FACELESS KILLERS by Henning Mankell

Someone has murdered an elderly Swedish farmer in a most grisly fashion, and his wife is hanging on by a thread after having had a noose tightened around her neck.  The only word she can utter is “foreign,” and now all the xenophobes will come out of the woodwork.  Soon Kurt Wallander, detective for the Ystad police, will have other crimes to solve, after an anonymous caller has made threats against asylum-seekers living in refugee camps.  As in most novels of this type, the detective’s personal life is a disaster.  His wife has left him, although he still hopes for a reconciliation; he has lost all contact with his daughter; and his father has dementia.  In other words, he has a lot on his plate, and opportunities for sleep constantly elude him.  Plus, he’s tracking down leads all over the place, first trying to establish a motive for the original murder and then following a number of other clues, none of which explain the wife’s use of the word “foreign.”  The very competent new chief prosecutor is an attractive young woman, and Wallander is frustrated to learn that she is married.  That doesn’t stop his dogged pursuit of her company nor of the other theories as to who committed the murder.  This book is a fast and pleasurable read, easy to follow, and I didn’t notice any awkward language in the translation.  Wallander is a flawed hero, eating and drinking too much for starters, but heroes don't have to be perfect to be heroes.