Henning Mankell - The Man Who Smiled

Review by Malcolm Martland on show 1st April
The Man Who Smiled is the fourth Kurt Wallander mystery and is set in and around the southern Swedish town of Ystat. It was recently dramatised on the BBC with Kenneth Branagh playing Wallander. When I realised it was the same story I nearly gave up but decided to continue and there were significant differences in the written story. But most will be familiar to anyone who has seen it.

Wallander has been off sick for over a year, he had a breakdown after shooting a man during the course of his police work and took refuge in nearby Denmark. He intends to return to his old police station and resign his position but while walking on a beach he is approached by an old friend, a solicitor, who asks him to investigate the apparent accidental death of his father, also a solicitor. Wallander is unable to accept any commitment in his mental state and refuses. However, several days later he hears that his friend has been shot dead in his home. Filled with guilt and remorse he returns to his station not to resign but to resume, and to investigate the death of his friend and his father. A few feathers are ruffled by his return but eventually they all agree to work as a team.

He visits the solicitors' secretary and finds that the senior man had been visiting a wealthy client at Farnholm Castle and apparently had run off the road in fog on his way home. Wallander visits the scrapyard where the car was taken and finds a few clues including a chair with only three legs. He then goes the site of the accident and guess what? Buried in the mud he finds another leg of the chair, just the right sort of thing for bashing the old man on the head. His suspicions are up. Ballistics on the bullets found in the younger solicitor revealed them to be from an unusual and expensive Italian pistol. Clearly foul play is afoot. The secretary calls him, something has bothered her in the garden, Wallander sees a disturbed area on the lawn with something protruding, and as you do, he throws a telephone directory at it provoking an enormous explosion from the buried mine!

During the course of his further enquiries Wallander visits Farnholm Castle where a disgraced ex-policeman is on sentry duty. He learns that the owner of the castle, Dr Alfred Harderberg is an important and influential as well as a benevolent local businessman, "The Man Who Smiled".

While following up the clues found in the dead solicitors' offices Wallander finds he is being followed by a strange car. His fellow officer, Ann-Britt notes the car registration number and they discover that it has been stolen. But they continue their enquiries late into the night hoping they have shaken off the tail but after visiting potential witnesses Wallander notices that is petrol tank gauge seems to be higher than expected. They abandon their car and while waiting for forensic backup it explodes. Clearly someone is trying to tell Wallander something!

The team pull all stops out and while re-examining the elder solicitor's vehicle they find a plastic cool box, the sort used for transporting human organs. Suspicions of a grisly trade emerge and the fingers are pointing at Dr Alfred Harderberg but where is the evidence? Wallander plants a girl stable-hand at the castle and unexpectedly receives a tipoff from the disgraced ex-policeman and a gunshot riddled chase of helicopters, cars and planes begins.

All great stuff I thoroughly enjoyed it despite having seen it only a week before. We can never know what was lost in translation, it lacks the despair of the TV series, but nevertheless this is a great thriller akin to some of the best works of Ian Rankin and Val McDermid.

Malcolm Martland, RadioScilly Book Club, 1 April 2010