Jerry Saperstein says:

I made it to page 261 of 405 and asked myself “Why am I reading this?” Kurt Wallender, a Swedish detective is boring enough. While many authors use the inherent tedium of police work to frame their characters, Wallender is a pedant, who worries about aging, his loneliness, the incompetence of his colleagues, the unfairness of his boss and the world. He is not likeable, nor is he particularly interesting.

The case at hand has a reclusive computer programmer falling dead in the street, followed shortly thereafter by two teenage girls murdering a cab driver for no rational reason. Wallander’s investigation is hampered by the escape of one of the two teenage girls who shortly thereafter is murdered in a grisly manner that throws a third of Sweden into darkness. The emerging story is that some wicked fellow in Africa is plotting something big against the world that involves computers.

Unfortunately Wallander knows nothing of computers and apparently neither does author Mankell.

As a technologist, it always irritates me when authors either make mistakes with technology or, worse yet, simply try to fake it. Mankell tries to fake it and fails miserably.

An author simply can’t take a few buzzwords, cop a few excerpts from the popular press and hope to fool all of his audience. Mankell appears to think he can.

The result is an utterly laughable plot that depends on the availability of a local “hacker” who is able at a moment’s notice to penetrate supposedly sophisticated security and many other whoppers.

I suppose if I didn’t know anything about the technology involved, “Firewall” might have been more interesting. But the story itself is pedestrian, depending more on shock value than anything else. A secret conspiracy trying to cover itself by committing highly visible crimes that have no reltionship to its mission? No, I don’t think so. A detective who spends most of his time thinking about how friendless and lonely he is? Nice as a bit of background, perhaps, but I really don’t care about Wallander’s miserable life. Compared to a master, like the late EdMcBain, Mankell just doesn’t manage the task of bringing his characters to life, of making them human.

The result is not noir; it is not Raymond Chandler. It is just tedium.

Jerry
Rating: 3 / 5

Anonymous says:

I have just finished reading Firewall. Although I live in Sweden, this is my first Mankell. Firewall has introduced me to this wonderful author. I have just ordered The Dogs of Riga.
Rating: 4 / 5

Timothy Paradise says:

Perhaps it is because of a poor translation from Swedish that I do not appreciate Mr. Mankell’s writing, but I couldn’t get past page 85.

Yes, there is plot and character development, and there is gray and depressing atmosphere created, but the means by which these are achieved are so utilitarian that I found no pleasure from the book. You could also say that MacDonald’s presents a menu.

I felt like I was being barraged by short staccato sentences which were nothing more than information blasts needed to push the plot forward.

Mankell goes into the same stable with Yanni and John Wayne. There is much good literature to be read, and for me life is too short to waste reading Mankell.
Rating: 1 / 5