The murder of a farming couple in Sweden unleashes a wave of xenophobia when it is learned that the woman's dying words were "foreigner." The case is given to Inspector Kurt Wallender, a lover of opera and booze. Part crime story, part look at the attitude of Swedes to immigrants. One frozen January Morning at 5 am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he expects is a routine call out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath....

In an African convent, four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered, and the death of the unknown woman is covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two strange murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, while the body of a missing florist is discovered strangled and tied...

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

Swedish inspector Kurt Wallender investigates the murder of a woman whose body was stuffed in a well. The case has international ramifications, involving a plot against Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

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...

After nearly thirty years in the same job, Inspector Kurt Wallander is tired, restless, and itching to make a change. He is taken with a certain old farmhouse, perfectly situated in a quiet countryside with a charming, overgrown garden. There he finds the skeletal hand of a corpse in a shallow grave. Wallander's investigation takes him deep into the history of the house and the land, until finally the shocking truth about a long-buried secret is brought...