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)

Wallander-The Dogs of Riga

I really love a good mystery and especially those in the Scandinavian countries and England. But seriously Wallander has to stop being sick and tired in every book. He is in his forties. I read this book out of order so I know he is moving toward diabetes but seriously take better care and find something else to work through.

The Best of the Wallander Books I Listened to.

This is my second of the first three in the Henning Mankell / Kurt Wallander series. This one is actually the best of the first three by a decent margin.

I went ahead and purchased one of Audible's package deals which included the first three books in this series all at once.

As I said with my first review of "Faceless Killers", while this is definitely an improvement, it's still nothing great. Likewise, the narrator, Dick Hill was good, but he is so "white-bread", he's not the perfect fit here.

Granted, overall, this one is not bad, three Mankell / Wallander books is enough for me.

Complex and intriguing

The narration was quite well done except for a couple of squeeky women and the story kept me interested.

Overwrought

I really enjoy the Kurt Wallander mysteries. This one was was a bit, okay WAY, overwrought at times. Happy I listened to it, but it had its weaker moments.

Great Read!

Henning Mankell at his best! You won't find a better companion on a long drive!

Fairly Enjoyable

Not sure if I will follow up with other books by this author. This was an ok story & kept my interest fairly well, but just not a grabber.

Horrible narrator

A pretty boring book made even worse by the narrator. And the Swedish police force does not exactly look intelligent from this story.

Complicated

Good story, marred by the similarity between the characters voices.
Good story, hard to follow Because of the similarities between characters voices.

My first Mankell book

My interest was piqued when I read on the audible just released lists about Swedish author Henning Mankell. I read the publisher's summary and thought they looked interesting. I'd never read a Swedish author before, that I know of anyway, and thought why not give it a try. I've always found the Baltic history intriguing so decided to give Dogs of Riga a try as my first one. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and getting to know Kurt Wallander. It was a fun listen with with plenty of plot twists and turns. Henning writes a good story. I enjoyed hearing the descriptions of life in both Sweden and Latvia. You wonder sometimes what the citizens of both countries think about life there and it appears to have its challenges. I will look forward to listening to the other Mankell books on Audible.

Thought provoking foreign detective story

I used a credit for this book for reason of the other reviews written about it. It does have an excellent plot which moves well, although definitely not "fast." This book is not a "cliff hanger" nor a "page turner" but does an excellent job of providing the listener of a birds' eye view of police establishments in other countries. There seem to be more similarities than differences between our American culture and that of Sweden and Lithuania. The story opens with good action and the author proceeds well through the novel to the action which happens at the end. Well thought out plot that moves well. My personal preference is for more "action" and more "cliff hanger" events; however, I rated the story relatively highly for the reason the author has written a quality novel and the reader does an excellent job in the narration. On a personal note, I had some difficulty keeping the characters straight for reason of their strange sounding names; however, the listener does become acclimated to the foreign names. All in all there is good value for a book credit.