Henning Mankell’s second Wallander mystery sees the detective wrestle with conspiracy and corruption in an unfriendly country. The Folio edition of The Dogs of Riga is illustrated by Morgan Schweitzer.
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‘Mankell is one of the most ingenious crime writers around.’
Observer
Kurt Wallander’s latest mystery arrives on a winter tide: two dead men in a drifting lifeboat, each shot through the chest and then carefully dressed and arranged in their floating coffin. For Wallander it seems to signal a rise in a new wave of inexplicable violence that he feels ill-equipped to deal with, so when a detective from Latvia arrives to investigatehe is almost relieved. However, the frozen bodies are a harbinger of something much darker, and soon Wallander must cross the Baltic Sea to Riga, a region caught in the death throes of the Soviet Union. Grappling with espionage, surveillance and a maddeningly elusive enemy, Detective Wallander’s unceasing hunger for justice may be his best and only weapon.Widely regarded as the pinnacle of Nordic noir, Henning Mankell’s Wallander series defined much of what the genre is best known for: realism, social commentary and a relatable central hero. For Wallander’s second outing, series illustrator Morgan Schweitzer has created five exquisitely characterful illustrations and an atmospheric binding design, while this edition also includes an afterword by the author.
Production Details
Bound in blocked and printed textured paper
Set in Garamond with Avenir as display
344 pages
Frontispiece and 4 full-page colour illustrations, including a double-page spread
Die-cut slipcase
Printed in Slovakia
9˝ x 5¾˝
A new depiction of Kurt Wallander
‘Wallander is among the very best fictional crimebusters.’
Daily Telegraph
Made famous by multiple adaptations for the screen, including the BAFTA award-winning TV series starring Kenneth Branagh, Henning Mankell’s beloved detective Wallander has won dedicated fans the world over, all drawn to these compulsive, addictive books with their precise prose and the complex, fallible man that stands at the heart of them. In her introduction for the Folio edition of Faceless Killers, Patti Smith describes Wallander as ‘a good detective in a bad world’, and this tension couldn’t be clearer in Morgan Schweitzer’s dynamic images for this first illustrated edition of The Dogs of Riga. Whether Wallander is sitting drinking coffee alone in a darkened room or hiding in the shadows from a security guard, the impression is of a man pressing on against insurmountable odds. The illustrated binding design is both chilly and chilling, conveying the freezing temperatures of the Baltic Sea and the ominous approach of a dangerous new mystery. The Folio Society edition of The Dogs of Riga is an unmissable volume in a deliciously suspenseful series; an essential read for any fan of crime fiction.
Biographies
About Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell (1948–2015) was a Swedish novelist best known for his ‘Wallander’ series of crime fiction published between 1991 and 2009; he also wrote plays, fiction for children and screenplays for film and TV. In total his books have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and won numerous prizes, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger and the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (for Faceless Killers). As a young man Mankell worked as a merchant seaman and spent time writing in Paris and working in the theatre in Stockholm. In later life he divided his time between Sweden and Africa: having lived in Zambia and elsewhere on the continent, he founded and ran a theatre in Mozambique, and many of his novels feature African settings.
About Morgan Schweitzer
Morgan Schweitzer is a designer and illustrator based in Los Angeles, where he is senior art director at the creative company BUCK. Schweitzer grew up in the Boston area and began his career in New York before moving to California. His work has been published by New York magazine, The Village Voice, Scientific American, Penguin Random House and many other clients. Schweitzer illustrated the Folio Society edition of Faceless Killers (2023).
About Laurie Thompson
Born in York in 1938, Laurie Thompson was an academic and translator who introduced Henning Mankel’s fictional detective, Kurt Wallander, to the British public. While completing his National Service, Thompson took a course in Russian; he then studied German at the University of Manchester. However, he is best-known for his translations of Scandinavian crime fiction and, in particular, Henning Mankell's Wallander series. He translated five of the books and went on to translate about 50 Swedish novels in total. Thompson died in 2015 in Wales.
Reviews Powered By
Average Score for 14 Review(s)
Apart from some historical inaccuracies, quite a good read but not exceptional.
Love the font and illustrations. Of course big fan of the author
Review by
Harsha Bellur
on 5th June 2024
Wonderful to read this book again, after years of reading it as a paperback.
Review by
M. Schröder
on 20th May 2024
I have been buying books from Folio Society since 2022 and I haven't been disappointed so far. Each book I bought is a masterpiece. I do like reading Henning Mankell and I hope Folio Society will publish this outstanding author.
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