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The Man Who Smiled begins with Wallander deep in a personal and professional crisis after killing a man in the line of duty; eventually, he vows to quit the Ystad police force for good. Just then, however, a friend who had asked Wallander to look into the death of his father winds up dead himself, shot three times. Ann-Britt Hoglund, the department's first female detective, proves to be his best ally as he tries to pierce the smiling facade of his prime suspect, a powerful multinational business tycoon. But just as he comes close to uncovering the truth, the same shadowy threats responsible for the murders close in on Wallander himself.
All of Mankell's talents as a master of the modern police procedural — which have earned him legions of fans worldwide — are showcased in The Man Who Smiled, which is the fourth of the eight Wallander books published thus far in English.
Review:
"First published in Sweden in 1994, Mankell's terrific fourth Kurt Wallender mystery opens with the kind of startling image typical of this internationally bestselling series (Firewall, etc.): a lawyer, driving home through the fog, stops after he sees 'a human-sized effigy' propped on a chair in the middle of a deserted highway. Gustaf Torstensson gets out of the car to investigate, is hit from behind and was 'dead before his body hit the damp asphalt.' The police accept the assailant's claim that it was an accident, but when Torstensson's son, Sten, is shot dead just two weeks later, the brooding Wallender, who's on sick leave and vowing to retire from the Ystad police force, decides to pursue the killer and resume his career. The chief suspect — a powerful, globe-trotting Swedish businessman who's the smiling man of the title — leads Wallender on an exquisitely plotted search for motive and evidence. Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"This is the fourth of the nine novels about Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander that have earned Swedish writer Henning Mankell an international following. Published in Sweden in 1994 and now appearing in this country for the first time, 'The Man Who Smiled' is neither the best nor the worst cop story I've read, but it is by far the gloomiest. Mankell has clearly been influenced by his great countryman... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Ingmar Bergman, whose films for several decades spread profound depression throughout the Western world. Rain and fog, alienation and angst, doom and death crowd these pages. The novel is so damned depressing that it often had me laughing aloud. When we first meet Wallander he is on leave from the Ystad police force. The trauma of killing a man — in self-defense — has left him in the grip of 'all-consuming depression.' For more than a year he has been drinking heavily and, on trips to Barbados and Thailand, whoring as well. Single after 'a bitter and long drawn-out divorce,' he is estranged from his father and daughter. He resolves to quit the police force but changes his mind when a friend is murdered. His friend, a lawyer, was shot in his office. Wallander discovers that the man's father, also a lawyer, was previously murdered in what the police wrongly accepted as an accident. Other crimes follow. A land mine is buried in the garden of the old lawyer's secretary. A bomb blows up Wallander's car, and he escapes only because of the miraculous instincts that guide him. Soon his investigation focuses on a billionaire businessman, famous for his support of charities and the arts, who lives in a castle outside Ystad. We readers have known since the first chapter that this paragon had his henchmen kill the lawyers because they knew about his shady dealings. Thanks to some improbable plot twists and unlikely heroics, the dour detective closes in on the ever-smiling billionaire, but by then I had been distracted by other elements of the story, notably its all-pervasive gloom. When Ystad hires its first female police officer, Wallander can only grumble, 'With a woman among us, nothing can stay as it used to be.' He reflects that this woman's career will give her 'an unbroken sequence of disappointments, and very little joy.' The Swedish weather is endlessly bleak: 'The wind was getting stronger, as was the rain, and he felt cold. A buzzard perched on a crooked fence post, watching him.' A stop for coffee is no help: 'Dour Swedish gloom was nowhere more strikingly in evidence than in cafes attached to gas stations.' 'Melancholy foghorns' sound in the distance, and Swedish homes offer no cheer: 'Everything, from the furniture to the wallpaper, was dark, giving him a feeling of melancholy and silence.' Nor does Wallander's workplace provide comfort: 'A police station is essentially like a prison.' We are not surprised when poor Wallander reflects, 'I'm a man who doesn't laugh enough.' 'The Man Who Smiled' is notable not only for this excessive gloom, but also for countless cliches. I should confess that, despite the ministrations of my editors, I remain generally tolerant of so-called cliches. I tend to agree with Camille Paglia's perverse notion that they are our old friends — our country cousins, so to speak — and not to be lightly or snobbishly scorned. One man's cliche can be another man's fond memory. Still, there are limits, and Mankell, or his translator — I cannot say which — has gone beyond them. We are assaulted by phrases that we do not immediately associate with Sweden: 'I'm not seeing the forest for the trees.' 'Well, I'm back in the saddle now.' 'I can't shake off the feeling that there's something fishy about those two dead lawyers.' 'There's been a lot of water under the bridge.' 'It's always better from the horse's mouth.' 