Mankell can write, unlike Billingham.
This is a short and quite slight book, possibly the first Wallander novel, but Mankell creates character not cartoon.
Take the fathers: Mankell's is an almost tragic old man; Thorne's (who may have died at the end of the last book) is a comic buffoon. Thorne himself is simply angry, but largely cynical outside the moments of anger triggered by grisly and sentimentally observed events.
Wallander, whose gung-ho side is a bit overwritten at times, is sad and disturbed by the way Swedish society is developing. this sounds a bit 'lit crit' which probably reflects the fact that I have read all the Wallander books and still can't make my mind up about Billingham.
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