Name: Firewall
Author: Henning Mankell

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Content snapshot

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What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

Violence

Some

Murder by teenagers and a conspiracy thriller; some graphic violence

Language

Some

Some profanity; police procedural language throughout

Sexual Content

Barely any

Brief references to relationships; no explicit content

Substance Use

Some

Wallander's health issues include alcohol; police culture drinking

Emotional Intensity

Some

Sustained tension from the conspiratorial plot; teenage killers add psychological weight

What this book is about

The eighth Kurt Wallander mystery opens with a shocking premise: two teenage girls have killed a taxi driver, apparently for no reason. As Wallander investigates their motive, the case expands into a broader plot involving the internet, international finance, and a conspiracy that could destabilize global systems. Mankell balances the intimate investigation of the girls' psychology with the macro-scale thriller plot, and the 1990s internet setting—already feeling like ancient history—gives the novel an inadvertently period quality. Dark, complex, and typically relentless in its portrait of Wallander's exhaustion.