The first one of these was pretty brutal, and this one may have been even more so. Most of the action takes place in Riga, Latvia, and centers around the unsettled political situation there in the 90s. I can't say I understand much about it, but Mankell tells it like our worst nightmares of a soviet puppet country. It seems that the Balkans are "free and independent" officially, but that the bulk of the political power rests in the hands of soviet expats who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Latvian nationals who wish to change the face of the country are in hiding and pursued by those in the power structure.
The opening has a couple of smugglers finding a life raft with two bodies in it. They tow it in close enough to be reasonably certain that it would wash up on the Swedish coast and cut it loose. By the time everything is all wrapped up, those two dead men are barely a side issue in the story.
A connection is discovered and the case is shifted to Riga, Latvia. Riga sends a police major, to assist. The major returns home and is murdered almost immediately. Riga requests Wallander. He goes; he goes back home; he returns - but is smuggled into the Latvia via an overland route (see geography notes which follow). Everything gets wrapped up - the major's murderer is dealt with and Wallander returns home by a more conventional route, but alone (sigh).
Now, about the geography - I realized that I had no clue where the Balkans are - although I think that I could have named them: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They are on the Baltic Sea (surprise, surprise) which is located "behind" Sweden, with Norway on the North Sea side. On the shores of the Baltic one may find Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, and Denmark, bringing us back around to Scandinavia again. Is a good murder mystery a waste of time when I manage to learn some geography?
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