Mankell, Henning Faceless Killers ISBN 13 : 9781860467806

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9781860467806: Faceless Killers
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Chapter 1

He has forgotten something, he knows that for sure when he wakes up. Something he dreamt during the night. Something he ought to remember. He tries to remember. But sleep is like a black hole. A well that reveals nothing of its contents.

At least I didn’t dream about the bulls, he thinks. Then I would have been hot and sweaty, as if I had suffered through a fever during the night. This time the bulls left me in peace.

He lies still in the darkness and listens. His wife’s breathing at his side is so faint that he can scarcely hear it. One of these mornings she’ll be lying dead beside me and I won’t even notice, he thinks. Or maybe it’ll be me. Daybreak will reveal that one of us has been left all alone. He checks the clock on the table next to the bed. The hands glow and register 4:45 a.m.

Why did I wake up? he asks himself. Usually I sleep till 5:30. I’ve done that for more than forty years. Why did I wake now? He listens to the darkness and suddenly he is wide-awake. Something is different. Something has changed. He stretches out one hand tentatively until he touches his wife’s face. With his fingertips he can feel that she’s warm. So she’s not dead. Neither of them has been left alone yet. He listens intently to the darkness.

The horse, he thinks. She’s not neighing. That’s why I woke up. Normally the mare whinnies at night. I hear it without waking up, and in my subconscious I know that I can keep on sleeping. Carefully he gets up from the creaky bed. For forty years they’ve owned it. It was the only piece of furniture they bought when they got married. It’s also the only bed they’ll ever have. He can feel his left knee aching as he crosses the wooden floor to the window.

I’m old, he thinks. Old and worn out. Every morning when I wake up I’m surprised all over again that I’m seventy years old. He looks out into the winter night. It’s January 7, 1990, and no snow has fallen in Skåne this winter. The lamp outside the kitchen door casts its glow across the yard, the bare chestnut tree, and the fields beyond. He squints towards the neighbouring farm where the Lövgrens live. The long, low, white house is dark. The stable in the corner against the farmhouse has a pale yellow lamp above its black door. That’s where the mare stands in her stall, and that’s where she whinnies uneasily at night when something disturbs her. He listens to the darkness. The bed creaks behind him.

“What are you doing?” mutters his wife.

“Go back to sleep,” he replies. “I’m just stretching my legs.”

“Is your knee hurting again?”

“No.”

“Then come back to bed. Don’t stand there freezing, you’ll catch cold.”

He hears her turn over onto her side. Once we loved each other, he thinks. But he shields himself from his own thought. That’s too noble a word. Love. It’s not for the likes of us. Someone who has been a farmer for more than forty years, who has worked every day bowed over the heavy Scanian clay, does not use the word “love” when he talks about his wife. In our lives, love has always been something totally different.

He looks at the neighbour’s house, peering, trying to penetrate the darkness of the winter night. Whinny, he thinks. Whinny in your stall so I know that everything’s all right. So I can lie down under the quilt for a little while longer. A retired, crippled farmer’s day is long and dreary enough as it is.

He realises that he’s looking at the kitchen window of the neighbour’s house. All these years he has cast an occasional glance at his neighbour’s window. Now something looks different. Or is it just the darkness that’s confusing him? He blinks and counts to twenty to rest his eyes. Then he looks at the window again, and now he’s sure that it’s open. A window that has always been closed at night is open. And the mare hasn’t whinnied at all.

The mare hasn’t whinnied because Lövgren hasn’t taken his usual nightly walk to the stable when his prostate acts up and drives him out of his warm bed.

I’m just imagining things, he says to himself. My eyes are cloudy. Everything is as it always is. After all, what could happen here? In the village of Lunnarp, just north of Kade Lake, on the way to beautiful Krageholm Lake, right in the heart of Skåne? Nothing ever happens here. Time stands still in this village where life flows along like a creek without vigour or intent. The only people who live here are a few old farmers who have sold or leased out their land to someone else. We live here and wait for the inevitable.

