Faceless Killers - post III

The plan was to do a review of Norman Mailer’s Castle in the Forest but the room where the computer lives has lost its heating and it is about three degrees so the idea of sitting here tapping away is not appealing.

But it seemed like a good idea to try and match the pace of Mankell and wrap up my thoughts on reading Faceless Killers. He manages to move things forward at a much quicker pace in the last section of the book. After progress being so slow that the case looks as if it night never be solved the months roll by and things seem to be going nowhere. You keep one eye on the page numbers and wonder how things are going to get resolved in the last thirty pages.

When it came to keeping things almost painfully slow then a breathless climax Mal Sjowall and Per Wahloo did it better in Roseanna and the reason is that this seems to go almost too quickly. The balance of the book is off kilter and the pace should have been upped a bit earlier.

It is enjoyable reading through the final pages watching Wallander solve the crime but things are going by a bit too fast and you finish the book with a load of questions about where Wallander is going in his personal life, whether or not his loyal colleague dies of cancer and what becomes of his relationship with the prosecutor.

No doubt that is all deliberately done to get you to do exactly what I will be from tomorrow – picking up the next book in the series The Dogs of Riga.

A review will follow after Castle in the Forest and A Hero’s Daughter…