{"product_id":"the-fifth-woman-isbn-9781400031542","title":"The Fifth Woman","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe mystery thriller series that inspired the Netflix crime drama \u003ci\u003eYoung Wallander \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eFrom the dean of Scandinavian noir, the sixth riveting installment in the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Kurt Wallander series.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander’s strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.“Exquisite. . . . Something to look forward to.” \u003ci\u003e-\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A scary and cunning tale. . . . Here is a police procedural in which the main procedure is thought.” —\u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Achieves a deeply satisfying density of plot and characterization.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Baltimore Sun\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A marvelously told mystery. . . . You can't put it down, but you won't want to finish it either.” —\u003ci\u003eAustin American Statesman\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003eHenning Mankell is the internatinally acclaimed, bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander novels.  Mankell's novels have been translated into forty-five languages and have sold more than forty million copies worldwide. He was the first winner of the Ripper Award and also received the Glass Key and the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger, among other awards. His Kurt Wallander mysteries have been adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. During his life, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Mozambique, where he was artistic director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He died in 2015.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust after 10 p.m. he finally finished. The last stanzas had been  difficult to write; they took him a long time. He had wanted to achieve  a melancholy, yet beautiful expression. Several attempts were consigned  to the wastepaper basket. Twice he'd been close to giving up  altogether, but now the poem lay before him on the table--his lament  for the middle spotted woodpecker, which had almost disappeared from  Sweden. It hadn't been seen in the country since the early 1980s--one  more species soon to be wiped out by humankind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe got up from his desk and stretched. With every passing year, it was  harder and harder to sit bent over his writings for hours on end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn old man shouldn't be writing poems, he thought. When you're 78 years  old, your thoughts are of little use to anyone. But at the same time,  he knew this was wrong. It was only in the Western world that old  people were viewed with indulgence or contemptuous sympathy. In other  cultures, age was respected as the period of enlightened wisdom. He  would go on writing poems as long as he could lift a pen and his mind  was clear. He was not capable of much else. A long time ago he had been  a car dealer, the most successful in the region. He was known as a  tough negotiator. He had certainly sold a lot of cars. During the good  years he had owned branches in Tomelilla and Sjöbo. He had made a  fortune large enough to allow him to live in some style. But it was his  poetry that really mattered to him. The verses lying on the table gave  him a rare satisfaction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe drew the curtains across the picture windows that faced the fields  rolling down towards the sea, which lay out of sight. He went over to  his bookshelf. He had published nine volumes of poetry. There they  stood, in a row. None of them had sold more than a single, small  printing. Not more than 300 copies. The unsold copies were in cardboard  boxes in the basement. They were his pride and joy, although he had  long ago decided to burn them one day. He would carry the cardboard  boxes out to the courtyard and put a match to them. The day he received  his death sentence, whether from a doctor or from a premonition that  his life would soon be over, he would rid himself of the thin volumes  that no-one wanted to buy. No-one would throw them onto a rubbish heap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe looked at the books on the shelf. He had been reading poems his  whole life, and he had memorised many. He had no illusions; his poems  were not the best ever written, but they weren't the worst, either. In  each of his volumes, published roughly every five years since the late  1940s, there were stanzas that could stand beside the best. But he had  been a car dealer by profession, not a poet. His poems were not  reviewed on the cultural pages. He hadn't received any literary awards.  And his books had been printed at his own expense. He had sent his  first collection to the big publishing houses in Stockholm. They came  back with curt rejections on pre-printed forms. One editor had taken  the trouble to make a personal comment. Nobody would want to read poems  that were only about birds. \u003ci\u003eThe spiritual life of the white wagtail is  of no interest\u003c\/i\u003e, the editor had written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter that, he wasted no more time on publishers. He paid for  publication himself: simple covers, nothing lavish. The words between  were what mattered. In spite of everything, many people had read his  poems over the years, and many of them had expressed their appreciation  to him. Now he had written a new one, about the middle spotted  woodpecker, a lovely bird no longer seen in Sweden.