![]() Ask a critic: What's behind the global fascination in Nordic Noir?.Murray.Įarlier in the month, we spoke to critic Barry Forshaw about Wallander, Mankell, and the global fascination with Nordic noir. The book was translated into English by Steven T. One year after its publication, it won the inaugural Glass Key award, which was set up to honour the year's best Nordic crime novel, and the Wallander series has been adapted for TV and film. Mankell's novels have become international bestsellers and Faceless Killers is the book in which we're first introduced to opera-loving detective Kurt Wallander. And other touches made the book feel real, not least the constant weather chat and cups of coffee enjoyed by the police officers. Wallander has his faults, from neglect of family members to some displays of sexism, but he feels very human, with a love of opera, promises to change his eating habits that come to nothing when life gets in the way, and strained relationships. This is in contrast to the lone detectives like Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, who won't even allow their sidekicks to follow along with their train of thought. Some of our readers pointed out that the novel shows the police team working together, with lots of evidence of stereotypical Swedish flat hierarchies and management by consensus. ![]() It's a dark, suspenseful and topical novel even two decades after first publication. Inspector Wallander soon becomes obsessed with solving this crime, which feels like it could aggravate anti-immigrant tensions in Sweden. ![]() ![]() In a rural Swedish farmhouse, an elderly couple have been brutally tortured, and before the wife dies of her injuries she is able to utter just one word: “foreign”. The murder that kicks off the story is a grisly and senseless one. ![]()
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