One Step Behind

"Kurt Wallander is the nineties version of Martin Beck, the hero from the last book I was talking about. He is a police detective who thinks a lot and likes to be on his own. But unlike the Martin Beck books, Henning Mankell uses Wallander as the main voice throughout the book. In 1991 I was working at the biggest news station in Sweden, which is a bit like the BBC because it is a public service one as well. My editor came to me and said, “Anders, there is some sort of new prize about crime – it is the Nordic Prize. I am not sure what it is about. There is this new guy called Henning Mankell. Can you do a story on him?” So that was the first time Henning Mankell was on television. And then when we got the Nordic Prize in 2004 I was so happy. But Mankell was the one who took the Swedish tradition from Martin Beck and turned it into Wallander. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . One thing he did was place him in a small town called Ystad in the south of Sweden. That is different from the Martin Beck books and our books, which are based in Stockholm. We think that if you base a story in Stockholm it is more realistic in that a lot of crime is going on there already. He chose to set his books in a peaceful town. But that is his thing and it works. Even though I don’t know how realistic it is to set the stories there, I still really enjoy them. They are well written. He is so productive. He writes a whole range of other books as well and also writes plays."