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bird poet, he thought. Almost everything I've written is about  birds: the flapping of wings, the rushing in the night, a lone mating  call somewhere in the distance. In the world of birds I have found a  reflection of the innermost secrets of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe picked up the sheet of paper. The last stanza had worked. He put the  paper back on the desk. He felt a sharp pain in his back as he crossed  the large room. Was he getting sick? Every day he listened for signs  that his body had begun to betray him. He had stayed in good shape  throughout his life. He had never smoked, always eating and drinking in  moderation. This regime had endowed him with good health. But soon he  would be 80. The end of his allotted time was approaching. He went out  to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffee  machine, which was always on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe poem he had finished writing filled him with both sadness and joy.  The autumn of my years, he thought. An apt name. Everything I write  could be the last. And it's September. It's autumn. On the calendar and  in my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe carried his coffee back to the living room. He sat down carefully in  one of the brown leather armchairs that had kept him company for 40  years. He had bought them to celebrate his triumph when he was awarded  the Volkswagen franchise for southern Sweden. On the table next to his  armrest stood the photograph of Werner, the Alsatian that he missed  more than all the other dogs that had accompanied him through life. To  grow old was to grow lonely. The people who filled your life died off.  Even your dogs vanished into the shadows. Soon he would be alone. At a  certain point in life, everyone was. Recently he had tried to write a  poem about that idea, but he could never seem to finish it. Maybe he  ought to try again. But birds were what he knew how to write about. Not  people. Birds he could understand. People were unfathomable. Had he  ever truly known himself? Writing poems about something he didn't  understand would be like trespassing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe closed his eyes and suddenly remembered \"The 10,000-krona Question\"  TV programme of the late 1950s, or maybe it was the early 1960s. TV was  still black-and-white back then. A cross-eyed young man with  slicked-back hair had chosen the topic \"Birds\". He answered all the  questions and received his cheque for 10,000 kronor, an incredible sum  in those days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had not been sitting in the television studio, in the booth with  headphones on. He had been sitting in this very same armchair. He too  had known all the answers, and not once did he even need extra time to  think. But he didn't win 10,000 kronor. Nobody knew of his vast  knowledge of birds. He just went on writing his poems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA noise woke him with a start from his daydream. He listened in the  darkened room. Was there someone in the courtyard? He pushed away the  thought. It was his imagination. Getting old meant suffering from  anxiety. He had good locks on his doors. He kept a shotgun in his  bedroom upstairs, and he had a revolver close at hand in a kitchen  drawer. If any intruders came to this isolated farmhouse just north of  Ystad, he could defend himself. And he wouldn't hesitate to do so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe got up from his chair. There was another sharp twinge in his back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pain came and went in waves. He set his coffee cup on the kitchen  bench and looked at his watch. Almost 11 p.m. It was time to go. He  squinted at the thermometer outside the kitchen window and saw it was  7°C. The barometer was rising. A slight breeze from the southwest was  passing over Skåne. The conditions were ideal, he thought. Tonight the  flight would be to the south. The migrating birds would pass overhead  in their thousands, borne on invisible wings. He wouldn't be able to  see them, but he'd feel them out there in the dark, high above. For  more than 50 years he had spent countless autumn nights out in the  fields, experiencing the sensation of the birds passing. Often it had  seemed as though the whole sky was on the move.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhole orchestras of silent songbirds would be leaving before the  approaching winter, heading for warmer climes. The urge to move on was  innate, and their ability to navigate by the stars and the earth's  gravity kept them on course. They sought out the favourable winds, they  had fattened themselves up over the summer, and they could stay aloft  for hour after hour. A whole night sky, vibrating with wings, was  beginning its annual pilgrimage towards Mecca.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat was a lonely, earthbound old man compared to a night flyer? He had  often thought of this as the performance of a sacred act. His own  autumnal high mass, as he stood there in the dark, sensing the  departure of the migratory birds. And then, when spring came, he was  there to welcome them back. Their migration was his religion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe went out into the hall and stood with one hand on the coat hooks.  Then he went back to the living room and pulled on the jumper lying on  a stool by the desk. Along with all the other vexations, getting old  meant that he got cold more quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce more he looked at the poem lying there finished on the desk. Maybe  he would live long enough to put together enough poems for a tenth and  final collection. He had already decided on the title: \u003ci\u003eHigh Mass in the Night\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe went back to the hall, put on his jacket, and pulled a cap over his  head. He opened the front door. Outside, the autumn air was redolent  with the smell of wet clay. He closed the door behind him and let his  eyes grow accustomed to the dark. The garden seemed desolate. In the  distance he could see the glow of the lights of Ystad. He lived so far  from his other neighbours that this was the only source of light. The  sky was almost clear, and filled with stars. A few clouds were visible  on the horizon. Tonight the migration was bound to pass over his  property.