud.I never comment on the plots, so there will be no spoilers. What I need to say, simply, is that the general subject of taking the “justice” in one hands’ relate pretty well with the general Swedish psychological and social landscape outlined by Mankell in his “detours”, unanswered questions, bad weather and odd social relationships. As far as I can say, this is the best Wallander book. Fortunately, I still have a few more to read and change my mind.

Markell is unrivaled in the Wallander stories as surely the most believable teller of criminal investigation by an honest to god detective, who happens to live in the small town and ever changing land of Sweden.

A good story that isn't in a rush. The background to a series of brutal murders is set up and the story unspools at its own pace. Mankell takes time for multiple meanderings off the main path of the tale, most notably exploring the character and background of Wallander himself and his fraught paternal relationship. We also see good character development of even the secondary characters, including a number of Wallander's police colleagues. All this is set against the lowering backdrop of the flat, grey, muddy, rainy, misty, cold landscape of Skane in southern Sweden. It's quite tragic in places. They don't call it Scandinavian Noir for nothing.The slow revelations and frequent digressions add much to the feeling of atmosphere and immersiveness of the novel, but this comes at a price. I am patient with books but I did find myself at times wishing that the thing would just hurry up a bit. There are only so many times that I want to see Wallander and his investigators conclude that they are no further forward and without a clue. Honestly, 580 pages could have been 450 without very much loss. The ending is satisfactory, but is as slow and drawn-out as the rest of the book.An atmospheric, immersive novel that takes a bit of patience. Recommended nevertheless.

This book sees Kurt Wallander, a moody (I'd say miserable, even before something dad happens to him) Swedish detective investigate a series of cleverly planned, if horrific, murders in and around his town.It is a little dates now (comments about waiting for the fax to come through, and the usefulness of mobile phones stand out most), but it is a good read.I do have a few grumbles though. First, it's a police precedural, which is fine, but it can feel almost too procedural on occasions. I get that police investigation have meetings, but the number that Wallander has can only mean he's trying to catch the reader us, after they've put the book down for a while.Second, the case turns on how a case is packed (it causes Wallander to thin about who packed it), which is daft, when you read it for the first time.Finally, I found Wallander a little whiney, and not about the thing I'd expect him to shine about, which he barely mention s.So all in a decent, but not great, read.

I love the Wallander book and have been following them in order for the last few months.This is the 6th book in series and is yet another compelling and intricate story which finds Wallander dealing with a lot going on in his personal life yet he is still able to focus on the killer who is attacking men who abuse women.Very similar themes are raised in 'The Fifth Woman' as they are in Mankell's Swedish compatriot Stieg Larssons Millienuium series. (Also Mankell wrote this in the mid 90's).Have loved all of the books so far believing that they all have merit even the ambitious acquired taste of 'The White Lioness' which shows a whole new side to Kurt Wallander.At this stage Wallander has just come back from Rome with his Father and there trip was a relationship building exercise which gave Wallander renew energy. But things quickly go wrong with the sad news about his father and the continuing theme of Wallander questioning so many things about his life and his future ambitions.The story develops well and by the end you almost have a sense of sympathy with the killer due to what she was trying to achieve and who she was actually killing.'Sidetracked' is perhaps a better story in that we see more of the killer and how they are preparing their brutal kills but this still had me compelled and I cannot wait to read the next book.There is an obvious agenda to bring Women into the series as we have lacked multiple female representation throughout the novels. The thought of a woman being able to be clever as a serial killer bemuses the Police and they continue to fear for the changes taking place within Sweden.Overall it is a great book, a great character, and I can't wait to read more.

I've obviously come rather late to this Wallander book, for which I am very grateful as it seemed to me to be one of his best. I was gripped by it from the very first word, despite learning a great deal from the beginning about the killer. The way the team of detectives manage to unravel all the clues and eventually hit on the main point of of the reasons for the killings is totally gripping. Also unravelling in the background is Wallander's private life. He has to come to terms with the death of his father in the tiny gaps in time allowed by the absorbing investigation. One of the finer points of the book is the way it portrays the huge sense of responsibilty Wallander feels for the direction he is steering his team of detectives along. He has moments of doubt when he reaches the conclusion that their first thoughts were very misguided. The reader knows elementary errors are being made and wills them on towards the right course. Incidentally, it may be useful to have a map of Sweden to hand as the action covers a large aarea. The distances between places in Sweden can be huge.

The detective work involved here is remarkable and intuitive. I enjoyed it but l have to say that l prefer the tv series that starred Krister Henriksson. Don’t like the other tv attempts especially Kenneth Branagh hamming it up and that other one with the tall fat untidy bloke. The book evokes a rather depressing grey, damp countryside with poor policemen and women undertaking very unpleasant work. Not a cheering book by any means but then that’s Scandinavia Noir for you.