The second Wallander we watched starring Rolf Lassgård, after The Man Who Smiled, Firewall, a TV mini-series (shown in two parts here), was easily one of the best Wallanders, if not one of the best detective dramas, I've seen yet. The mystery involved an assassin in Africa; a murdered taxi driver; a seemingly unrelated death through dengue fever; and a mysterious diabetes nurse.
In this story, Wallander really began to fall apart, being betrayed by his police colleague and new lady friend, and being slowed down and impaired through development of diabetes. Talk about a flawed hero, it's a wonder he still has a job at the end of this, especially when his not-paying-by-the-rules attitude leads to the loss and then death of a suspect. His biggest mistake turns out to be trusting someone who I only began to suspect myself late in the game. There's also the bit where he recruits an ex-con hacker to help out on the case, rather than call in the CID big boys from Stockholm - a hacker who bears more than a passing resemblance to one Lisbeth Salander from the Millennium series. The plot isn't just about a murder is Ystaad, this computer terrorism ruse has potentially global consequences - and it's refreshing to see something that might affect the world happening in Sweden rather than the USA or UK. There were so many layers and pieces to the puzzle that was Firewall's plot that it get me gripped throughout, and Lassgård proved to be a fascinating Wallander. A superior slice of TV detective drama.
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