The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries by Henning MankellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book has 5 stories of varying lengths that capture 5 different cases of Wallander's career starting with when he was a young cop wanting to be a criminal investigator in the late 60's to the Pyramid in Dec 1989 and January 1990. The stories itself are engrossing and well written. Of the 5 stories, the Pyramid was my favorite. I think in fact the Mankell could have written another 100 pages of it if he wanted and made another novel out of it(which he did not of course).
I liked the way the characters are potrayed(this is only my second Wallander series book). They are not perfect, in fact they are all flawed in their own way. Having seen the Wallander series(so knowing where things end up considering this is a prequel book), I can see the spiraling of Wallander's relationship with Mona while reading through the book. His workaholic nature, inability to turn his mind off his case, his caring for his father and daughter(and yet his complicated relationship with them), his love and eventual void for having Mona in his life, the loneliness, the gloominess of the weather all come out during the book.
I also appreciated the fact that the book made some cases move quickly while others were drawn out. I would think(not having any first hand experience of course) that is the way cases would go. There is no individual brilliance(like Poirot) or some systematic explanation of how the detective came to the solution(like Sherlock Holmes). There was definitely some good detective work. But, there are things that happen because of one or the other character's intuition(I would imagine that experience gets you that) and there were cases where they were downright lucky. Mankell does not downplay this and that is something I loved as well.
Finally there are some nuggets of social commentary and personal observation in the book, that make this book even more compelling. There is a lot of mention of weather(possibly to set the mood and tone). The translated English version uses simple and clear sentences making the original author's intent clear. So hats off to the translator as well.
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