Kurt Wallander when Young

The Pyramid: The First Wallander Mysteries - Henning Mankell

When it comes to reading mysteries, there comes a time when the jaded reader must take the bull by the horns and just read something new. So I picked this up at a used book sale in a tony suburb, not knowing the series hero at all.

It appears that this book is the origin story of series hero Kurt Wallander, set at the beginning of his career in 1969 when he was only a twenty-something police officer in Ystad, an old town on Sweden's southern coast, famous for its medieval town center with cobblestone streets and half-timbered houses. Young Kurt is ridden by a keen sense of what’s proper and tends to brood – neither inclination strange, considering he’s Swedish. His father, an artist and bully, gives him guff for his career choice and passive-aggressively sells his house – Kurt’s childhood home – without even telling Kurt where he’s moving. And look up “high maintenance pain in the neck girlfriend” in the dictionary and see a picture of Kurt’s GF Mona.

This book collects five pieces, thee short stories and two novellas. As is typical in noir police procedurals since the 1980s, the author places the homicide investigations in the socio-economic conditions in which daily life is lived and crimes are committed. “How could anybody be so alone,” Kurt wonders as he finds out more about the bleak daily life of an elderly neighbor whose death he is investigating.

These stories reminded me of Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano novels. The protagonists live in traditionally close-knit - but fraying societies - with an increasingly flimsy sense of belonging and respectability. Ystad, Sweden and Vigata, Sicily are situated far from national hotspots of politics, fashion, education, publishing, entertainment, or economy, but they are still affected by social changes out of everybody's control. Mankell and Camilleri seamlessly weave into the plots deep-seated fears shared by ordinary people, not only the prospect of lonely sickly old age but also the breakdown of society caused by conspiracies between criminals and strongmen like - well, you know.