The Dogs of Riga

3.5 stars

Another political, adult thriller from one of my new favorite authors. What a wonder to discover someone who has been writing such engaging and thought-provoking books for such a long time! Wallander is a fascinating mope, and I really adore his commitment to his melancholy and his life: his misery doesn't stop him from being a genuinely good person.

This is the second Kurt Wallander mystery I've read, and it's #2 in a series. The first one I read was #3 in the series, so I'm going backwards in Wallander's life. In this book he is something of a sad sack, drinking too much, thinking about getting out of the police force and taking a job as a security guard, wondering why he puts so much of himself into his work only to get frustration and health problems out of it. While he's in this emotional morass, two dead men in a red life raft wash up on shore and an investigation begins that eventually sends him to Riga, Latvia. At this time, Latvia is still a totalitarian society under the control of the Soviet Union. His movements are watched, and he suspects that the police who are hosting him, who he is supposed to be assisting, are actually in on the crime.

This is a nice, moody mystery of the Cold War era.