The Dogs of Riga

A Kurt Wallander Mystery

By: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson - translator

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

On the Swedish coastline, the bodies of two victims of grisly torture and cold execution are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain that he has the ability to solve a case as mysterious as it is heinous. After the victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, a country gripped by the upheaval of Soviet disintegration, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes over the investigation.

Thinking his work is done, Wallander slips back into his routine, until he is suddenly called to Riga and plunged into an alien world - in which shadows are everywhere, everything is watched, and old regimes will do anything to stay alive.

More mayhem? Download Faceless Killers: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (Unabridged).

©1992 Henning Mankell; 2001 Laurie Thompson (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"The writing is spare, the characterization deft, the atmosphere strong, and the suspense overwhelming." (Times Literary Supplement)
"Apart from his uncommon skill at devising dense, multilayered plots, Mankell's forte is matching mood to setting and subject." (New York Times Book Review)
"Wallander's introspection and self-doubt make him compellingly real, and his efforts to find out what happened to those men on the life raft makes for riveting reading." (Publishers Weekly)

Dogs of Riga is spellbinding

Once again, Dick Hill has captured my full attention and kept me entertained with yet another of Henning Mankell ‘s stunning novels featuring the melancholy Wallander

It works despite being Mankells most implausible

There are times that the story seems implausible but the atmospherics carries this novel wonderfully. Brilliantly read

Dark

Pretty dark. A little more than detective. Interesting to match the book to what happened in real life after it came out.

Interesting but disappointing Story

Well written as usual for this author and good link to real events in Baltic. However storyline made hero seem irrelevant as he just wandered through outside events.

Creeped out in Latvia

What made the experience of listening to The Dogs of Riga the most enjoyable?

As a dedicated Kurt Walllender fan, I felt I knew what to expect in this book, just another in the excellent series. Wallender introspective, police procedure grindingly glacially, Sweden bleak and foggy. I was not expecting Latvia. Wallender is out of his never-very- comfortable comfort zone and spends much of the story in horror at getting himself embroiled in an illicit trip behind the iron curtain. Unlike some of the other, more procedural books, in this one he finds a depth of his own bravery and capacity for heroism that astounds him, and us.By the way, the trip to Latvia is off!! At least the treacherous cold war era Latvia Wallender navigates in The Dogs of Riga!!

What other book might you compare The Dogs of Riga to and why?

Any book in this series is an excellent listen. Narrator Dick Hill adds a dimension to the character of the Swedes who people the books without endless annoying overacting and bogus accents. His reading of Wallender captures the world weariness and indecision of this very human character.

A great Cold War story

Mankell's painstaking research gives us a look into how the latter days of the Cold War affected people in the Baltic region. Through the eyes of Inspector Wallander, chasing international drug smugglers and murderers, we get a taste of how the Swedes were affected, too. An absorbing story that lags a little here and there and meanders into North European politics, but a rewarding read nonetheless. Dick Hill is, as ever, a great hand at narration.

One of my favorite Mankell

Wallander faces an existential crisis, his father even more distance through deteriorating health, his daughter at uni, place and youth the distance, his former marriage revealed as emotionally distant, friendless to the point of no one but a doctor to tell troubles to, even considering a private security job at a sawmill. A dingy washed ashore proves a surprising entry to another world just across the Baltic Sea...

The cold war was real, even in its thaw slowly deadly. Seen through the eyes of a jaded Swede, the furtive lives in Latvia seem surreal, it's time travel to a world frozen in fear, want and desperate hope. He vacillates between fleeing to the Swedish embassy, but, like a moth, drawn towards the spark of life that is a woman, a promise of rebirth, and the death that surely must precede that.

A moving story, one I sense must have moved Mankell in the writing, for an individual, and for the country ravaged through the slow death of enslavement.

The Incxredible Kurt

This was one of the stranger mysteries I heard recently. The author goes into lots of detail on meaningless points while ignoring some of the real interesting points he, himself, created. It is a fun book because of its time in history with no cell phones, communist cops and lots of people scared to death of their government and all its hidden secrets. As a side note, Kurt Wallander is on German television weekly in a series like CSI. I watched the Dogs of Riga a few weeks ago but was saddened because the ending was so different. The book is better and I recommend it.

Superb

Where does The Dogs of Riga rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Among the top.

What other book might you compare The Dogs of Riga to and why?

None

Which character – as performed by Dick Hill – was your favorite?

Vollander's father---

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Volllander falling in love with the dead major's wife and couldn't tell her.

Great start to a very complex story

The location change does not add much to the story. Fairly straight forward narrative complicated by detours into some personal issues which don't lead anywhere.