Mankell's meticulously detailed descriptions of the inspector's investigation-and his often lyrical portrayal of Wallander's struggle to rearrange his thought processes in order to catch the criminal-are masterful. What he doesn't consider, and what readers know, is that the murderer isn't a man but a boy, who hopes to revive his catatonic sister by the ritual presentation of the scalps. Using American profiling methods as well as his own intuition, Wallander struggles to make headway in the case. Following standard procedure, Wallander and his crew try to link the four victims, all male, a difficult task because their lives never seem to have intersected. Three more people are found murdered and scalped, and other signs of violence suggest that the perpetrator is becoming increasingly agitated. As the police try to identify the young woman, the serial killer's first victim, a former justice minister, is discovered on a beach in a wealthy neighborhood. The suicide unsettles the inspector, who can't understand why someone so young would kill herself. The novel opens as Wallander is called to a farmer's field, where he helplessly witnesses a teenage girl's self-immolation. Told from the perspectives of both cop and criminal, Mankell's third Kurt Wallander mystery revolves around the veteran Swedish inspector's search for a savage serial killer who scalps his victims after delivering a fatal hatchet blow.

Sidetracked by Steven T. Murray