298. An Event in Autumn

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Henning Mankell

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Foreign

176 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

An Event in Autumn is a short novel featuring the famous Swedish detective Kurt Wallander (who has spawned two television series).  Soon after Inspector Wallander looks at a home to potentially buy, he makes a horrifying discovery of a skeletal hand poking through the earth in the garden.  He unearths two corpses and turns the investigation over to the local police.  However, Wallander is soon drawn into the search to discover who died, why and by whose hand.

Quotes 

“A question that wasn’t asked was a question that didn’t need an answer.”

 

“Many years ago Wallander had learned that one of the manifold virtues a police officer must possess is the ability to be patient with himself.”

 

“There was a sort of beauty that only comes with age. A whole life engraved into facial wrinkles.”

 

“It struck Wallander that nothing could make him as depressed as the sight of old spectacles that nobody wanted anymore.”

 

“The great Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose once said, liberally translated, “the only things worth writing about are love and murder.”

 

“No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.”        

 

“It’s about contradictions between us and inside us, between individuals and society, between dream and reality. Sometimes these contradictions express themselves in violence, such as racial conflict. And this mirror of crime can take us back to the Greek authors.” 

My Take

An Event in Autumn is the first Kurt Wallander book that I have read and it was very enjoyable.  Mankell is a gifted writer and his books are much more than your standard whodunit’s.  He delves into characters and place in an original, nuanced and insightful manner that adds depth to the mystery, which is also an entertaining page turner.