He looks at the kitchen window once more, and thinks that neither Maria nor Johannes Lövgren would fail to close it. With age comes a sense of dread; there are more and more locks, and -no one forgets to close a window before nightfall. To grow old is to live in fear. The dread of something menacing that you felt when you were a child returns when you get old.

I could get dressed and go out, he thinks. Hobble through the yard with the winter wind in my face, up to the fence that separates our properties. I could see close to that I’m just imagining things.

But he doesn’t move. Soon Johannes will be getting out of bed to make coffee. First he’ll turn on the light in the bathroom, then the light in the kitchen. Everything will be the way it always is.

He stands by the window and realises that he’s freezing. He thinks about Maria and Johannes. We’ve had a marriage with them too, he thinks, as neighbours and as farmers. We’ve helped each other, shared the hardships and the bad years. But we’ve shared the good times too. Together we’ve celebrated Midsummer and eaten Christmas dinner. Our children ran back and forth between the two farms as if they belonged to both. And now we’re sharing the -long--drawn--out years of old age.

Without knowing why, he opens the window, carefully so as not to wake Hanna. He holds on tight to the latch so that the gusty winter wind won’t tear it out of his hand. But the night is completely calm, and he recalls that the weather report on the radio had said nothing about a storm approaching over the Scanian plain.

The starry sky is clear, and it is very cold. He is just about to close the window again when he thinks he hears a sound. He listens and turns, with his left ear towards the open window. His good ear, not his right that was damaged by all the time he spent cooped up in stuffy, rumbling tractors.

A bird, he thinks. A night bird calling. Suddenly he is afraid. Out of nowhere fear appears and seizes him. It sounds like somebody shouting. In despair, trying to be heard. A voice that knows it has to penetrate thick stone walls to catch the attention of the neighbours.

I’m imagining things, he thinks. There’s nobody shouting. Who would it be? He shuts the window so hard that it makes a flowerpot jump, and Hanna wakes up.

“What are you doing?” she says, and he can hear that she’s annoyed.

As he replies, he feels sure. The terror is real.

“The mare isn’t whinnying,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “And the Lövgrens’ kitchen window is wide open. And someone is shouting.”

She sits up in bed.

“What did you say?”

He doesn’t want to answer, but now he’s sure that it wasn’t a bird that he heard.

“It’s Johannes or Maria,” he says. “One of them is calling for help.”

She gets out of bed and goes over to the window. Big and wide, she stands there in her white nightgown and looks out into the dark.

“The kitchen window isn’t open,” she whispers. “It’s smashed.”

He goes over to her, and now he’s so cold that he’s shaking.

“There’s someone shouting for help,” she says, and her voice quavers.

“What should we do?”

“Go over there,” she replies. “Hurry up!”

“But what if it’s dangerous?”

“Aren’t we going to help our best friends?”

He dresses quickly, takes the torch from the kitchen cupboard next to the corks and coffee cans. Outside, the clay is frozen under his feet. When he turns around he catches a glimpse of Hanna in the window. At the fence he stops. Everything is quiet. Now he can see that the kitchen window is broken. Cautiously he climbs over the low fence and approaches the white house. But no voice calls to him.

I am just imagining things, he thinks. I’m an old man who can’t figure out what’s really happening anymore. Maybe I did dream about the bulls last night. The bulls that I would dream were charging towards me when I was a boy, making me realise that someday I would die.

Then he hears the cry. It’s weak, more like a moan. It’s Maria. He goes over to the bedroom window and peeks cautiously through the gap between the curtain and the window frame.

Suddenly he knows that Johannes is dead. He shines his torch inside and blinks hard before he forces himself to look. Maria is crumpled up on the floor, tied to a chair. Her face is bloody and her false teeth lie broken on her spattered nightgown. All he can see of Johannes is a foot. The rest of his body is hidden by the curtain.

He limps back and climbs over the fence again. His knee aches as he stumbles desperately across the frozen clay. First he calls the police. Then he takes his crowbar from a closet that smells of mothballs.

“Wait here,” he tells Hanna. “You don’t need to see this.”

