Chapter 1 Summary

Faceless Killers is the story of divorced police detective Kurt Wallander's quest to bring to justice the murderers of an elderly farming couple. Wallander must deal with depression following his divorce, his daughter's emotional and physical distance, and his own problems with food and drinking. Meanwhile, he must cope with a leak to the media that the killers were foreign causing a string of anti-refugee violence, including another senseless murder. Wallander ultimately brings the killers to justice through painstaking police work.

As the novel begins, an elderly man wakes up in the middle of the night, unsure why he's awoken. He checks to see that his wife is okay. Then he realizes the neighbors' horse has not whinnied in the night. The date is January 7, 1990, and the old man is a 70-year-old farmer in the village of Lunnarp, in Skåne, Sweden. He...