Faceless Killers

A Kurt Wallander Mystery

By: Henning Mankell, Steven T. Murray - translator

Narrated by: Dick Hill

First in the Kurt Wallander mystery series.

It was a crime of senseless violence. On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer was bludgeoned to death, his wife left to die with a noose around her neck. As if this didn't present enough problems for Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word, his only tangible clue, were foreign. If publicized, they could be the match that would inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.

With this case - unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the young prosecutor who has piqued his interest - Wallander feels he has a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, though it will require all of his talent to do so.

©1991 Henning Mankell, English translation 1997 Steven T. Murray (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"An exquisite novel of mesmerizing depth and suspense." (Los Angeles Times)
"Mankell's work mixes compelling procedural details with strong social consciousness....A superior novel and a harbinger of great things to come." (Booklist)
"[A] brilliant U.S. debut....The author goes well beyond the narrow police procedural in creating a full-bodied Wallender and in casting light on the refugee problem in contemporary Swedish society." (Library Journal)

Faceless Killers (Unabridged)

Plot is really good...but the narration is limited at best, especially the main character Kurt Wallander

story pretty good, reader unbearably overdramatic

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

it got me through my drive time for a little while, but I never lost the sense that it could have been much much better narrated.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

enough to make me listen to the whole thing, in spite of the horrible narrator

How did the narrator detract from the book?

overly dramatic expression of text and excruciating renderings of characters in dialog.
way too much vocal embroidery, almost obscuring the story.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no.

Decent Detective Thriller, OK Narration

Gripping enough that I burned through this book in two days, but wasn't compelled enough to grab the next one in the series. I may sometime. The narrator, Kurt Wallander, is hard to like -- sexist, xenophobic, self-centered, often just gross -- but I appreciate that he's fully realized, flawed and profane and not seemingly superhuman, as so many protagonists in this genre are. Mankell isn't afraid to make him human.

The narration by Dick Hill is tolerable. It's easy to understand why they'd use him -- the voice of Jack Reacher -- but I wish they'd looked for someone Swedish, or at least a reader who could lend a bit of nordic atmosphere to the proceedings. I also don't care for Hill's tendency to read every woman in this clipped, nasally tone that makes them all sound either haughty or impatient or chiding. I wonder if his reading improves over the course of the Wallander series. I'll find out one day, but don't feel in a hurry to dive back into this world at the moment.

The Woes of Wallander

After watching the Wallander TV Series, I thought of giving the audiobooks a try. Faceless Killers is labeled as the first in the Wallander series although the story does not show up until the second season of the tv series. While the overall core of the story is the same in both versions, the TV leaves parts out and rearranges the order of some the sequences. It works, but flows more like a traditional tv show than what you will hear in the book.

The core of the story follows the search for the killer(s) of an elderly couple on a farm outside of the city. Kurt and company go through the paces of tracking the evidence and eventually solving the mystery in both the tv series and the book. The biggest difference is the audio version gets deeper into the personal life and mores of Kurt Wallander. Unlike the show, he and his daughter are not speaking to each other and he is morose over the separation from his wife. He is an imperfect man constantly questioning his life and choices. There is also a bit of how politics play a part in Sweden impacting his ability to get things done.

The best part of the audio is the classic Dick Hill as the narrator. Since Mr. Hill has retired from doing the Jack Reacher audio books, it is a pleasure listening to his great delivery in a different series. His very presence encourages me to continue with the series.

Overall, this was a really good audio book, a little slow in parts, and could use a little humor as the constant woes of Kurt Wallander do get a bit tiresome. If you are a Dick Hill fan, I do believe you will enjoy the listen.

sometimes hard to hear some voices over car

great book, but differences in volume sometimes tricky in car. Otherwise narration is good and book itself is interesting.

Dick Hill makes every book better

IMO Dick Hill was the best narrator of every book I’ve ever listened to. RIP Mr. Hill.

Not the best Wallander

well written as usual but I found story line not as good as other Wallander books. still it was enjoyable

Excellent novel ruined by narration

Any additional comments?

This is an excellent novel in one of the best crime series. I've read or listened to most of the Wallander books and was surprised to find Faceless Killers to be the first in the series -- the character is already fully formed, setting the stage for the novels that follow. My problem with the audiobook is the narration. I usually like Dick Hill and have enjoyed many of his other books (notably Lee Child's Reacher series), but he is simply not suited to this one. I wanted to listen to a Mankel/Wallander novel, not a Dick Hill novel.

Loved the book, but not the reader.

I bought this book because I had listened to the Martin Beck stories by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo read by Tom Weiner (which are great) and I wanted more Nordic mysteries.
This was the first time I heard Mr. Dick Hill as a narrator, and it was very hard getting used to his style. Almost painful. Having listened to Tom Weiner, and other great Audible readers such as Simon Vance and Patrick Tull (all of whom can really make you feel you are listening to different characters) I was very disappointed because listening to Mr. Hill, I could only hear at most 3 "different" voices, all of which, however, had the same inflection of what sounded like a 70 year old man. What a surprise when I Googled Mr. Hill and he does not look much older than 40! I listened to format 3. Will try format 4 next time.
The book itself was great and I will probably buy some more in the series. But I would have preferred a different narrator. Hopefully Mr. Hill just had a cold or something when he recorded this book.

Great story and good performance.

As an American I really enjoy the change of perspective. And it is interesting to know that in so many ways we are the same.