Wallander and the rise of Nordic Noir

Published in 1991, Faceless Killers was the first of Henning Mankell’s crime novels featuring police inspector Kurt Wallander. The series changed the world of crime writing, introducing gritty social realism. The Wallander novels helped establish Scandinavia as the epicentre of crime fiction.

Henning Mankell’s former agent Anneli Høier speaks to Ben Henderson about the rise of Nordic Noir.

Extracts from Faceless Killers are read by David Warner.

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(Photo: Henning Mankell. Credit: Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images)