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The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallander Mystery [Hardcover]

Henning Mankell , Laurie Thompson
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
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Book Description

24 Mar 2011 Kurt Wallander (Book 10)

Every morning Håkan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. However, one winter's day he fails to come home. It seems that the retired naval officer has vanished without trace.

Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved in the investigation but he has personal reasons for his interest in the case as Håkan's son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier, at Håkan's 75th birthday party, Kurt noticed that the old man appeared uneasy and seemed eager to talk about a controversial incident from his past career that remained shrouded in mystery. Could this be connected to his disappearance? When Håkan's wife Louise also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth.

His search leads him down dark and unexpected avenues involving espionage, betrayal and new information about events during the Cold War that threatens to cause a political scandal on a scale unprecedented in Swedish history. The investigation also forces Kurt to look back over his own past and consider his hopes and regrets, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us.

And then an even darker cloud appears on the horizon...

The return of Kurt Wallander, for his final case, has already caused a sensation around the globe. The Troubled Man confirms Henning Mankell's position as the king of crime writing.


Frequently Bought Together

The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallander Mystery + The Pyramid: Kurt Wallander: Kurt Wallander 09 + One Step Behind: Kurt Wallander: Kurt Wallander, Volume 7
Price For All Three: £22.75

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Harvill Secker (24 Mar 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1846553717
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846553714
  • Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 3.4 x 24 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 79,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

`a magnificent finale, it's to be hoped that Mankell may be persuaded to revive his grumpy Nordic inspector, complete with his stomach cramps, failing eyesight and Ikea furniture. He is far too good to lose' --Financial Times

`a perfect valedictory novel...this is Mankell at his best' --Daily Express

`Mankell is undoubtedly a skilled writer with plenty of breadth, but it's clear that his subtleties of character, plot and pace achieve greatest expression in the Wallander series' --The Independent on Sunday

`It's a fine finale for the fretful policeman and it's hard not to feel you'll miss the old bugger' --Metro

`It's sparse, poignant and a fitting swan song for one of literature's truly great detectives' --Shortlist

`Laurie Thompson's fluent, precise translation from the Swedish' --The Independent, i

`a novel that works on a number of levels: as a compelling investigation into a Swedish cold-war spy ring, a philosophical assessment of policing and its social function, and a very personal evaluation of a person's worth in the grand scheme of things...Written in Mankell's downbeat style (beautifully translated by Laurie Thompson) it has a fatalistic tone that is entirely fitting for the final testimony of one of crime fiction's great protagonists...a hugely satisfying novel that ranks alongside Mankell's best, a heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve' --The Irish Times

`The Troubled Man had me gripped' --Eurocrime

`So The Troubled Man delivers in full as a whodunit, as all the Wallander books do, beneath their impassive surface...The Troubled Man is a sorrowful- how can it be? - but fully satisfying conclusion to a great series. No Mankell reader will think of missing it' --The Scotsman

`To his fans this valediction will be greeted with sadness but it is also deserves applause, if only for the considerable services rendered' --Express

``Unlike Larsson...Mankell's characters are complex and nuanced...The retirement of the terse, divorced, heavy-drinking Wallander is as significant as the retirement of the terse, divorced, heavy drinking John Rebus. This bleak, moving and gripping finale marks the perfect end to a brilliant career.' --Scotland on Sunday, David Stenhouse

`A fine finale for Mankell's fretful Swedish policeman, Hurt Wallander, and as the shadows close over him for the last time, it's hard not to feel you'll miss the old bugger.' --Metro

`Written in Mankell's downbeat style (beautifully translated by Laurie Thompson), it has a fatalistic tone that is entirely fitting for the final testimony of one of crime fiction's great protagonists. The result is a hugely satisfying novel that ranks alongside Mankell's best, a heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve.' --The Irish Times, Declan Burke

`Mankell is a category one writer in every respect.' --Observer, Brian Oliver

'This fine mystery, a fitting way to bid farewell to the wonderful Kurt Wallander, brings the frisson of old-world spy intrigue satisfyingly together with old-fashioned detective work...The detective work is painstaking, clever and fascinating as always' --Time Out

