The Dogs of Riga

A Kurt Wallander Mystery

The Dogs of Riga takes Kurt Wallander across the Baltic to a disintegrating Soviet Union

“For me, Henning Mankell is by far the best writer of police mysteries today. He is in the great tradition of those whose works transcend their chosen genre to become thrilling and moral literature.” —Michael Ondaatje

February, 1991. A life raft washes ashore in Skåne carrying two dead men in expensive suits, shot gangland-style. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team determine that the men were Eastern European criminals. But what appears in Sweden to be an open-and-shut case soon plunges Wallander into an alien world of police surveillance, thinly veiled threats, and life-endangering lies.

When another murder is committed, Wallander must travel to Riga, Latvia, at the peak of the massive social and political upheaval that preceded the nation’s independence from the Soviet Union. A country in transition, Latvia is a place where deception and corruption are everyday practice. Wallander struggles to catch up with the culprits in this shadowy nation and must make a dangerous choice about who is lying and who is telling the truth. Aligned with political dissidents, he has to work outside the law for the first time and figure out who in this police state he can possibly trust when his and others’ lives are at risk. It is the greatest test of his bravery he has yet had to face.

The Dogs of Riga is the second book in the critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling Kurt Wallander series.

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Praise

“A gripping, thoughtful police procedural that engages from the first page. . . . Inspector Wallander is a thoroughly engaging and introspective creation.”
Irish Independent
“Mankell is a powerful writer who rapidly transports us into the world of shabby, Communist-run Latvia. ”
The Independent(London)
“The writing is spare, the characterization deft, the atmosphere strong and the suspense overwhelming.”
Times Literary Supplement

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The Shadow Girls
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Goodreads Reviews