One Step Behind by Henning Mankell

Every time I think Mankell has created as perverse and bizarre a serial killer as possible, and every time he comes up with something equally or even more strange. And this time he throws in the almost unthinkable, one of Wallander's team is killed - not in a shoot-out with an armed suspect - in his apartment as part of the killer's work.

Also, here we have Wallander forced to face his own mortality in several ways. He has been battling unexplained fatigue, then he realizes that he is constantly thirsty and is making many visits to the mens room. Got it yet? One of his younger officers observes that her father had similar symptoms and was diagnosed as a diabetic. When he is finally forced to seek medical help, his blood sugar level is something like 300 (rough approximation from the European standard measuring scale) and his blood pressure is also quite high - 180/105, I think. I wonder if Mankell himself has been there, because Wallander's response is very typical. He begins with denial and marches through the stages.

The ending is so very uncharacteristic that I would expect the series to be ending - except that according to his wiki it seems that there are several more books in the series - not to mention at least two television series: a Swedish one and a British one starring Kenneth Branagh. At the end of this book, Wallander is happy.

With the last one, I had concluded that depression is Wallander's normal state - perhaps the normal state of Swedes in general, since it is also a noticeable factor in the Stieg Larsson books. Then there is the Swedish singer, Anna Ternheim, one of whose albums is in the CD player in the car - beautiful voice, depressing lyrics. But I suppose I shouldn't generalize from such a small collection of observations. After all, he was happy at the end of this book - I'll have to read the next one to find out how long that lasts.