This will not bode well for the investigation. Right before Maria passes away in the hospital, she utters the word, 'foreign'. This case will give him something to focus on other than his troubles.Īnd focus he does. He's overweight and has a drinking problem. His relationship with his daughter is estranged. His wife left him three months ago and has filed for divorce.

Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander is assigned to the case. She's found bloodied, tied to a chair with a noose around her neck, barely clinging to life. He has been brutally bludgeoned to death. But now, with winter tightening and his activities being monitored by a tough-minded district attorney, Wallander must forget his troubles and throw himself into a battle against time and against mounting racial hatred.ħ January 1990: An elderly couple, Maria and Johannes Lovgren, are discovered after being viciously attacked in their farmhouse in Lunnarp, Sweden. He works tirelessly, eats badly, and drinks his nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. Kurt Wallander's life is a shambles: his wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him, and even his ageing father barely tolerates him.

When this is leaked to the press, it unleashes racial hatred. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign. An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, both victims of a violence beyond reason. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath. One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call-out.

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for Sidetracked.

Faceless killers plot