Wallander's First Case and Other Stories is a collection of 5 short stories published in German in 2002, set in the period from Kurt Wallander's first weeks as a patrolman in Malmö to shortly before the events of the first novel "Murderer Without a Face". The aim is to give the reader the opportunity to delve deeper into the character of Kurt Wallander and complete his biography. Furthermore, events and incidents that are only mentioned in passing in the novels are described in more detail. These include Wallander's quarrel with his father and his failed marriage to Mona. 

1.1 Wallander's first case:

Plot period: June-September 1969 | Kurt Wallander's age: 21 years | Location: Malmö

When Wallander solves his first case, he is in his early twenties, a young police trainee and head over heels in love with Mona. At a time when the police are using batons against demonstrators, his choice of profession is criticized not only by his father. Then one evening he finds his neighbor Halén shot dead on the kitchen floor. The police suspect suicide, but Wallander doubts this explanation, especially when Halén's apartment goes up in flames and another body is found shortly afterwards. By the end of the investigation, Wallander has made a number of mistakes and recklessly risked his life, but his extraordinary talent as a detective is proven.

1.2 The man with the mask:

Time period: Christmas Eve 1975 | Kurt Wallander's age: 28 years | Location: Malmö

The second case dates back to Wallander's time as an assistant in Malmö: his superior asks him to stop by a small grocery store. According to the elderly shopkeeper, a strange person has been hanging around there all afternoon. A harmless assignment with terrible consequences. 

1.3 The man on the beach:

Plot period: April-May 1987 | Kurt Wallander's age: 40 years | Location: Ystad & Svarte

While his wife and daughter are on vacation in the Canary Islands, Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander has a strange case to solve back home in Skåne: A man lies lifeless in the back of a cab. Who is the stranger? What brought him to Ystad? What has happened? Questions upon questions, and almost two weeks later the answer.

1.4 The death of the photographer:

Plot period: April-May 1988 | Kurt Wallander's age: 41 years | Location: Ystad

Shortly after eight o'clock in the evening he enters his photo studio on the market square, and a few hours later Simon Lamberg is dead. Beaten to death, as Inspector Kurt Wallander soon discovers. He has faint memories of the long-established photographer, as he himself - like everyone here in Ystad - has used his services before. But what kind of person was Lamberg? Who had an interest in his death? A strange murder: there are no traces of violence on the doors, and nothing seems to have been stolen. The investigation goes round in circles. Then Wallander comes across a photo album with macabre contents. 

1.5 The Pyramid

Plot period: December-January 1989/90 | Kurt Wallander's age: 42 years | Location: Ystad

A sports plane crashes near Ystad and two charred bodies are recovered from the burning wreckage. Forty-eight hours later, a handicraft store is blown up and two old ladies lie burned almost beyond recognition in the wreckage. Murder? The two sisters have bullet holes in their heads. A case for Kurt Wallander. But before he can properly start the investigation, he has to get his own father out of prison because he tried to climb a pyramid in Egypt. Wallander has no choice but to travel to Cairo himself, unaware that rescuing his father will lead him to a crucial clue in the current case. 

Plot period: January-August 1990 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 43 years | Location: Ystad

Something is wrong. The neighbor's horses didn't neigh during the night. It is winter in the Schoen plain. The farmer wakes up, gets up and walks over to the neighbor's farm. The sight there is gruesome. Old Johannes Lövgren is lying on the ground with a shattered face. His wife Maria is sitting on a chair. She has a noose around her neck and her nightgown is stained with blood. Before the woman dies in hospital, she is able to say one word that quickly reaches the media: "Foreigners! Foreigner!" Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police, who is leading the investigation, receives threats on the phone. When the town's refugee hostel burns down and a Somali refugee is murdered, it is clear that the anonymous caller means business. Wallander realizes that the investigation is now a fight against time. And against a merciless opponent. A murderer without a face. 

Plot period: January-May 1991 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 44 years | Location: Ystad & Riga

The two men are wearing suits and ties. They are lying in an embrace, as if they wanted to protect each other from the inevitable end. Two murdered men in a lifeboat on a cold February in 1991. Who are they? Where are they from? Why did they drift ashore on the coast of Scania? Inspector Wallander and his colleagues in the Ystad police department must find the answer. The trail leads to the Baltic States, and the Swedish policemen get help from a Latvian colleague, the short-sighted, chain-smoking Major Karlis Liepa. When Liepa himself is murdered, Wallander is forced to travel to Riga to solve the case. He soon realizes that he has been drawn into a game that he cannot master and cannot control. The shadows of the past lie heavy over Latvia. Are the police officers who work with him his friends, or are they involved in the conspiracy? Wallander falls in love with Baiba Liepa, the wife of the murdered policeman who knew too much about the crimes in his country. Baiba is the first woman in a long time for whom he has felt great love, and she supports him in his daring investigations, which lead deep into a perfidious conspiracy.

