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With Inspector Kurt Wallander, best-selling Swedish author Henning Mankell has created a vibrant, multi-layered personality that immediately and unforgettably seizes the attention of the reader - and, here, the television viewer. The setting is Sweden's idyllic south, far from the urban centers. But behind the tranquil facade festers corruption. Mankell paints unvarnished portraits of modern life, in which society and its institutions are all on edge.

Wallander himself is a refreshingly 'normal' man, flawed and far from heroic. He often tends to follow hunches and his intuition instead of giving priority to facts and solid evidence. He drinks too much, eats too much fast food, is overweight, and doesn't get enough sleep. His relationships also leave much to be desired: he's divorced, has an on-and-off affair with a Latvian woman and a tempestuous relationship with his father. His initially rebellious daughter later joins the police force.

Confronted by crimes of unbelievable cunning, Wallander tries to make sense of this perfidy and of the rapidly changing world around him. Herein lies one of the main reasons for the international success of Henning Mankell's novels and of the Wallander TV Collection: a precise, in-depth analysis of today's society, a surefire feeling for the pulse of the time, and themes that embrace a larger social context.