Henning Mankell’s region of Skane, in the coastal badlands of southern Sweden, is a great place to hide. Evildoers flock there from overseas, and hometown baddies–war criminals, sex traders, domestic abusers–are a dime a dozen. In Skane, the long arm of the law must flex and stretch a little further despite sleepless nights, chest pains, and the occasional hangover. No wonder Kurt Wallander, Mankell’s irritable and weary police inspector, wants to escape. “I’m searching for the slayers of the dead and I can’t even manage to pay attention to the living,” he says in Faceless Killers, the first in Mankell’s nine-book series of police procedurals featuring the beleagured detective. “For a dizzying instant his entire consciousness was filled only with one urge. To take off. Flee. Disappear. Start a new life.”
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Henning Mankell reads at noon on Saturday, June 5, at Columbia College Residence Hall, 731 S. Plymouth, as part of the Printers Row Book Fair (see Section Two). It’s free; call 312-222-3986.