Plot period: April-June 1992 | Kurt Wallander's age: 45 years | Location: Ystad

A man receives an assignment. His name is Victor Mabasha and he lives in a miserable shack in the South African province of Transkei. He is to assassinate someone whose name is still a secret. All he knows is that it is a high-ranking figure. Presumably President Frederik Willem de Klerk. But Victor is wrong. The man he is to kill is the man everyone believes to be the future president of the country. The freedom hero Nelson Mandela. In Ystad, real estate agent Louise Åkerblom sets off to view a house. But she gets lost and is soon dead. Inspector Wallander intuitively recognizes that the woman's disappearance has a serious background, and he soon finds himself in the middle of an investigation the likes of which he has never seen before. A house blows up and the forensic experts find the charred butt of a pistol, which appears to have come from Africa, next to parts of a Russian radio system, and they make another gruesome discovery. "What's going on?" thought Wallander. "A black finger. The finger of a black person. Chopped off. In the middle of Skåne." What at first seemed like a tragic but regionally limited case turns out to be a conspiracy on a global political level. A web of evil spanning the continents. Wallander realizes that the fate of hundreds of thousands of people is at stake.

Plot period: October-December 1993 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 45/46 years | Location: Ystad

There is a chair in the middle of the country road. A human-sized doll is sitting on it. The lawyer brakes abruptly. He turns off the car and gets out. It's the last thing he does in his life. Detective Kurt Wallander is walking on the beach in Skagen, Denmark. He has finally made his decision. He is going to end his career as a police officer. "But then an old acquaintance visits him: the lawyer Sten Torstensson. He tells Wallander that his father died under mysterious circumstances in a car accident near Brösarp. Two weeks later, when Wallander is about to hand in his farewell petition, he reads in the newspaper that Sten Torstensson is also dead. He has been found riddled with three bullets in his office. Wallander reports back to duty. On the hunt for the murderer, Wallander quickly realizes that the case leads him into a whole new dimension of crime. A powerful business empire is involved, and Wallander senses the outline of a man who appears elegant and self-assured. A man who has entrenched himself in a castle and is used to calling the shots. A man who is always smiling.

Plot period: June-September 1994 | Kurt Wallander's age: 46 years | Location: Ystad

A woman burns in a rape field. She blazes like a torch against the blue sky. Shortly afterwards, the former Swedish Minister of Justice is found stabbed to death and scalped near Ystad. Somewhere in a closed room, someone carries out his transformation. As the drums thump from the tape, he draws the last strokes of his face paint. He checks that the weapon is sharpened and silently leaves the room. A warrior goes into battle again. In this record-breaking hot summer, when Swedes are glued to their TV sets and following Brolin, Dahlin and Ravelli's success at the World Cup, a serial killer is on the loose in Skåne. Inspector Kurt Wallander's investigation is like a nightmare. With terrifying cold-bloodedness, the killer murders his victims with an axe and then scalps them. The police find out that the dead have also committed ruthless and vile crimes. But every trail Wallander follows only seems to lead him further astray. A literary investigation that goes to the heart of society.

Plot period: September-December 1994 | Kurt Wallander's age: 46/47 years | Location: Ystad

The stakes in the pit are sharpened. The man who went out to watch the birds falls in and is impaled. He dies an agonizing death while a flock of song thrushes migrate south over his head. A florist is found in the forest. Emaciated, tied to a tree and strangled. A university researcher is drowned in a lake in a sack weighed down with stones. Who murdered these men so brutally? Why these diabolically devised arrangements? And who is next on the list? Never before has Inspector Wallander encountered such a coldly calculating murderer. A man who follows a plan that has been worked out down to the smallest detail. A man who apparently anticipates not only the next move of his victims, but also that of the police. Wallander realizes that he must uncover the underlying pattern. Somewhere in the past there is an event that links these men to their executioner. But where does this boundless rage come from?

