Peter's Reviews > Faceless Killers

"Justice doesn't only mean that people who commit crime are punished. It also means that we can never give up seeking the truth."

'Faceless Killers' is the first in the Kurt Wallander series of books. Wallander's life is a mess: his wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him and even his own father barely tolerates him. Wallander eats badly, buries himself in work and drinks his nights away in loneliness.

Early one freezing January morning a farmer discovers that his neighbours Johannes and Maria Lövgren have been brutally attacked. Johannes Lövgren is dead, and Maria is barely alive. Ystad Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team are called to investigate.

Initially there seems no reason why the Lövgrens have been so brutally attacked, they didn't appear wealthy and nothing valuable seems to have been taken. When Maria Lövgren dies, uttering the word "foreign" with her dying breath, Wallander and his team are left with an additional problem. There are several migrant camps in the vicinity and anti-immigration sentiment in the local populace is already running high, so when word leaks out that the Lövgrens may have been killed by foreigners, emotions can only escalate. So when a Somali immigrant is shot Wallander find himself with another murder on his hands and a race against time to prevent others.

As the police look more deeply into the Lövgren case they find that there was more to Johannes Lövgren than it appeared and there are facts about him that even his wife didn't know. Whilst the murder of the refugee has political ramifications of its own. Meanwhile Wallander is having problems of his own.

Police procedure, as the members of the team collect evidence, conduct interviews and follow leads, is central to this novel and gets a realistic impression of how very long it can take to solve a case. There are long hours; the public, press and superiors to satisfy, dogged footwork to be done but there is also a real sense of camaraderie. All of the cops work long hours but still take time to look out for each other.

Kurt Wallander himself is an interesting character. He has had some hard blows in his life but is reflective rather than bitter and doesn't waste his time complaining about it. He’s a very human character who makes mistakes during investigation but through sheer tenacity and devotion to duty still manages to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Given that this was first published some thirty years ago it still feels fresh and relevant. Despite the fact that it takes a while to solve the actual crime the action still flows at a reasonable pace and doesn't get too bogged at any point. But that's not to say that I didn't have a few minor gripes. Wallander is too often conveniently in the right spot at the right time and gets too personally involved in chasing up leads than I believe an officer of his rank should be, whilst his relationship with the prosecutor seems a little strange. This isn't a genre that I would normally reach for but overall I found 'Faceless Killers' a realistic crime novel with an interesting protagonist and I will certainly look out for others in the series.