'The police had the green light to put all their eggs in one basket.' And, the grand prize winner, 'What he would have to do now was not merely wipe that smile off the man's face, he had also to slay a giant.' If we strip away the moroseness and the cliches, what remains? A mildly interesting police procedural about a detective trying to nail an evil billionaire. It may help if the reader, like Wallander, shares Balzac's view that behind every great fortune is a great crime — but even seeing the tycoon's great crimes exposed doesn't do much to cheer us up. I do want to note, however, that I spotted one glint of humor amid the prevailing darkness. It concerns Wallander's father, a surly old artist who keeps painting the same picture over and over, 'an autumn landscape, with or without a grouse in the foreground.' These paintings turn up a few times, and that's the joke: Some have a grouse and some don't. Those Swedes, they slay me." Reviewed by Patrick Anderson, whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers(at symbol)aol.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Review:
"When the bleak landscapes of Henning Mankell's Swedish police procedurals start to look like home, it's time to head for the hills. Either that, or confront the grim truths about modern society that give weight to this author's absorbing but disquieting existential mysteries." Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
Review:
"[T]errific....Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order." Library Journal
Review:
"I commend the New Press for publishing this as well as other Mankell novels and nonfiction works in translation." Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis:
The long-awaited fourth mystery in the bestselling Kurt Wallander series finds the detective deep in crisis after killing a man in the line of duty. Vowing to quit the police force, he instead becomes involved in solving a friend's murder.
Henning Mankell has written thirty-six novels, including nine Kurt Wallander mysteries, and many plays. His books have been published in thirty-six countries with over 25 million copies in print worldwide. He has received the Crime Writers' Association's Macallan Gold Dagger and the German Book Prize, and has been a three-time finalist for the Los Angeles Times Mystery/Thriller Book Prize. Mankell lives in Sweden and Mozambique.
sergiocaruso, November 21, 2007 (view all comments by sergiocaruso)
A commisioner of police like Durrenmatt in a distressing Sweden
Sometimes it happens: some “minor” literature books come out and astonish us as real masterpieces. “The man who smiled” is one of these. Mankell mix the story and the carachters realism up without being complicated. Moreover the setting is very original and good immaginated so that it becomes to be a proper carachter: we are immersed in the swedish richness, order and efficiency, but nevertheless it is a land permeated by a constant sense of desolation. On the contrary the novel is not distressing at all, but it counts on a close plot and on a good amount of action. Well, who said that action should stay only at cinema?
Daniele Caruso, Firenze, 20/11/2007
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (4 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
rjhelenaerika, January 26, 2007 (view all comments by rjhelenaerika)
Mankell writes some of the best crime fiction I have ever read. His books are so atmospheric that you feel you are in Sweden. Wallander is a great character even though I cannot always sympathize with him. I cannot wait for the next in the series to be translated.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (3 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
The Man Who Smiled: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Kurt Wallander Mysteries # 4)
Used Hardcover
Henning Mankell
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0 reviews
$15.50
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Product details
325 pages
New Press -
English9781565849938
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"First published in Sweden in 1994, Mankell's terrific fourth Kurt Wallender mystery opens with the kind of startling image typical of this internationally bestselling series (Firewall, etc.): a lawyer, driving home through the fog, stops after he sees 'a human-sized effigy' propped on a chair in the middle of a deserted highway. Gustaf Torstensson gets out of the car to investigate, is hit from behind and was 'dead before his body hit the damp asphalt.' The police accept the assailant's claim that it was an accident, but when Torstensson's son, Sten, is shot dead just two weeks later, the brooding Wallender, who's on sick leave and vowing to retire from the Ystad police force, decides to pursue the killer and resume his career. The chief suspect — a powerful, globe-trotting Swedish businessman who's the smiling man of the title — leads Wallender on an exquisitely plotted search for motive and evidence. Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review"
by Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review,
"When the bleak landscapes of Henning Mankell's Swedish police procedurals start to look like home, it's time to head for the hills. Either that, or confront the grim truths about modern society that give weight to this author's absorbing but disquieting existential mysteries."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"[T]errific....Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order."
"Review"
by Philadelphia Inquirer,
"I commend the New Press for publishing this as well as other Mankell novels and nonfiction works in translation."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The long-awaited fourth mystery in the bestselling Kurt Wallander series finds the detective deep in crisis after killing a man in the line of duty. Vowing to quit the police force, he instead becomes involved in solving a friend's murder.
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