Plot period: June-October 1996 | Kurt Wallander's age: 49 years | Location: Ystad

The murderer is hiding behind a tree. The young people in the clearing have donned their 18th century wigs and costumes. It is midsummer night. The young people are celebrating in high spirits. The man in the shadows is waiting. The party will soon be over. The police in Ystad are in a summer lull. Only one woman persistently demands that the police look for her daughter. She doesn't want to believe that the girl is really on a trip to Europe with friends. Then comes the shock for the investigators at the police station. Their colleague Karl-Evert Svedberg is found dead in his apartment with his face shot to pieces. Kurt Wallander is forced to dig into his colleague's most intimate secrets. Did Svedberg even lead a double life? And what does the photo of the young people in the old-fashioned disguise mean? When the identity of the young people is clarified, the summer peace turns into an inferno. The search is on for a ruthless murderer who seems to be targeting happy young people. His motive seems completely incomprehensible. And he knows things he can't possibly know.

Plot period: October-November 1997 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 49/50 years | Location: Ystad

Two girls attack a cab driver, drug him and kill him with a kitchen knife. When the police interrogate them, they show no signs of guilt. A dead man lies on the street in front of the blue ATM. In his hand is a white piece of paper stating that he has 9765 crowns in his account. A short time later, his body is stolen from the pathology department and returned to its original location. Then, late one evening, the lights suddenly go out. Large parts of Skåne are without electricity. The explanation for this can be found in a lonely transformer station. There lies the charred corpse of a man who now almost resembles a mummy. Inspector Wallander begins to suspect that these different events are connected. Wallander had never experienced anything like this before. A death that repeated itself. A corpse that returned. This is someone acting with purpose and a plan, someone who has understood how vulnerable modern society is. And who wants to exploit this to the utmost.

Plot period: August-November 2001 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 54/55 years | Location: Ystad

One evening in August, the Ystad police receive a strange call. The caller insists that he has seen burning swans over Lake Marebo. Kurt Wallander drives out to the lake. He has his daughter Linda with him, who will be starting work at the Ystad police station in a few weeks' time. At first they find no trace, but a few days later an agitated farmer reports that one of his calves has been burned alive. Everything points to the fact that an animal-torturing sadist is behind these events. Shortly afterwards, a geographer who is mapping old trails in Skåne disappears, and then Anna, one of Linda's best friends from her teenage years. The trail leads to the jungles of the South American Republic of Guyana and to Christian doomsday visionaries. Linda sets off in search of her friend and begins to investigate on her own. And she falls in love: with Stefan Lindman, a detective who has moved from Borås to Ystad. A conflict with her father seems inevitable, and Linda's career as a policewoman is in danger before it has even begun.

Plot period: October-December 2002 | Age of Kurt Wallander: 55/56 years | Location: Ystad

Kurt Wallander feels burnt out in Ystad in 2002. The fact that his daughter and colleague Linda still lives with him in Mariagatan doesn't improve his mood. He wants a woman who loves him, a house in the country and a dog. His colleague Martinsson offers him a house in Löderup, very close to the house where Wallander's father used to live. When the detective drives out to view the house, he stumbles across a skeletal hand sticking out of the ground in the garden, and instead of the hoped-for peace and quiet in the countryside, Wallander is faced with a new case. The horrific find is the body of a woman who was buried around sixty years ago. But the garden has even more surprises in store. The sparse clues from the files from the last years of the war remain a mystery to the investigators. Only Wallander believes he is on the trail of a family tragedy, and it is not long before he comes up against a crazy old man who is pointing a gun at him...

Plot period: January-May 2007 | Kurt Wallander's age: 55/56 years | Location: Ystad / Gryts Skärgård (Östergötland)

One winter's day, retired naval officer Håkan von Enke disappears during his daily walk in the woods in Lill-Jansskogen. This is a top priority case for Kurt Wallander, as he is personally involved. Von Enke is the grandfather of Linda's little daughter. When von Enke's wife Louise also disappears without a trace, it's time to raise the alarm. The threads lead back to the past, to the Cold War, to right-wing extremist organizations and to contract killers from the old Eastern Europe. Wallander suspects that he is on the trail of a big secret. This case appears to be even more serious than the Stig Wennerström affair, the worst espionage case Sweden has ever experienced. Wallander gets caught up in a political thicket that he finds difficult to penetrate. At the same time, another black cloud is gathering in his sky as his memory increasingly fails him.