The story of the Swedish detective’s beginnings, told in five gripping short mysteries: “An indispensable chapter to the saga” (Booklist Online).
 
Here are the stories that trace, chronologically, Kurt Wallander’s growth from a rookie cop into a young father and then a middle-aged divorcé, illuminating how he became a first-rate detective and highlighting new facets of the character who...

When Inspector Kurt Wallander discovers a shallow grave in the garden of his new house, he investigates the truth about the residence and its previous owner.

Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the deaths of three young celebrants after the Midsummer's Eve ritual.

One cold January day the police are called to a sleepy little hamlet in the north of Sweden where they discover a savagely murdered man lying in the snow. As they begin their investigation they notice that the village seems eerily quiet and deserted. Going from house to house, looking for witnesses, they uncover a crime unprecedented in Swedish history. When Judge Birgitta Roslin reads about the massacre, she realises that she has a family connection...

In Sweden, detective Kurt Wallander hunts for a serial killer who scalps his victims. The story is told from two points of view, that of Wallander and that of the killer--a boy. By the author of The White Lioness.

Taking a position with the Ystad police force shortly after graduating, Linda Wallander, the daughter of inspector Kurt Wallender, struggles with their contentious relationship before taking on the case of a childhood friend, who has disappeared.

The execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife looks like a simple case even though there is no obvious suspect. But then Wallander learns of a determined stalker, and soon enough, the cops catch up with him.

Jesper Humlin is a poet of middling acclaim who is saddled by his underwhelming book sales, an exasperated girlfriend, a demanding mother, and a rapidly fading tan. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin's investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive, begins to pitch and promote the nonexistent book despite Humlin's emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself...

"Henning Mankell's last novel about an aging man whose quiet, solitary life on an isolated island off the coast of Sweden is turned upside down when his house catches fire. Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees and his mailman Jansson is the closest thing he has to a friend, and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out...