One Step Behind by
Henning Mankell
hbk out September 02
Published by Harvill
at £16.99
One Step Behind is Mankell’s purest crime novel to date. Like the others
published so far in the UK (with the exception of The Dogs of Riga which
edged more into Le Carré territory), it’s a police procedural in classic
mode: police detective, a killer, patient policework and so on. And at
last we have three consecutive Wallander novels from Mankell
(Side-tracked, The Fifth Woman and this one), and it is clearer how
Mankell varies these classic ingredients from book to book.
As in the previous two books, from the outset we know that a brutal
act of murder, three in this case, has taken place. The police, several
steps behind at this point, are not aware that the killings have taken
place. A missing person or two perhaps, but a postcard appears to
indicate to anxious parents that their offspring are at large in Europe.
Wallander, early on narrowly escaping death in a traffic incident and
feeling mysteriously fatigued, is as introspective as ever. Here however
the introspection is more personal, the overt political elements (not to
mention the international concerns) of previous novels largely absent.
Wallander is selling his dead father’s house, discovering old
photographs redolent of happier times, and reflecting on the breakdown
of his relationship with Baiba, the Latvian woman he met in The Dogs of
Riga. “Something’s got to happen” he thinks, something that will enable
him “to start thinking about the future again.”
What happens is the unexpected (and in terms of story, unconventional)
murder of Svedberg, a member of the team and a close colleague. The
murder of a police officer, of course, takes precedence and the team
sets off to determine his killer. But how close a colleague was
Svedberg? How well did Wallander and Svedberg’s other colleagues really
know him? How well indeed can we know anybody? It’s a theme that recurs
throughout the book right up until the book’s final chilling moments.
Mankell brings the two investigative strands of the story together in
masterly fashion. For a book of this length it is remarkable how pace
and tension are maintained throughout the book. There are further
murders, of course, but there is no apparent connection. Rather suspense
is maintained through Mankell’s iron control over the structure of his
story: unexpected plot developments (developments that point first in
one direction then another), the constant team meetings to review the
evidence, the pauses for personal rumination, the skilfully deployed
episodes featuring an anonymous killer, sometimes highlighting errors in
the police investigation.
Most of all there is Wallander himself, continually battling with the
evidence and trying to make the pieces fit, his energy flagging as he tries
to cope with the early symptoms of yes, diabetes, on edge through lack
of sleep and untypically snapping at his colleagues.
Finally, in a moving epilogue, we see Wallander struggling to make some
sense of the case, drawing the wider social parallels that have so far
eluded him, and seeking solace in human contact. It’s a poignant
sequence that reveals just why this character has proved so popular
across Europe. In spite of a translation that seems more utilitarian
than usual (particularly in the dialogue), highly recommended.
