The Man Who Smiled

by: Henning Mankel; Translated by Laurie Thompson

Published by: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original

Reviewed by Laura Langer

Scandinavian crime literature is steeped in landscape and geography, and infused with melancholy.

The Man Who Smiled begins during the self-imposed exile of Kurt Wallander, adrift and alone on an isolated, windswept island. He is waiting for his leave from the police force to pass and for his mind to make itself up about returning to his home and his job as a homicide detective. Just before he must return, he is visited by a lawyer from his hometown who tries to convince him to take on the investigation of the death of the man’s father. Wallander turns him down, and within days, the son is also dead.

Wallander comes home, walks back into the office to retire, and instead takes up the case of the two dead lawyers. He quickly takes over the leadership of an investigation that preceded his return—dogged, sometimes careless of his safety, and determined to solve the case. His determination exists in the face of considerable outright opposition and even greater warning that comes under the radar–and with a long slow look of bland menace.

In the course of the investigation he rediscovers how much he loves what he does, and at the same time, that he consciously cultivates a recklessness in himself. He almost dares the man he knows to be behind the crimes to come after him. He is, at heart, outraged both by the callous disregard for human life shown by the criminal, and by his own indifference to the plea of the lawyer who sought him out so carefully. The lawyer had pleaded for his help in learning about his father’s death, convinced that it was murder when no one else was. Wallander had turned him down in life, but he pursues justice for both father and son after their death.

Mankel has crafted an admirably complex plot with a strong main character and vivid supporting ones. He drives the story forward relentlessly and so the reader can willingly suspend suspicion of how it might all come out closer to home, in an ordinary investigation in the real world where justice is a different sort of commodity.

Armchair Interview says: Be sure you have time to finish this novel because once you start, you won’t want to put it down anytime soon.