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From the #1 international-bestselling master of Scandinavian noir: a “marvelously told mystery” of murder in Sweden and corruption in Africa (Austin American-Statesman).
 
In an African convent, four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are found with their throats slit. The local police do little to investigate . . . and cover up the unknown woman’s death. A year later in Sweden, Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and birdwatcher, is skewered to death after falling into a pit of carefully sharpened bamboo poles. Soon after, the body of a missing florist is discovered strangled and tied to a tree. Baffled and appalled by the crimes, the only clues Inspector Kurt Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men.
 
What ensues is a complex, meticulously plotted investigation that will push the detective to his limits. The key is the unsolved killing of the fifth woman in Africa—who was she, and what did she have to do with the brutal deaths of two seemingly innocent men? Are more victims in danger? The answers will lead Wallander to question everything he thought he knew about the psychology of murder.
 
An international bestseller, this “scary and cunning tale” (Rocky Mountain News) “achieves the satisfying density of plot and characterization” that established Henning Mankell as one of the twentieth-century’s finest crime writers. His Kurt Wallander mysteries are now the basis for the hit TV show Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh (The Baltimore Sun).

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005GPWTVM
Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press (August 1, 2000)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 1, 2000
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2197 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
Reviewer: Mauricio Luz
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wallander survives this translation: The story is that good.
Review: I am reading the Wallander series in the chronological order of the stories, not in the order of publication (either in English or Swedish – I can’t read the later anyway). I enjoy the Mankell’s style. However, even if I am not fluent in English, the flaws in the translation are noticeable. They do disrupt the reading quite frequently. Sometimes the lines sound as if I had translated the book myself, using my very limited vocabulary and thus unnecessarily repeating expressions and words in such a way as to cripple the text. Anyway, I have not the competence to criticize the book from that perspective – even if I just did it.What I can say after reading some of the reviews is that Mankels style and Wallander personality are great pars of the book’s qualities. Yes, Swedish police work is a complicated mix of bureaucracy, investigation and discussion of political problems. So much that sometimes the plot drags for quite many pages (or days, if you prefer) or gets stuck in the mud. The weather contributes to that feeling. Those are interesting features of the text, rather than flaws, in my modest opinion. It helps us to get into Wallander skin. Doing so is somewhat depressing, indeed. The difference is that we can get out of it and appreciate the stay (or the journey). Wallander stranged father and their way to cope with that relationship is reflected in postponed or even forgotten phone calls. For instance, the unanswered questions that Kurt poses to himself about his father whereabouts and inner feelings are so common in ordinary life, that complaining about them sounds quite childish to me: those things happen even if we can hardly accept or cope with them ourselves. Characters have personalities (or layers, in Shrek’s famous words). There are no avenues or highways from mystery to solutions (in fact there are many blind alleys), no CSI-like solutions and even mistakes are made in police work. Those, in my view, are also strengths of the book: we don’t rush to solutions; they are carved with bare hands against solid rocks half buried in mud.I never comment on the plots, so there will be no spoilers. What I need to say, simply, is that the general subject of taking the “justice” in one hands’ relate pretty well with the general Swedish psychological and social landscape outlined by Mankell in his “detours”, unanswered questions, bad weather and odd social relationships. As far as I can say, this is the best Wallander book. Fortunately, I still have a few more to read and change my mind.

Reviewer: Duane Schneider
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Read with a Few Minor Plot Holes
Review: The Wallander books are a great diversion. I was reading this as I worked on a couple other books, but I found myself turning to "The Fifth Woman" more often than the others, eager to follow the mystery of the deaths of several seemingly unconnected victims. Wallander is a great character. As you follow him through one of his cases, you feel increasingly exhausted, just as he does. This is because he pours all his time and energy into his work. In "The Fifth Woman," there are a lot of midnight staff meetings, a lot of late-night interrogations of people connected to the crimes. Nothing can wait until the next morning. As a result, Kurt Wallander doesn't eat well, doesn't sleep much, and runs himself into the ground. The book begins with Kurt taking a much-needed vacation with his father to Rome. Anyone who's read this series knows his relationship with his father is fraught, but the trip draws them closer. Unfortunately--SPOILER ALERT--Kurt's father dies soon afterward, so this death haunts him for the rest of the book. Wallander seems to realize that his personal relationships--with his girlfriend, Baiba, in Latvia, and his daughter, Linda--take a backseat to his work, yet he can't seem to do anything about it. In "The Fifth Woman," he wants a dog and a house but can't make the time to see this through, and he worries about money. His car breaks down, and he cringes at the expenses. As for this particular case, various men are killed in various ways but Wallander concludes these murders are the work of a single serial killer. There's a link to events that take place in Africa, as in previous Wallander books. All the police feel that Sweden is changing for the worse and becoming more violent. The Wallander investigations seem "real," by which I mean that clues sometimes lead nowhere or are red herrings, and sometimes time passes with a frustrating lack of clues. But this verisimilitude also leads to lulls in the writing. I could feel "The Fifth Woman" dragging. Even the sentences came to seem flat, short, declarative, as though Mankell was simply trying to hit a page count. When I read a mystery, I don't necessarily want reality; I want a page-turner. Here there's as much dedication to Wallander as there is to the crimes he investigates, which I like. Wallander tracks down the killer at a train platform, only to have the killer escape. I found the recapture a bit too easy, based on a Wallander hunch with little to support it. My only other minor gripe about this novel was its subplot of a citizen's defense league that was forming and seemed like a real, nationwide threat. This vigilante group was too quickly and easily disbanded, and the subplot simply vanished. This needed a firmer resolution.

