The Man Who Smiled by Henning MankellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Henning Mankell’s fourth novel about Kurt Wallander has a curious start in that the reader finds the detective in a depressed state of mind because he had killed a man. It was a shooting in the previous book and a case of self-defence. Even so, Wallander has been on leave for a year considering everything about his life, and he comes to the conclusion he must resign from the police force. Then along comes a lawyer friend from his past who asks him to investigate his father’s supposed accidental death, or possibly suicide. Wallander is also of the opinion that the man was murdered but refuses to take on the case; that is until his friend is also murdered. So he returns to the police and convinces his boss that this is a double homicide that requires investigation. The story revolves around the illegal trade of providing human body parts for transplant operations.
There are personal issues for Wallander to deal with throughout the novel, not least an attack on his own life, but also his relationship with his annoying father and his estranged daughter. Fans of the Wallander books will be pleased to find that he is still heading up the same team of police, with Kurt often mentally consulting his old mentor. However, he now has a new female colleague who continues to impress him and the team with her detection skills.
The Man Who Smiled of the story is a particularly smug and unpleasant character who I found a little too unbelievable. And I thought the reckless heroics of Wallander at the conclusion of the novel felt like an attempt to raise the pace to breathless and desperate. Unfortunately, for me it did not really work, and it lacked authenticity. We expect to see our usually pragmatic detective inspector behaving in a sensible and careful manner; not to be suddenly transformed into a clone of James Bond. The novel was a very good episode from Wallander’s career spoilt by some incredulity.
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