“What happened?” she asks with tears of fright in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But I woke up because the mare wasn’t neighing in the night. I know that for sure.”

It is January 7, 1990. Not yet dawn.
Présentation de l'éditeur :
From the dean of Scandinavian noir, the first riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series, the basis for the PBS series staring Kenneth Branagh.

It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.

Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.

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  • ÉditeurThe Harvill Press
  • Date d'édition2000
  • ISBN 10 1860467806
  • ISBN 13 9781860467806
  • ReliureRelié
  • Nombre de pages288
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Mankell, Henning
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ISBN 10 : 1860467806 ISBN 13 : 9781860467806
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Description du livre Hardback. Etat : Fair. A readable copy of the book which may include some defects such as highlighting and notes. Cover and pages may be creased and show discolouration. N° de réf. du vendeur GOR001600282

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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1. N° de réf. du vendeur G1860467806I3N00

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Description du livre Paperback. Etat : Very Good. Kurt Wallander is a hard-drinking, opera-loving Swedish police inspector. His personal life is falling apart. His wife has left him, his daughter won t acknowledge him and even his ageing father barely tolerates him. Then he is forced to confront an appalling crime. An old couple are brutally murdered in their remote farmhouse and suspicion falls on the immigrant community. Right wing racists are stirred into action by reports of the murder in the press. In Wallander Henning Markell has created an old-style policeman obliged to come to terms with a modern Sweden riven by violence and racial tension. In the first of the acclaimed Wallander novels, he mixes the elements of American noir fiction with a very European sense of melancholia and mortality. It is a world where crimes are solved as much by tireless drudgery as by flashes of inspiration and where truth, although still worth seeking, is elusive. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. N° de réf. du vendeur GOR004785260

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Description du livre Soft cover. Etat : Near Fine. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Proof Copy of the 1st edition SIGNED by the author on the title page. In very good + condition, with no inscriptions apart from the author's signature. Not a book club edition, ex library or a remainder. Signed by Author(s). Galley/Proof. N° de réf. du vendeur 000008

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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : Fine. Etat de la jaquette : Fine. 1st Edition. Author's first book, and the first of the Police Inspector Kurt Wallander series. Harvill hardcover print runs are generally 600 copies. This title won the Swedish Academy of Crime Literature award. Signed by Author(s). N° de réf. du vendeur 000159

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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat de la jaquette : Fine. First Edition. 280 pages. The first Kurt Wallender mystery. This UK edition, published nine years after the Swedish first and three years after the American edition, was issued in both hardcover and paperback at the same time. This is the scarcer hardcover. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. With a label signed by Mankell laid in (not affixed). N° de réf. du vendeur 210504

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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : Fine. Etat de la jaquette : Fine. 1st Edition. 1st US edition hardcover in fine condition in fine dust jacket - Kurt Wallander novel - translated by Steven T Murray - fine, as new copy. N° de réf. du vendeur MH2346

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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : As New. Etat de la jaquette : Fine. 1st Edition. Both book and cover in fine condition First Edition First Printing 1st/1st. N° de réf. du vendeur 14

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MANKELL, HENNING
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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : Fine. Etat de la jaquette : Fine. First Edition. Dustwrapper, pp.280. First edition in protected, unclipped dustwrapper. First of the Wallander series. The dustwrapper is clean, bright and sound in a clear plastic protective jacket. The black cloth is clean and bright, and the text is crisp. Fine in fine dustwrapper. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. N° de réf. du vendeur 005871

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Mankell, Henning
Edité par The Harvill Press, London (2000)
ISBN 10 : 1860467806 ISBN 13 : 9781860467806
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Description du livre Hardcover. Etat : As New. Etat de la jaquette : As New. 1st Edition. First Uk Edition Wallander Crime Novel. First Printing With All Numbers 1 Through To 9. Tight Firm Clean Throughout. Black Cloth Hard Cover With Gilt Titled Spine - No Visible Wear. Complete Jacket With No Visible Wear. N° de réf. du vendeur 004733

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