#Faceless killers mankell how to#

Lots of very good crime novelists use the procedural formвЂ“as P. Because itвЂ™s a procedural, solving the case is a matter of following along as the police do their job, which necessarily makes us more passive as readersвЂ“we have to wait for their discoveries to be delivered to us. By the end the necessary information has been gathered and the pieces fitted together. How good is Faceless Killers by this measure? ItвЂ™s fine, I guess. Perhaps the вЂњvery best kindвЂќ of вЂњterrificвЂќ thriller doesnвЂ™t need great prose, just an interesting and well-constructed plot (a double-standard, of course, as if genre fiction should not be expected to be well written in every respect). He gets the job done, but do reviewers really have such low expectations for crime fiction qua fiction that something so flat gets so much praise? On the night of the murder they had been staying in a boarding house in Bastad. A man and a woman went on a robbery spree and then left the car in Halmstad. Naslund came back to work and succeeded in solving the problem of the stolen car. He found himself thinking about them in the plural.ДЇor the next three days nothing happened. After the case meeting in the morning he had spent his time organising the hunt for the murderers in Lunnarp. that afternoon Wallander discoverd that he was hungry. Its starkness does seem suited, after a while, to the bleak landscapeвЂ“both literal and emotionalвЂ“of the novel, but that didnвЂ™t rescue it from seeming perfunctory, as writing, rather than artistic or literary: it often seemed as if Mankell was just working his way down a checklist of things to include or describe:ДЄt 4 p.m. Maybe the fault lies with the translators, but there is no elegance, no rhythm, no color to the prose at all: itвЂ™s just one statement after another. The style is almost unbearably ploddingвЂ“not quite as dreary as the Stieg Larsson books (or the 1.5 of them I managed to wade through), but close. But I honestly canвЂ™t see why this book, or its author, would stimulate such enthusiasm.

IвЂ™m not in a position to generalize about Mankell, or Wallander, after reading just one novel in this series. вЂњAn excellent thrillerвЂ¦A terrific novel.вЂќ ( The Independent ). вЂњBeautifully constructed plots.вЂќ (New York Post). вЂњA thriller of the very best kind.вЂќ ( The Times ). вЂњAn especially satisfying crime novelвЂќ ( Wall Street Journal). вЂњSwedenвЂ™s greatest living mystery writer!вЂќ ( Los Angeles Times). Saving Earth Britannica Presents EarthвЂ™s To-Do List for the 21st Century.My copy of Faceless Killers is littered with snippets of praise, both for Mankell in general and for the book in particular.

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#Faceless killers mankell how to#

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