Wallender

I have this thing for detective novels. I think it started with Michael Connelly's "Bosch" series. What set these novels apart from many American detective series is that Bosch was damaged by emotional trauma, including the murder of his mother, but that damage was what made him a successful detective. But the struggle achieve closure is a vital part of the plots.  I've discovered that I prefer detective series written by non-Americans, as these authors also tend to create damaged heroes but also (intentionally or otherwise)  provide insights into their country's society. And so I read Ian Rankin's "Rebus" series set in Scotland, along with other series such as Qiu Xiaolong's Inspector Chen series set in Shanghai (and it didn't hurt that Chen was a gourmand and there were a lot of descriptions of his meals). I had high hopes for Camerilli's Inspector Montalbano series, as Montalbano is also a gourmand, but since his novels were written in Italian for an Italian audience, the dishes are mainly just listed as it was expected that Italians would know what these dishes were, and unfortunately the character hasn't changed much over the series. And then there's Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender. 

The Wallender series is a bit different, because it was Henning Mankell's intent to depict how Swedish society was changing - and not for the better - and the topic of Mankell's first novel Faceless Killers was immigration/racism in Swedish society. Mankell died about seven years ago, and the Wallender series had ended in 2009, but I recently discovered that a novella An Evening in Autumn had been written and so I acquired a copy and read it today. There's an epilogue in which Mankell described the thought process that led to the creation of the Kurt Wallender character. It began with the idea that the natural path would be to write a crime novel, as "racist acts are criminal outrages. A logical consequence of this was that I would need an investigator, a crime expert, a police officer.". He went on:

"It seemed to me that the police officer I shall describe must realize how difficult it is to be a good police officer. Crime changes in the same way that a society changes. If he is going to be able to do his work properly, he must understand what is going on in the society he lives in."

Crime changes in the same way that a society changes.

While I disagree vehemently with Mankell's politics (he was an ardent Communist) his observation on this was dead on. And it behooves us to look at the crimes that seem to outrage us the most nowadays. For many it's an increase in gun violence. But instead of looking at how the changes in society have prompted this, many have been led to believe that this will be curtailed by the banning of guns. 

It's always amused me that certain people have embraced the idea that the country of Sweden is some sort of utopia to be emulated. Some of these same people have enjoyed the Wallender series oblivious to the fact that each novel addressed different negative aspects of the result of trying to incorporate a welfare state into a democracy.  The results have also been depicted in Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Perhaps people might have paid more attention if they'd used Larsson's original title: "Men Who Hate Women". Now it fills me with dismay that a lot of what was depicted in these novels describes a lot of what I see in American society today.