Synopses & Reviews
On Midsummers Eve, three friends gather in a secluded meadow in Sweden. In the still-sun-lit northern night, they don costumes and begin to role play. But an uninvited guest soon brings their performance to a gruesome conclusion. His approach is careful; his aim is perfect. Three bullets, three corpses. The murderer then carefully photographs the grisly tableau.
Meanwhile, the Ystad police station is experiencing a summer lull. Inspector Kurt Wallander is focusing on living healthier, but his peace of mind is shattered when a fellow officer is murdered. The police slowly realize how little they know about what is going on in their seemingly serene town. An unknown killer is on the loose, but their only lead is a photograph of three dead young people in costume.
Forced to dig more deeply than hed like into the personal life of one of his colleagues, Wallanders investigation uncovers something he could never have imagined.
One Step Behind is the fifth book to appear in English in what the Los Angeles Times Book Review calls the exquisite Kurt Wallander series.
Review
"Lyrical, meticulous, and stunningly suspenseful." St. Petersburg Times
Review
"Typical of the dense, intricate intelligence that Mankell brings to detection and crime writing." The Washington Post Book World
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"Satisfying in a way that has less to do with the wonders of forensic science than with the pure pleasure of rational thought." The New York Times
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"It is not hard to see why the Wallander books have made a particular impact." Times Literary Supplement
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Lyrical....Meticulously detailed....Masterful. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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Wonderful! Police procedural with personal texture. The Associated Press
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Henning Mankells Inspector Wallander has established himself as one of the best of recent detectives....It is not hard to see why the Wallander books have made a particular impact. The Times Literary Supplement (London)
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"Mankell remains central to the flowering of a new, distinctly darker strain of the European hard-boiled crime novel." Booklist, starred review
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"The best of Wallander's adventures to date." Kirkus Reviews
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Especially satisfying. The Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the sixth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series, the basis for the PBS series staring Kenneth Branagh.
On Midsummer's Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander's most trusted colleagues-someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime-also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can't begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father's death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.
Synopsis
The mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander. From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the seventh riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.
On Midsummer's Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander's most trusted colleagues-someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime-also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can't begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father's death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.
Synopsis
Sixth in the Kurt Wallander series.
On Midsummers Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallanders most trusted colleagues-someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime-also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he cant begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own fathers death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.
About the Author
Internationally acclaimed author Henning Mankell has written nine Kurt Wallander mysteries. The books have consistently topped the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving a number of major literary prizes and generating numerous international film and television adaptations.
Ebba Segerberg teaches Swedish at Washington University in St. Louis.
Reading Group Guide
1.
One Step Behind begins with Inspector Kurt Wallander nearly being killed in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel. What tone does this near-death experience set for the novel? What role does Wallanders fatigue play in the events that follow?
2. Early in the novel, Wallander thinks of his colleagues: “They dont know much about me and I dont know much about them. We work together, maybe over the course of an entire career, and what do we learn about each other? Nothing” [p. 29]. In what ways can the novel be read as a meditation on the limits of human knowledge? Where else in the story does this lack of knowledge play a significant role?
3. In trying to fathom the murderers mindset, Wallander thinks, “Ive never believed in pure evil. There are no evil people, no one with brutality in their genes. There are evil circumstances and environments, not evil per se. But here I sense the actions of a truly darkened mind” [p. 162]. Is he correct in thinking that brutal behavior is a result of ones environment rather than of ones character? What motivates the killer in One Step Behind to commit his crimes?
4. Wallander is often “struck by the feeling that something [isnt] quite right” [p. 65]. To what extent does he rely on feeling and intuition to guide him in solving the mystery in One Step Behind?
5. At various points throughout the novel, and especially after Isa is murdered, Wallander is accused of botching the investigation. Are the criticisms brought against him justified? What mistakes does he make? Should he have been able to foresee his errors?
6. Wallander is an unusually disheveled kind of detective. Far from being a self-confident tough-guy, hes forgetful, full of self-doubt, in poor health, prone to mistakes, and perpetually exhausted. Why do these characteristics tend to make him a more, rather than less, appealing protagonist? What would the novel lose if Wallander were more conventionally competent? What qualities make him a forceful figure, despite these weaknesses?
7. Wallander observes that there was a similarity between his murdered colleague Svedberg and the young people killed in the nature preserve: “They had all had secrets” [p. 210]. Who else in the novel has a secret? In what way is the novel really about keeping and uncovering secrets?
8. Martinsson observes that the killer “always manages to stay one step ahead of us and one step behind at the same time” [p. 394]. How does Mankell keep the reader also one step ahead and one step behind the actions of the murderer? Why does Mankell often allow the reader to know more than the detectives? What kind of suspense does this knowledge create?
9. Late in the novel, as Wallander and the other detectives come close to despair, Martinsson argues that the killer has no motive, that he kills simply “for the sake of killing.” When Wallander disagrees, Martinsson says, “Until a few years ago, I would have agreed with you: theres an explanation for all violence. But that just isnt the case any more” [p. 331]. Does this particular killer have an understandable motive? Or is he right in suggesting that violence in our time is increasingly senseless?
10. How is Wallander able to solve this mystery? What are the major turning points in his investigation? What qualities of character and intelligence enable Wallander to apprehend the killer?
11. What picture of Swedish society emerges from One Step Behind? How do the novels minor characters—Isa Edengren and her wealthy parents, the bank director Bror Sundelius, Svedbergs cousin Sture Bjorklund, the mailman Westin, and others—contribute to the overall social reality of the novel? Are Martinsson and Wallander right in thinking that Swedish society is unraveling?
12. One Step Behind is preceded by an epigraph from the Second Law of Thermodynamics: “There are always more disordered than ordered systems” [p. vii]. And Wallander thinks to himself, “reality was rarely reasonable” [p. 98]. How is this disordered sense of reality conveyed in the novel? Which plays a greater role in solving the murder mystery in the novel: the use of reason or the reliance on spontaneous, irrational hunches?
13. Of the gawkers who come to look at a crime scene, Wallander says, “They probably get a thrill from being in the presence of the unthinkable. . . . Knowing that they themselves are safe” [p. 315]. Is this, at least in part, the reason why people read thrillers?
14. How does One Step Behind differ from American thrillers? What qualities distinguish the novel, and its hero, Kurt Wallander, as distinctly European?