`The mystery element is well crafted here, but of secondary importance: Mankell, and we, are more concerned with seeing how Wallander is facing up to the indignities of old age...As this novel closes, Wallander seems more than ever a symbol of Sweden's struggle with its place in the world.'
--Daily Telegraph, Jake Kerridge

`If he stops now, this is a fitting conclusion. Moving with wonderfully sparse language, it is a magisterial march towards the great unknown.' --BigIssueCymru

`A tangled story of espionage and betrayal, with its roots in the Cold War.'
--The Mail on Sunday

`This is a fascinating book, beautifully written (and translated).'
--Literary Review

`The Troubled Man is a moving portrait of a man entering old age.' --TLS, Review by Tom Shippey

`An eloquent, moving and fitting farewell to one of fiction's greatest detectives.' --The Times

`I saw Henning Mankell ... bind an entire room with his storyteller's spell' --The Telegraph

`The Ystad detective's many fans won't want to miss finding out how Wallander, now in his 60s, deals with a cold-war mystery involving Soviet submarines in Swedish waters, as well as his new role as a grandparent and the spectre of his own impending dementia.' --The Irish Times, Weekend Review

`The first new Wallander book in 10 years is a bittersweet experience, as it also signals the end of our time with the sorrowful sleuth. ... it's portrayal of the inspector's mental and physical frailties that makes this an unexpectedly emotional read.' --ShortList.com

`The first new Wallander book in 10 years is a bittersweet experience, as it also signals the end of our time with the sorrowful sleuth. ... it's portrayal of the inspector's mental and physical frailties that makes this an unexpectedly emotional read.' --Shortlist.com

'But for anyone who has admired previous appearances by one of the greatest fictional detectives so far, this farewell needs to be read.'
--The Times

`The last Kurt Wallander novel was a fitting farewell to the fictional detective who sparked the Scandinavian noir fashion.'
--Sunday Express

Book Description

The first new Wallander novel for a decade, the culmination of the bestselling series from the godfather of Swedish crime.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 52 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Saying goodbye to a friend 3 April 2011
Format:Kindle Edition
Well I suppose I should first admit that I am a fan of Mankell's famous Swedish detective, & I have read every book, in chronological order, over the last five years. For those of you who might be put off reading the Wallander books as you've seen the tv versions, please don't be. The dramatised tv & film versions are a vague shadow of the books.

I won't try to comment on 'The Troubled Man' in a way that would earn me a page in a Sunday paper book review, but simply describe it's impact on me.
It will sound strange, but I was reticent about starting to read the last Wallander novel. I think that because the series of Wallander novels have given me so much reading pleasure over the last few years, I was reluctant to reach the end of the line.

However once I turned the first page I found myself in a familiar scenario of not wanting to put the book down, as the progress of the flawed policeman continues to grab my attention. When I read the last page, I found myself incredibly saddened by the final fate that Mankell simply laid out for his detective. I can offer no explanation for my surreal emotion, other than to accept that over the years I have been completely drawn into the character, his strengths, weaknesses and fears.

Trying to be objective, I'm not sure how much I would have enjoyed this finale without understanding Wallander's history, and so my simple recommendation is that you initially read 'Faceless Killers' - the first Wallander novel - to start with, and if you enjoy it, follow the stories from there.
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Many Troubled Men 27 Mar 2011
By Simon Savidge Reads TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
When you start reading `The Troubled Man' you can almost instantly tell from its style and delivery that this is going to be the last of the Kurt Wallander novels. Not because the ending of it all is given away from the start, and fear not I shall not give anything away here either, but because from the start Wallander seems incredibly reflective and nostalgic about his past and indeed his future. Initially this concerned me slightly. This wasn't going to be a case of an author spinning out the final instalment using as many words and random tangents as possible was it? No, is the answer. What Mankell uses this for is to show us just where our protagonist is in his head and why he takes on a case that really doesn't fall under his jurisdiction, though I could be wrong as I don't know the ins and outs of Sweden's legal system or its police procedures.

