Midsummer murder
Midsummer murder ( Swedish Steget efter ) is a detective novel by Henning Mankell from 1997 ( German 2000 ). It is the seventh episode in a series with Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander .
content
The action takes place in the late summer of 1996. Wallander is privately involved in the liquidation of the household of his recently deceased father and the sale of his property. He was also diagnosed with diabetes mellitus . Svedberg, a long-time colleague of Wallander, is found shot dead in his apartment. While the criminal investigators begin investigating the murder of their colleague, the bodies of three young people who have been missing since the previous Midsummer Festival are discovered in a nature reserve not far from Ystad . Their disappearance had not yet been investigated, as there were good reasons to think of the young people abroad. It soon becomes clear that there is a connection between the crime against the policeman and the killing of the young people, but this remains a mystery for the investigators for a long time. In search of motives for the crime, Wallander comes across a girl who actually belongs to the group of murdered young people. It was just by chance that she was not there when the others were murdered. Even she doesn't seem to know what or who is behind the bloody act. A little later, she too is murdered.
It is becoming more and more obvious that the killed Svedberg investigated on his own during his vacation without informing his department. This suggests that he must have known the suspect personally, if not close to him. In this context, a woman named Louise is wanted, with whom the killed police colleague seems to have had a love affair that has been kept secret from the world. However, in the course of the investigation, Svedberg's homoerotic connections to a retired banker become increasingly clear. Meanwhile, another murder takes place, this time of a wedding couple and their photographer. Here, too, there is no obvious motif.
Wallander's investigators had their first breakthrough when he discovered that the Louise he was looking for was actually a man who now and then appears as a transvestite and with whom Svedberg apparently had a homosexual relationship. When the manhunt is in full swing, the meticulously working perpetrator decides to kill Wallander after a newly married couple and photographer. This should happen the day after Svedberg's funeral. During the showdown, the murderer and his chosen victim first meet in Wallander's apartment. After he could only injure Wallander, the man flees. Armed only with a wooden slat, Wallander finally catches the armed murderer in a wooded area near Ystad. As a motive for his nonsensical deeds, the psychopath gives to have killed people deliberately in a state of happiness in order to save them later disillusionment. He had to kill his lover Svedberg because he had actually found out about it.
radio play
The radio play of the same name (WDR 2001) was awarded the Radio Eins Radio Play Cinema Audience Award in 2008 .
Film adaptations
In 2004, the novel was filmed in a Swedish - Danish co-production as a TV crime thriller , with actor Rolf Lassgård again taking on the leading role, and Birger Larsen directed, as in The Fifth Woman . The German version was dubbed by ZDF in 2005 and broadcast on January 8, 2006.
However, the film version differs in essential points from the novel. So was z. B. the motive for murder completely changed in contrast to the novel.
The BBC re-filmed the novel in its Wallander series in 2008 with Kenneth Branagh in the title role ( Commissioner Wallander - Midsummer Murder ). The German version was released on June 1, 2009 on German television (ARD). It was directed by Philip Martin and written by Richard Cottan . Other actors were Sarah Smart as Anne-Britt Höglund, Sadie Shimmin as Lisa Holgersson, Tom Beard as Svedberg, Tom Hiddleston as Martinsson, Richard McCabe as Nyberg and Jeany Spark as Linda Wallander.
Reviews
- “That robs you of the night. That increases the skepticism. That is strong (criminal) literature ”- Elmar Krekeler, Die Welt
- “Finally a Mankell again, just as connoisseurs love and non-connoisseurs learn to love! Exciting to the last page, loving to the smallest detail, brooding to excess. Commissioner Wallander as he lives and breathes… "- Andrea Schweighofer, courier (Vienna)
- "From the first to the last page: tension, logic, drama" (rating: 85%) - Krimi-Couch.de
Web links
- www.wallander-web.de (Kommissar-Wallander-Fan-Homepage) with a detailed summary, reviews, reference to films, radio play adaptations etc.
- Review notes on www.perlentaucher.de