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One Step Behind: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Kurt Wallander Mysteries (Hardcover)) Hardcover – February 1, 2002

by Henning Mankell (Author), Ebba Segerberg (Translator)

4.5 4,110 ratings

Book 7 of 10: Kurt Wallander Mystery

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On Midsummer's Eve, three roll-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector 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. Meanwhile, Wallander's father has recently died and he himself has been diagnosed with diabetes and finds himself constantly fatigued, even though he's just returned from summer vacation.

Editorial Reviews

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.

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

About the Author

Internationally acclaimed author Henning Mankell has written nine Kurt Wallander mysteries. The books have consistently topped the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving a number of major literary prizes and generating numerous international film and television adaptations. Translator Ebba Segerberg teaches Swedish at Washington University in St. Louis.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Press, The; First Edition (February 1, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 408 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1565846524
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1565846524
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.59 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.43 x 1.32 x 9.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,918,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21,298 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #22,605 in Police Procedurals (Books)

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4.5 4,110 ratings

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Ebba Segerberg
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Henning Mankell
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Henning Mankell became a worldwide phenomenon with his crime writing, gripping thrillers and atmospheric novels set in Africa. His prize-winning and critically acclaimed Inspector Wallander Mysteries have featured in bestseller lists all over the globe for many years. His books have been translated into over forty languages and made into numerous international film and television adaptations: most recently the BAFTA-award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell devoted much of his free time to working with Aids charities in Africa, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo.
In 2008, the University of St Andrews conferred Henning Mankell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience.
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948. Following his diagnosis in 2014, Mankell wrote a number of articles on his battle with cancer until his death in October 2015
www.henningmankell.co.uk
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Ruth A Tesanovich

Great Mystery Series!

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2024

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I can’t put these books down. Each mystery is intriguing & well written. The main character, Wallander, has his flaws but he is at the same time likable and admirable. There is an underlying theme of the breakdown of Swedish society in the 1990’s…very similar to the current situation today in the entire world.

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chutney28

Another great police procedural/thriller

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2024

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Reading through the series. They're addictive. I didn't give it 5 stars bc like his other books,I feel like he gives too short shrift to the criminal mind. 95% of the book is about the police and detectives trying to solve a crime. Which is all good but unfortunately very little attention is given to the mind of the serial killer. And isn't he or she the most interesting!? Actually both subjects are fascinating. Just sayin'

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Thomas Thompson

One of the best Salamander books.

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2024

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Read this book in two days. Couldn't put it down. The suspense at the end was maddening. Great characters in every book, but all of them well defined.

One person found this helpful

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doc peterson

"There are evil circumstances and environments, not evil per se..."

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2021

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The seventh Kurt Wallender procedural is a bit plodding and wearying, if only because the case is at once personal for Wallender (a police colleague is murdered) and throughout the book Wallender is "one step behind" in solving the case.

The thriller opens with the murder of three young people celebrating a Midsummer's picnic in a secluded area. The plodding nature of the investigation is the result in part of these victims initially thought of as missing, and then the search for their bodies. The investigation is complicated by the death of one of Wallender's colleagues - and the tickling notion that perhaps the two crimes are related.

Part of the brilliance of Mankell's weaving of the story is readers are invited to participate in the investigation through the eyes and thoughts of Wallender; while an effective narrative tool, his diagnosis of diabetes interferes with Wallender's thought process, and - believably - there are a lot of dead-and-loose ends that must be looked into in order to piece together the who and why's behind the crimes. Following these red herrings and sifting through evidence while critical to the story makes it a bit plodding.

The last 50 or so pages are difficult to put down, as both the pace and tension of the investigation pick up - like a cornered animal, the killer is both wily and dangerous, each attempting to outmaneuver the other which made up for the slow pace of the investigation, the granule details of which became critical in understanding how Wallender eventually put the pieces together.

Mankell is a gifted writer, and while this thriller is a bit slow off the mark, the conclusion will get your heart pumping and raise your blood pressure as he brings it to a dramatic conclusion. Recommended.

6 people found this helpful

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Blue in Washington (Barry Ballow)

Simply brilliant - 4+

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2012

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"One Step Behind" goes back a few years, but remains an enthralling study of the banality of evil and problems in confronting and stopping it. This struck me as one of the best of the books in the Wallander series (I haven't read them all, truth to tell), especially in its ability to portray the every waking moment of the protagonist and in persuading the reader to hang on to every word, every action in those moments.

This is above all a story about Wallander and his guilt-driven drive to solve the murder of a colleague and at the same time deal with his own increasingly serious medical problems. The latter are so dire at times that you find yourself literally willing him to slow down, sleep, take his medication, eat better, etc. He, of course, isn't listening and does none of the above. As the conclusion rolls arounds, Wallander is in terrible shape physically and vulnerable on that score to the killer(s) at work, but nevertheless at the height of his mental powers.

The well-spun story is ultimately a meticulously spun out procedural that makes clear how difficult the investigatory process is in reality and how tenuous the ultimate result. Some eight murders will occur in this novel before it reaches its ending. Most of them are outrageously diabolical and wrenching to the reader. This is a book that will leave all kinds of impact--transcending the mystery genre into literature. Highly recommended.

4 people found this helpful

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Roy

Another home run!

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2024

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I really enjoyed this book. It has an interesting plot and well developed characters. If you like to read books with a setting outside the US and you like murder mysteries, then I think you’ll enjoy this book, too.

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babs

Another excellent Swedish mystery and social commentary

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2024

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The ongoing observation by Kurt Wallenberg on Sweden’s decaying moral code, mixed in to atmospheric texture and multiple ongoing characters. Twists and turns, the Police Stations characters and their social situations. One of his better books, in that, do many facets of his writing are included.

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valgo

Fiabilité , rapidité

Reviewed in France on September 23, 2020

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Article reçu dans des délais record
Livre impeccable , comme toujours quand Momox recommande un achat d'occasion

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JJ

One step behind

Reviewed in India on April 8, 2018

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Liked the construct of the story..the way characters are developed and most importantly how we get a detailed peek into the innermost thoughts of Wallander.
Anyone interested in crime thrillers should read Wallander.
However I would have liked it more if the psychology of the villain was also explored in depth...you know, what makes. Them do what they do, what are their thoughts, peeling it layer by layer..etc...

Bernd Heil

Empfehlenswert

Reviewed in Germany on March 9, 2018

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Mit geschliffenem Stil durchleuchtet Mankell die psychischen Prozesse in seinen Charakteren, und legt - eingebettet in einem chronologisch übersichtlich strukturiertem Plot - einen sich stetig aufbauenden Spannungsbogen an.

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