Reviewer: babs
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Kurt Wallenberg as a sensitive driven man
Review: Longer than most of his other books and at times redundant and repetitive. But overall well plotted and his colleagues described well enough to become.fully formed characters. Excellent if you skip over the repetitive parts

Reviewer: Max Goldensohn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: great mystery book
Review: Noble sequel in a great series with well- developed characters, including a full range of secondary players. Good writing and clear plot devices. Highly recommended.

Reviewer: Toby Neal
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Intriguing, yet sloggy.
Review: I love the premise, the start, and the detailed development of European police procedure. However, after a few chapters I bogged down in the pacing of this novel. It seemed to take Wallander forever even to get the case, and let alone solve it. I was caught by the detail of life so different from mine and yet frustrated by the pacing of the book and lack of focus. Occasional beautiful writing kept me going in spite of these mixed emotions.I also found the writer indulged himself with "telling" rather than "showing" especially regarding Wallander's plodding and disorganized solving of the crime. His thoughts were baldly stated. Being a crime writer myself I kept saying aloud, "for God's sake, man" and "hurry it up" as Wallander's car broke down yet again and several pages were wasted in the barren and unpronounceable landscape of a Swedish winter.That said, I finished it. And that's huge for me with my own writing and two jobs. I am left hoping Wallander gets his dog and absentee girlfriend, and a vacation. Oh and some PTSD counseling would be nice.

Reviewer: Don B.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The early chapters were a little hard to take in. But once it got into the actual investigation it was difficult to put the book down. A decent map of Skane would have been helpful but a little bit of internet searching solved that issue.A really good engaging read in the style of the great mystery writers. Loved it.

Reviewer: LabijoseBooks
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Llevaba un par de días leyendo la novela cuando tuve conocimiento del fallecimiento de Henning Mankell. Lo lamenté profundamente, pues aparte de haberle leído con asiduidad, también había escuchado entrevistas que concedió, y siempre demostraba un gran sentido común.El personaje central del detective Kurt Wallander siempre me ha parecido fascinante. Muestra su naturaleza humana en todas sus entregas, y su forma tanto de pensar como de actuar me resulta familiar y convincente. El escritor no abusa de pasajes escabrosos, como tantos otros autores, y rodea a su personaje de un aura de infelicidad que le hace tremendamente creíble con las circunstancias con las que convive.La presente novela está llena de giros. Comienza unos años atrás con el asesinato de una mujer sueca en un convento de monjas en África, y con la carta que recibe posteriormente su hija, enviada por una agente que siente remordimientos por no haber podido esclarecer el asesinato, que ha sido silenciado intencionadamente. Con la carta le remite todas las notas halladas en posesión de la víctima. A partir de aquí se suceden todos los hechos que desencadenan en la búsqueda de un supuesto asesino en serie, que elige a sus víctimas de forma que la policía no tiene ni idea de por dónde empezar a investigar.La trama se desarrolla de forma lenta pero magistral. Wallander, que acaba de pasar unos días de vacaciones con su padre en Roma, y que se siente rejuvenecido por la experiencia, se verá inmerso, sin tiempo a recuperarse del viaje, en una de las más descorazonadoras investigaciones de su vida. Otra gran obra de un gran escritor. Descanse en paz.

Reviewer: kjell magnus keehus
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The Fift Woman is a very well written book that will keep you occupied for manya otherwise boring evening. Henning Mankell again will keep you occupied withhis excellent writing. Pleasure reading !!

Reviewer: J. Remi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Mankell que voulez-vous c'est une ambiance ...Et si vous aimer le genre "roman policier nordique" et bien vous aller adorer ...Avec la Lionne Blanche ... l'un des deux meilleurs de la série

Reviewer: Abhishek Kumar
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Another superbly written novel by Henning Mankell.Kurt Wallander is an interesting character and i look forward to his next adventure.