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe set off. His farmhouse was old, with three wings. The fourth had  burned down early in the century. He spent a lot of money renovating  the building, although the work was still not completed. He would leave  it all to the Cultural Association in Lund. He had never been married,  never had any children. He sold cars and got rich. He had dogs. And  then birds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have no regrets, he thought, as he followed the path down to the  tower he had built himself. I regret nothing, since it is meaningless  to regret.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a beautiful September night. Still, something was making him  uneasy. He stopped on the path and listened, but all he could hear was  the soft sighing of the wind. He kept walking. Could it be the pain  that was worrying him, those sudden sharp pains in his back? The worry  was prompted by something inside him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stopped again and turned around. Nothing there. He was alone. The  path sloped downwards, leading to a slight rise. Just before the rise  there was a broad ditch over which he had placed a bridge. At the top  of the rise stood his tower. He wondered how many times he had walked  this path. He knew every bend, every hollow. And yet he walked slowly  and cautiously. He didn't want to risk falling and breaking his leg.  Old people's bones grew brittle, he knew that. If he wound up in the  hospital with a broken hip he would die, unable to endure lying idle in  a hospital bed. He would start worrying about his life. And then  nothing could save him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn owl hooted. Somewhere close by, a twig snapped. The sound had come  from the grove just past the hillock on which his tower stood. He stood  motionless, all his senses alert. The owl hooted again. Then all was  silent once more. He grumbled under his breath, and continued.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOld and scared, he muttered. Afraid of ghosts and afraid of the dark.  Now he could see the tower. A black silhouette against the night sky.  In 20 metres he would be at the bridge crossing the deep ditch. He kept  walking. The owl was gone. A tawny owl, he thought. No doubt about it,  it was a tawny owl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuddenly he came to a halt. He had reached the bridge that led over the  ditch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was something about the tower on the hill. Something was  different. He squinted, trying to see the details in the dark. He  couldn't make out what it was. But something had changed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm imagining things, he thought. Everything's the same as always. The  tower I built ten years ago hasn't changed. It's just my eyesight  getting blurry, that's all. He took another step, out onto the bridge,  and felt the planks beneath his feet. He kept staring at the tower.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's something wrong, he thought. I'd swear it was a metre higher  than it was last night. Or else it's all a dream, and I'm looking at  myself standing up there in the tower.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe moment the thought occurred to him, he knew it was true. There was  someone up in the tower. A silhouette, motionless. A twinge of fear  passed through him, like a lone gust of wind. Then anger. Somebody was  trespassing on his property, climbing his tower without asking him for  permission. It was probably a poacher hunting the deer that grazed  around the grove on the other side of the hill. It couldn't be another  bird-watcher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe called out to the figure in the tower. No reply, no movement. Again  he grew uncertain. His eyes must be deceiving him; they were so blurry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe called again. No answer. He started to walk across the bridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the planks gave way he fell headlong. He pitched forwards and  didn't even have time to stretch out his arms to break his fall. The  ditch was more than two metres deep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe felt a hideous pain. It came out of nowhere and cut right through  him, like red-hot spears piercing his body. The pain was so intense he  couldn't even scream. Just before he died he realised that he had never  reached the bottom of the ditch. He remained suspended in his own pain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last thought was of the migrating birds, somewhere far above him.  The sky moving towards the south.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne last time he tried to tear himself away from the pain. Then it was  all over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was 11.20 p.m. on 21 September 1994. That night, huge flocks of  thrushes and red-winged blackbirds were flying south.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey came from the north and set a southwest course over Falsterbo  Point, heading for the warmth that awaited them, far away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen all was quiet, she made her way carefully down the tower steps.  She shone her torch into the ditch. Holger Eriksson was dead. She  switched off the torch and stood still in the darkness. Then she walked  quickly away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust after 5 a.m. on Monday, 26 September, Kurt Wallander woke in his  flat on Mariagatan in central Ystad.","brand":"Vintage Crime\/Black Lizard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302683660517,"sku":"NP9781400031542","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400031542.jpg?v=1767739326","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-fifth-woman-isbn-9781400031542","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}