Product Description

Sixth in the Kurt Wallander series.

On Midsummer’s Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander’s most trusted colleagues–someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime–also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can’t begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father’s death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28938 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-14
• Released on: 2003-01-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In his fifth U.S. appearance in this taut, intricately plotted series (The Fifth Woman, etc.), Swedish detective Kurt Wallander pursues a long, complex case sure to please those who like weighty police procedurals. Six weeks after three college students are murdered during a Midsummer's Eve party, their bodies hidden to prevent discovery, Wallander's secretive colleague Svedberg is found at home with half his head blown off. Wallander's persistent, occasionally brilliant, investigation points to a connection between Svedberg and the disappearance of the three young people. Soon after their bodies surface, a fourth friend, who was too sick to attend the party, is killed. More murders follow, with the exhausted, understaffed detectives just too late each time to prevent the next crime. Eventually the reader meets the killer, whose bizarre motive and methods the author gradually reveals. The dyspeptic Wallander, whose frazzled personal life is further impaired by the diabetes he ignores, works himself to exhaustion, sidestepping official procedure and making intuitive leaps to find the cold-blooded killer. The glum tone of the book, despite the setting during a warm and luxuriant late summer, reflects a crumbling Swedish society: government corruption is widespread; honest cops are disillusioned by abuses in high officialdom; rifts among social classes and between Swedes and recent immigrants abound. Mankell's writing is deadpan and stark, the plotting meticulous and exacting. (Feb. 28)Forecast: Though a bestseller in Europe with both film and TV adaptations to his credit, Mankell has so far failed to take off here. Alas, Scandinavian dreariness just doesn't seem to have broad appeal to American readers.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Devotees of Inspector Kurt Wallander can only bemoan the fact that this is just the fifth (out of nine books) in this Swedish mystery series to be published in the United States. Here, Wallander confronts perhaps his most horrific case, when the murder of a trusted colleague, Svedberg, and the disappearance of three young people begin to merge. Battling his own fatigue and illness, Wallander assiduously strips away layer after layer, dredging up fragments of conversations and crime-scene clues that lead him closer and closer to the killer, who plays him cleverly and remains one step ahead until the brutal end. Mankell focuses less on Wallander's personal relationships and on what he sees as the deterioration of Swedish quality of life than in the previous books, but nevertheless the subtext is there. Essential for public libraries, though newcomers may want to start earlier in the series (with The White Lioness or Sidetracked). Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Kurt Wallander, Mankell's melancholy Swedish copper, is still exhausted, both by his personal demons and by the unfathomably chaotic world around him. This time, though, matters have been kicked up several notches, first by the newly diagnosed diabetes that threatens his life ("icebergs of sugar floating around in his blood") and then by a killer whose incomprehensible brutality and seeming lack of motive leave the detective on the edge of despair: "He wondered if he was simply starting to crumble under the weight of all the responsibility and was now following a downward trajectory to a point where only fear remained." The trajectory in this remarkable series is definitely downward, for the hero and for life in the contemporary world, but more than fear remains, at least for the moment. As Wallander and his colleagues in the Ystad police department grieve the murder of one of their own and try to make sense of the apparently random killings of a group of young people participating in a midsummer celebration, the appalling truth dawns slowly: they are dealing with a psychotic misanthrope who kills people because they are happy. Facing an adversary who becomes the personification of Wallander's worst fears, the detective finds himself ironically reenergized in a kind of back-against-the-wall fight for the possibilities of life. Translator Segerberg's rendering of this fifth Wallander novel to appear in English seems a bit flatter than Steven Murray's richly nuanced, flowing English versions of the first four, but the power of the novel emerges undisturbed. Mankell remains central to the flowering of a new, distinctly darker strain of the European hard-boiled crime novel. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

ONE STEP BEHIND
This is my fourth Kurt Wallender mystery. I am now reading my fifth and last of Mankell's translated works: White Lioness. The story is full of twists and turns as you would normally expect of a well crafted mystery novel. What comes as a surprise in this as well as the other of Mankell's Wallender mysteries is the character development of Mankell's chief protagonist: Kurt Wallender. It is a real treat to read an effective combination of police procedural and character development. Mankell pays attention not only to the Wallender character but he also attends to the development of the other characters who appear in the books. In this book, there is a believable and particularly evil villain who challenges your imagination. The only part of the book that I did not like, had to do with the introduction of a new character, the prosecuting attorney, who distracts from the intent of the story. Mankell also captures the wonderful sensitivity of Sweden and often highlights those things about Swedish people which make them so people-centered. I recommend this book to you and look forward to the translation of more of them.

The Best Mystery from the Best Mystery Writer Today
This is the best in Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series to date. While five of his mysteries have been translated, it is not necessary to read them in order. But anyone who begins with "One Step Behind" will surely want to double back to the previous four volumes. (Although only a real die-hard fan will enjoy "The White Lioness.")
Mankell is the best mystery writer writing today. Here's why:
1. The mystery itself is riveting, and the book revolves around that plot. We solve the crime with the team at the Ystad police station. There are no weird or eccentrically-contrived characters as in so many mysteries today. The writing is clean and controlled.
2. Every minor character, every cameo, is a perfect little portrait. There are no "flat" characters.
3. This is not the Sweden of clogs and girls with long blonde braids. This is a society in disintegration where the criminal element threatens to take over. Wallander's comments on the state of Swedish society today are right on target.
4. In sum, we care about Wallander and the characters who revolve around him in the police station and elsewhere. These people are real. They are our neighbors and friends-- people we know in the U.S. or wherever we live.
For a suspenseful mystery, no one is writing this well today. I am a 40-something woman. Today my friend, an 80-something man, said to me: I can never thank you enough for recommending "One Step Behind." I can't put it down!
That says it all.

Tracking a very careful serial killer
On Midsummer night (a big celebration in Sweden) 3 young adults are shot to death in cold blood in a nature reserve in South Sweden. The killer is extremely careful: he removes all traces, including the bodies, and makes the parents belief that their children have gone on an extended summer holiday to Europe. But something is not right and this feeling becomes very urgent when one of Inspector Kurt Wallander's colleagues is found in his apartment with his face blown to pieces. Time for Wallander and his team to start an investigation for a killer that always seems to be one step ahead of the team. Four more people die before the team has an idea who the killer might be, and even when the investigation turns into a manhunt, they need all their considerable skills to bring this case to a good end. And in all this mess Wallander also finds out that he is a diabetic and has to change his lifestyle: not an easy option when you are trying to catch one of the most gruesome serial killers that Sweden has ever seen...

Once you are reading this book you cannot stop. The book seems to be slow-paced, but that is only at the surface, below that there are numerous developments that keep the reader interested. A real page turner.