 First edition (Sweden) | |
| Author | Henning Mankell |
|---|---|
| Original title | Brandvägg |
| Translator | Ebba Segerberg |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
| Series | Kurt Wallander #8 |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Ordfront |
Publication date | 1998 |
Published in English | 2002 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 436 pp (Eng. hardback trans.) |
| ISBN | 1-84343-112-2 (Eng. trans.) |
| Preceded by | One Step Behind |
| Followed by | The Pyramid |
Firewall is a crime novel by Swedish author Henning Mankell.
A series of bizarre incidents sweep across Sweden: a man dies in front of an ATM, two young women slaughter an elderly taxi driver, a murder is committed aboard a Baltic Sea ferry, and a sub-station engineer makes a gruesome discovery while investigating the cause of a nationwide power cut. As Wallander investigates, he uncovers a sinister plan to bring the Western world to its knees.
The major background theme around which the action takes place is the dilemma of the Western economic system versus poverty. The criminal mastermind is a persuasive and talented IT specialist who plans to right the wrongs of the world by deleting vast quantities of money from multinational banks' accounts system, so bringing on a credit and financial panic.
The criminals believe their intended cybercrime is justified; for them the big picture involves the sacrifice of the banking system in order to wipe out third world debt. At a crucial moment Wallander unwittingly manages to persuade a key accomplice that, ethically, there is in fact no big picture, that instead we just have lives that are fragile but also miraculous.
In 2006, Swedish production company Tre Vänner Produktion produced a four-part television miniseries adaptation of Firewall, starring Rolf Lassgård as Wallander. In 2008, British broadcaster BBC One broadcast a 90-minute adaptation as part of its Wallander television series starring Kenneth Branagh.
| Novels | |
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Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Olivier Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours, and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018. In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Henning Georg Mankell was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number of plays and screenplays for television.
The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agencies as the protagonists, as contrasted with other genres that focus on non-police investigators such as private investigators.
Faceless Killers is a 1991 crime novel by the Swedish writer Henning Mankell, and the first in his acclaimed Wallander series. The English translation by Steven T. Murray was published in 1997.
The Pyramid is a collection of five short stories by Swedish crime fiction author Henning Mankell, first published in Sweden in 1999 and translated into English in 2008. It features his best-known character, police inspector Kurt Wallander.
Kurt Wallander is a fictional Swedish police inspector created by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. He is the protagonist of many thriller/mystery novels set in and around the town of Ystad, 56 km (35 mi) south-east of the city of Malmö, in the southern province of Scania. Wallander has been portrayed on screen by the actors Rolf Lassgård, Krister Henriksson, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Adam Pålsson.
Sidetracked is a crime novel by Swedish author Henning Mankell, the fifth in his Kurt Wallander series. Translated into English, it won the UK Crime Writers' Association annual Gold Dagger award for "best crime novel" in 2001.
The White Lioness is a crime novel by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, the third in the Inspector Wallander series.
The Man Who Smiled is a novel by Swedish crime-writer Henning Mankell, and is the fourth in the Inspector Wallander series, although the English translations have not been published in chronological order.
The Fifth Woman is a crime novel by Swedish author Henning Mankell, the sixth in his acclaimed Inspector Wallander series.
One Step Behind is a 1997 crime novel by Swedish author Henning Mankell, the seventh in his acclaimed Inspector Wallander series.
Before the Frost is a novel by Swedish crime-writer Henning Mankell.
Rolf Holger Lassgård is a Swedish actor. He is known for his many roles in crime dramas.
Wallander is a British television series broadcast from 2008 to 2016. It was adapted from a Swedish series based on the Swedish novelist Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels and starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector. It was the first time the Wallander novels had been adapted into an English-language production. Yellow Bird, a production company formed by Mankell, began negotiations with British companies to produce the adaptations in 2006. In 2007 Branagh met Mankell to discuss playing the role. Contracts were signed and work began on the films, adapted from the novels Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind, in January 2008. Emmy-award-winning director Philip Martin was hired as lead director. Martin worked with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to establish a visual style for the series.
Yellow Bird is a Swedish film and television production company. In 2003 Danish producer Ole Søndberg and Swedish author Henning Mankell started a collaboration on a series of television films based on Mankell’s famous fictional detective Kurt Wallander and Yellow Bird was born. The success of the initial Wallander films was followed by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters, Liza Marklund’s Annika Bengtzon series as well as the British version of Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh.
Left Bank Pictures Ltd. is a British film and television production company owned by Sony Pictures Television. It was formed in 2007 and was the first British media company to receive investment from BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC.
Wallander is a film series based on the Kurt Wallander novels written by Henning Mankell that were adapted into multiple miniseries and TV films by Sveriges Television (SVT) between 1994 and 2006. These Swedish-language films starred Rolf Lassgård as Wallander. The final film Pyramiden (2007) features Gustaf Skarsgård as a younger Wallander.
Wallander is a Swedish television series adapted from Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels, starring Krister Henriksson in the title role. The first season of thirteen films was produced in 2005 and 2006, with one taken directly from a novel and the remainder with new storylines suggested by Mankell. The second season of thirteen films was shown between 2009 and 2010. The stories are set in Ystad, Skåne near the southern tip of Sweden.
The Dogs of Riga is a Swedish detective mystery by Henning Mankell, set in Riga, the capital of Latvia. It is the second book of the Kurt Wallander series, and was translated into English by Laurie Thompson.
Young Wallander is a crime drama television series, based on Henning Mankell's fictional Inspector Kurt Wallander. The series premiered on Netflix on 3 September 2020. Star Adam Pålsson explained that the pre-imagining made more sense than a straight prequel, as it allowed for the social commentary which is a strong element of Mankell's original Wallander. This choice of setting the series in the modern day has been criticised in a number of reviews.
