The Fith Woman by Henning Mankell

The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Book #6 in the Wallander Series.
  From Goodreads.com:  In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander’s strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.


I have conflicting thoughts on this book: is this a somewhat accurate picture of Sweden in the mid-1990's? Where we have a society that heretofore was decent, law abiding and not prone to violence, but is now moving toward a high crime rate, violence and serial murders (like the United States)?


Or is this a book on women, and how it is inconceivable that a Swedish woman could be a murderer? Because women do not commit crimes? A society where women do not become policemen even though one of the main characters is a female police officer who's always taking off work to care for her two young children? Perhaps this a book on the authors view that a woman's place is in the home, as a nurse, secretary, waitress or other gender-specific roles and is attempting to show the decline of Swedish society by the breakdown of a woman's place in society?


I'm not certain about either point.


I also grew "annoyed and irritated" by the authors continual use of the words "annoyed and irritated" to describe Wallander's mood at any given time. I read this as an audiobook, and I swear, at one point near the end as the Ysted police force was running hither and tither at 1:00am trying to track the murderer down - a time at which anyone would easily get "annoyed and irritated" - that the author used "annoyed and irritated" no less that 3 times in five minutes to describe Wallander's mood. Further more, I felt Wallander really didn't have a leg to stand on for being "annoyed and irritated" and he wouldn't have to bully people if he didn't come across as an ass. I think you get the drift...


And, as in previous books I've reviewed in the series, I didn't understand why Wallander's fellow policemen kept asking "Why? Why do you need this, that or the other thing?" I would think a fellow detective wouldn't need to continuously ask why the lead detective wanted them to track something down. Just do it already!


So I'm left feeling vaguely perplexed if this book is a commentary on the decline of morals in current (for 1993) Swedish society or a slightly sexist book regarding Swedish women, or perhaps a third issue? Is this just the opposite, a book on how the Swedish police and welfare system do not understand or handle women's issues (assault, rape, abuse) as they conceivably should?


You tell me what you think...




View all my reviews