If you watch PBS Masterpiece Mystery, you know that Kurt Wallander is a gritty police detective who obsessively focuses on solving murders. The Fifth Woman was the first Henning Mankell novel I read, and two weeks later I started my second. The novels are that good – tightly written, packed with relevant details, and realistically paced to an actual investigation.
Nothing personal stands in the way of Wallander’s trying to find patterns in a labyrinth of facts. Hypotheses are foundational to his approach to solving crimes, because they suggest lines of investigation. Sometimes the investigative team hectically pursues clues, and sometimes they sit in conference rooms trying to cut through the murderer’s hidden intentions.
The Fifth Woman is a convoluted mystery set in a Sweden that is dark and dangerous. The social commentary threaded through the story pulls the reader into the moral dilemmas that entangle both the culprit and the upholders of the law.
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