Kurt Wallander

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Kurt Wallander is a fictional Swedish police inspector created by author Henning Mankell. The protagonist of many of Mankell's novels, he lives and works in the town of Ystad, outside the city of Malmö in the southern province of Skåne, Sweden.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Wallander is fortysomething, divorced since his wife, Mona, left him, and has one daughter, Linda, who eventually joins the police force as well. He has few close friends and a tempestuous relationship with his elderly father, an artist headed towards dementia who has painted the same landscape approximately 7,000 times.

Mankell's style (at least after translation into English) is spare and succinct. Part of Wallander's appeal as a character is his comparative ordinariness; he is a middle-aged "everyman" without terrible secrets or exceptional failings. Prone to eat poorly, sleep irregularly, drink too much, and not get enough exercise, he must also deal with diabetes and weight management problems. He also has a quick temper.

Wallander's concerns center around his job, of which he grows increasingly weary. He often wonders whether he made the right choice by becoming a police officer. He breaks the law from time to time in the course of his investigations and was sued for police brutality early in his career. Wallander struggles with the fact that he once accidentally shot and killed a man in the fog. He has been caught drunk-driving, though his fellow officers never reported him.

Frequently at loose ends socially and with his family, he maintains a somewhat inconsistent romantic relationship with Baiba Liepa, a woman in Riga, Latvia, whom he met while investigating a murder there.

Mankell's portrayal of him might apply to many other men of Wallander's generation—dedicated and hard-working, but disoriented in a changing world whose social and moral fractures are reflected in its gruesome crimes. The novels describe a Sweden whose time seems to have passed, a society that aspires to cherish the dignity of all, but is nibbled from within by worms of corruption, struggling to find its way.

[edit] Kurt Wallander novels

The following Kurt Wallander novels have been translated into English:

Faceless Killers (Mördare utan ansikte)
The Dogs of Riga (Hundarna i Riga)
The White Lioness (Den vita lejoninnan)
The Man Who Smiled (Mannen som Log)
Sidetracked (Villospår)
The Fifth Woman (Den femte kvinnan)
One Step Behind (Steget efter)
Firewall (Brandvägg)

The following novel features Wallander's daughter Linda in the lead, while he is a secondary character:

Before the Frost (Innan frosten)

The following Kurt Wallander works have not yet been translated into English:

Pyramiden (The Pyramid), a collection of short stories about Wallander's past.
Händelse om hösten (The Grave), a short story from 2004 published only in Holland.

[edit] Kurt Wallander depicted in films

Faceless Killers, The Dogs of Riga, The White Lioness, Sidetracked, The Fifth Woman, One Step Behind, Firewall, The Pyramid (planned) have all been made into films in Sweden starring Rolf Lassgård as Wallander.

Yellow Bird, the production company co-founded by Mankell, is currently involved in one of the largest ever Scandinavian film projects. Thirteen new films will be created featuring Inspector Wallander. This project was started in the summer of 2004 and is expected to be complete at the end of 2006. With the exception of the first film, “Before The Frost”, all of the scripts are original screenplays rather than adaptations of the books. Actor Krister Henriksson plays the part of Wallander in these new productions.

In the autumn of 2006, BBC Scotland and Yellow Bird will begin filming a 2-part miniseries based on Mankell’s “Return of the Dance Master”, a crime novel featuring Detective Stefan Lindman. This production will include a British cast but will be filmed in Sweden.

Negotiations between Yellow Bird and two major UK television broadcasters are taking place for an English-language television series of Wallander mysteries.