When Hakan von Enke suddenly vanishes on an April morning it is most out of character. However it is not a case which Wallander or his team are given and yet he gets himself embroiled in it all. This isn't for professional reasons; in fact it's all rather personal as his daughter Linda (now a police officer like her father) has met the man of her life, who happens to be Hakan von Enke's son. This could seem rather intangible but having read `Faceless Killers' and in the glimpses of back story we get we soon learn his and Linda's relationship has not always been good. Here is a father who desperately wants to keep that relationship and help, and possibly protect his daughter. As the mystery develops not only does Hakan's wife Louise go missing, but a political secret starts to come to light from the past as well as some more personal family secrets the von Enke's have been hiding. In fact these secrets from the past, which all evolves around the Cold War and Sweden's part in it (based around submarines as Hakan von Enke was in the navy as a commander) becomes an additional strand to the novel and one that interested me far more than I would have expected it to.

I did think that `The Troubled Man' could have done with a fair bit of editing. It seemed to go on with various sub-plots of crimes that Wallander sort of starts investigating, and then leaves in favour of this more personal case, seemed like padding. I also thought the characters slightly weaker, well lots of them vanished in fairness, in this novel. Wallander seemed fully built, if a bit solemn and self pitying (but then as the book goes on we see why), as did his daughter Linda, everyone else was a little more two dimensional, but maybe that is where me not having read all the series and previously followed all of the characters to this final dénouement comes into play. This is both a positive and a negative as it has made me want to go back and start again, but also disappointed me somewhat as I tend to think the best series are the ones you can pick up at any point. Even if normally I tend to read them in order.

Regardless of how good this book is or isn't, and I did find myself hooked apart from the odd ten pages or so every so often, people will be buying `The Troubled Man' in their droves. It's not the thriller that I was expecting, in fact it's darker and rather more depressing, than I had imagined but it is a solid crime novel.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Going out at the Top. 22 May 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A beautifully written, unsentimental end for Wallander - an immense effort by the translator. Unlike many authors Mankell has been able to finish with what some see as his greatest creation and he has successfully managed to release him without killing him off and with, apparently, no space for revival. This ending it seems cannot be reversed in the way that the Reichenbach Falls incident could. Although I'll miss Wallander I am sure that we should trust the author's sense that enough had been told. Many authors have trouble finding a satisfactory ending to an individual novel, let alone a phenomenon but I think Mankell has gone out at the top with this book. The story itself has at least three major themes: the investigation, written with all the verve and cunning of other Wallander books; heritage in the plot involving Linda, and the exquisitely plotted end for Kurt himself. This really is the best of the Wallander novels, a genuine climax, worth every penny! The political intrigue is gripping.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars The Troubled Man
The last of Wallander, not the best but well worth reading. Spies and murder, East Germans Russians? have another guess.
Published 26 days ago by J. D. Pearson
5.0 out of 5 stars Henning Mankell - the man
Do you like your crime novels with bite?
Do you like troubled, sometimes maverick detectives with a conscience and problems?
And BBC4 love him.
Published 27 days ago by The Woodgnome
4.0 out of 5 stars The Final Curtain
This is a fine book but I am not sure it will please all Wallander's fans.

His police colleagues feature hardly at all. Much time is spent away from Ystrad. Read more
Published 29 days ago by Bob from Beds
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
Having read all of the Wallander books in Swedish and English, and absolutely fell in love with Kurt as a character, it was inevitable that I'd read this one. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Avid Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars A Troubled Man A Kurt Wallander Mystery
The usual Henning Mankell top mystery - didn't disappoint in any way. Great translation as always. Left me wanting more!
Published 1 month ago by J. Smart
5.0 out of 5 stars More than one "Troubled" Man
A marvellous and very sad and salutary ending to both the novel and the series of 'Wallander' tales - after reading it myself, I loaned it (& "The Man from Beijing") to a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Vic Taylor
5.0 out of 5 stars The Troubled Man H Mankell A KW novel
I have loved all of the Kurt Wallander novels and this one is no exception. My only regret is that it is the final KW novel, I would have liked more, even just one more. Read more
Published 1 month ago by anagi
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Good story with plenty twists and turns. I was hooked till the very end. Storytelling at its best. Recommended to anyone who enjoys detective mysteries.
Published 2 months ago by bob
4.0 out of 5 stars great book
A very good read although a little saddened by the fact that we shall have no more of the same.
Published 2 months ago by Robi
4.0 out of 5 stars Henning Mankell The Troubled Man
Convenient and good typical HM writing. Will be purchasing more volumes without a doubt.I have no wish to add further
comments.
Published 4 months ago by david coates
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