Wie schlecht ist das denn?: Mein 3. Wallander und es ist erstaunlich, wieviel Langeweile man auf fast 600 Seiten unterbringen kann. Das Muster ist immer dasselbe: Wallander und seine Mitstreiter sind immer müde; verstehen überhaupt nicht, was vor sich geht; treffen sich immer um 8 Uhr zu Besprechungen (bei denen nur die Ereignisse der letzten 30 Seiten noch mal durchgekaut werden); essen immer belegte Brote und fragen sich immer, wieso sie eigentlich bei der Polizei sind und wie schlecht die Welt geworden ist. Als wäre das alles nicht schlimnm genug, versteht es Wallander immer wieder, durch seine Unfähigkeit andere Personen in Gefahr zu bringen. Und ermittelt wird sowieso nicht, nicht mal einfachsten Fragen wird nachgegangen, Ermittlungserfolge ergeben sich rein zufällig. Fast immer heisst es: "Wir wissen zu wenig", "wir warten noch ab", "wir sehen den Zusammenhang nicht", "vielleicht gehen wir in die falsche Richtung" (äh: welche Richtung???). Und wenn doch mal ein interessantes Ergebnis rauskommt, heisst es: "das prüfen wir später, wir haben wichtigeres zu tun" (was denn???). Als halbwegs intelligenter Mensch fühle ich mich veralbert.

Das ist Trivial-Literatur, geeignet allenfalls für die U-Bahn. Wenn man 2 Wallander-Bücher gelesen hat, kennt man alle und kann sie getrost zum Altpapier bringen (verbrennen darf man Bücher ja nicht mehr).

My third Henning Mankell book, and my least favorite. Plot concerns a cyber-terrorist attack on the global financial system. Wallander remains an interesting character, far more human than most detective heroes. But the plot is humdrum, the denouement humdrum, and there are far too many red herrings. Example, a young girl (murderess, avenging her rape by killing the rapist's father!) escapes. Later she turns up fried to a crisp in an electrical substation. Why? Mankell says "we never figured that out." Pretty poor. ( )

No acostumo a visitar els policies literaris amb tanta freqüència com fa uns anys, però el passat Nadal una amiga em regalà “El tallafocs” (1998) de Henning Mankell i així és com he acabat fent un volt per una comissaria d’una petita localitat del sud de Suècia.

La trama, i no revelo cap secret, se centra en delinqüents cibernètics d’una mena bastant especial, i com a subtext, que qualsevol ordinador connectat a la xarxa esdevé el centre del món. Un fet, no per sabut, menys impactant.

Per tractar-se d’una novel·la negra, és llarga, com em sembla que ho són totes les de Mankell, potser perquè tots els procediments policials estan explicats amb extrema prolixitat, sense oblidar per això un suspens molt ben sostingut. Cal reconèixer que es llegeix amb interès, que la claredat expositiva és notable i que els fets són prou intrigants. Tot i això, el desenllaç no m’ha acabat de fer el pes: hi ha detalls inexplicats que semblen col·locats dins de l’argument per augmentar-ne la truculència (i el fet que ens trobem davant de les accions d’uns fanàtics no em sembla excusa suficient).

Henning Mankell és la punta de l’iceberg de literatura negra escandinava que ens ha caigut al damunt i, llegida una sola de les seves novel·les, em costa entendre l’enorme popularitat de la que gaudeix aquí. El seu comissari Wallander és un home de mitjana edat, divorciat, diabètic, que menja malament, intenta evitar l’alcohol, escolta òpera italiana i treballa massa. No em resulta gaire interessant veure’l moure’s en aquesta atmosfera astringent on no abunda la cordialitat i fins i tot els avions surten de Luanda (Angola) només amb 10 minuts de retard. Però no em feu gaire cas, de vegades cal insistir amb els personatges fins que se’t fiquen sota la pell. ( )

Kurt Wallander - He works tirelessly, eats badly and drinks the nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. Still, he tackles some pretty incredible cases -- An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, victims of violence beyond reason. . . a teenage girl douses herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day Sweden's former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped in a murder that has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer… four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are found with their throats slit in an Algerian convent, while in Sweden, a birdwatcher is skewered to death in a pit of carefully sharpened bamboo poles… a Swedish housewife is murdered execution-style in a string of events that uncovers a plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela involving the South African secret service and a ruthless ex-KGB agent… an old acquaintance of Wallander’s, a solicitor, who is tied to an enigmatic business tycoon hiding behind an entourage of brusque secretaries and tight security, turns up dead, shot three times after his father dies in a traffic accident (or was it an accident?). . . In woodland outside Ystad, the police make an 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 handwritten corrections. A string of macabre incidents, including attacks on domestic animals, has been taking place, a group of religious extremists who are bent on punishing the world's sinners. … On Midsummer's Eve, three friends gather in a secluded meadow in Sweden. In the beautifully clear twilight, they don costumes and begin a secret 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… An unknown killer is on the loose, and their only lead is a photograph of a strange woman no one in Sweden seems to know…A life raft washes ashore in Skane, Sweden, carrying two dean men in expensive suits, shot gangland-style. It is discovered that the men were Eastern European criminals… A man stops at an ATM during his evening walk and inexplicably falls dead to the ground. Two teenage girls brutally murder a taxi driver They are quickly apprehended, shocking local policemen with their complete lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without a trace. A few days later a blackout cuts power to a large swath of the country When a serviceman arrives at the malfunctioning power substation, he makes a grisly discovery… a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden by the anonymity of cyberspace. . . and we haven't even gotten to Kurt Wallander's personal issues! ( )

Yet another superb police procedural. The crime seems a little over the top perhaps but I enjoyed, once again, spending hours in Kurt Wallander's head. ( )