The Man Who Smiled (1994)

This is still an early-ish novel in Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series, fourth or fifth of 12 depending on how you count them. I can see how it might not be considered up to some of the others. It spends a lot of time on Wallander's personal life. He's interesting, but I'm more interested in the police procedures and the social realism. It also has some tendency to drop into action / thriller / suspense modes, which too often start to feel unpleasantly like Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum commercial fare. These kinds of stories don't work so well for me. But it's still a pretty interesting case and one of Mankell's strong suits remains putting together a satisfyingly complex mystery story. He's maybe not as interested in actual police procedures as me, but he knows how to use them to get a plot from one point to the next. That said, The Man Who Smiled has some flaws. The danger in which Wallander and crew find themselves, for example, is sometimes extraordinarily high, as early when Wallander computes there is a bomb in the gas tank of the car he is driving, with only moments to pull over and get far away from it. At the same time these police officers are often just as extraordinarily unconcerned about the dangers. Still, I'd call the miscues more like quibbles. Mankell is good and the novel is enjoyable. As always, he works some social justice into the story—this time Wallander is going after a corporate tycoon. Interestingly, nowadays we accept and even embrace the idea that corporate tycoons are deceitful and manipulative. Our sick president is only an extreme example. But in Sweden in 1994 there is not only the instinctive deference to wealth, but also positive affirmation of its moral good standing, if not superiority. Wallander's immediate supervisor is very troubled that the tycoon is even a suspect. For the rest of us, cynics, we can see clearly how people are cut down everywhere this tycoon goes. It's ultimately little surprise to find out he's operating in the black market for human body parts. Compare the Larry Niven story, "The Jigsaw Man," from Dangerous Visions. Mankell's version is more the way you would expect this type of market to work, from top to bottom. In some ways our villain Alfred Harderberg looks forward to the vast evils of Stieg Larsson's Dragon Tattoo series, though he is little like the sadistic misogynists found there. But he's pretty bad. Something about this series that baffles me: Wallander's father's painting business. He paints exactly the same landscape scene over and over, sometimes with a grouse in the foreground. I know it's a joke, especially that he makes a living from it, but it's so weird. Sweden can't possibly be the kitschiest place on the planet. Can it?

In case the library is closed due to pandemic.