THE PYRAMID And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries

Once again, Dick Hill uses his terrific understated style to bring the gloomy and self-doubting police detective Kurt Wallander to life. Hill's effective timing always matches the action (Wallander in danger!), the emotion (Wallander's depression about the state of Swedish society) and even the geography (rainy and bleak). In THE PYRAMID, Henning Mankell goes back in time with five stories that precede the series. We begin with Wallander's first case as a 21-year-old patrol officer investigating the stabbing of his neighbor on his own time while wooing girlfriend Mona (his ex-wife in all the Wallander novels). The stories end in the late 1980s as the veteran detective finds connections between a plane crash and the execution-style deaths of two elderly shopkeepers. As always, it's a treat to spend several hours with Mankell, Wallander, and Hill. A.B. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2009]