Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

A classic Nordic noir thriller, featuring the archetypal hangdog detective. Kurt Wallander is middle aged, recently divorced, overweight and suffering from an irritable bowel exacerbated by a diet of greasy junk food. He is called on to take charge of investigating a brutal and apparently motiveless crime - an elderly couple in a remote farmhouse have been attacked, with the husband slaughtered and the wife in a critical condition with a noose around her neck. She dies a few days later after saying just one word "foreign"

The book is set in the late 80s in Sweden, which was a time of much social and political upheaval, with an asylum seeker crisis stoked by far right parties and lurking neo-nazi groups. The fateful final words are leaked to the press, leading to racially motivated attacks, including the shocking random murder of an innocent Somali refugee.

The investigation is a painstaking one, with Wallander having to tread a tricky line in establishing the identity of the killer or killers. There are several lines of investigation into why the farmer was a target for murder, but each one peters out in a frustrating dead end. He struggles with self doubt as he tries to understand what has happened and why.

Maybe the times require another kind of policeman, he thought. Policemen who aren’t distressed when they’re forced to go into a human slaughterhouse in the Swedish countryside early on a January morning. Policemen who don’t suffer from my uncertainty and anguish.

As this is happening, Wallender must deal with his elderly father who is suffering from the onset of dementia, as well as trying to rebuild his relationship with his daughter who is now a university student in Stockholm. He also has something of an obsession with the new Public Prosecutor Annette Brolin who will decide when to bring charges, and he makes a clumsy and boorish pass at her when drunk one night. His drinking also nearly sees him being arrested for driving under the influence, but he somehow gets away it, although shamefully embarrassed by what could have happened.

The secondary case of the racist murder is concluded with some almost farcical moments with Wallander almost falling to his doom from scaffolding whilst trying to surveil a suspect followed by a risky high speed pursuit in a horse box.

Just when it seems that the original case has gone cold, Wallander is struck with an idea whilst waiting in a queue at the bank, leading to a breakthrough and a breathless conclusion. I'll definitely be reading more of these.