Side-Tracked

A winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award that comes “strongly recommended” (Library Journal): Detective Kurt Wallander follows the trail of a serial killer who scalps their victims. How is a teenage girl’s self-immolation connected to this string of chilling murders? “Connoisseurs of the police procedural will tear into this installment like the seven-course banquet it is” (Kirkus Reviews).

Detective Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden's former minister of justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. But his investigation is beset with obstacles: a department distracted by the threat of cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous relationship with a widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the girl who set herself on fire.

Fascinating and astute, Sidetracked is a compelling mystery enhanced by keen social awareness.