Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
The White Lioness (Kurt Wallander #3)
Like his countrymen Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Mankell writes mysteries that connect crimes in Sweden to the rest of the world. Faceless Killers (1997), the first of his books about provincial police inspector Kurt Wallender to appear here, involved Turkish immigrants and Eastern European villains. This novel, written in 1993, links the murder of a real estate agent in Wa...more
ebook, 432 pages
Published
May 10th 2011
by New Press, LLC
(first published 1993)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
I'm only reviewing this one book, but I've read the entire detective series by Henning Mankell, and I am a huge fan. I first became aware of him after returning from a trip to Sweden in 2004, and then discovered he has a cult following in Europe and is beginning to have one in the U.S. He has written all kinds of novels, but I've focused on his mystery series featuring Swedish police officer Kurt Wallander. The Wallander stories are good mysteries in their own right, but what commends the books...more
12 likes · like · see review
view all 3 comments
Some of the best police procedural/mystery writing is coming out of the Scandinavian countries. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, for example, also come from Sweden, and their work is consistently excellent. Not to mention there must ne some very good translators working on these books.
Mankell, who wrote this in 1993 as apartheid was beginning to crumble, has little love for those white South Africans who wanted to retain the status quo. In this, one of his lengthier works, his protagonist, Chief Ins...more
Mankell, who wrote this in 1993 as apartheid was beginning to crumble, has little love for those white South Africans who wanted to retain the status quo. In this, one of his lengthier works, his protagonist, Chief Ins...more
3 likes · like · see review
Jan 10, 2009
Kathleen Hagen
added it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2007-audio-books,
2007-mysteries
The White Lioness, by Henning Mankell B-minus.
Narrated by Dick Hill, produced by Blackstone audio, downloaded from audible.com
This is the first Mankell book that I’ve been disappointed with. In this book, Wallander and the national police force of Sweden inadvertently become involved in an assassination plot in South Africa. The perpetrators are being trained in Sweden. Wallander’s involvement begins when a man comes into his office and says that his wife, a real estate agent, has disappeared. S...more
Narrated by Dick Hill, produced by Blackstone audio, downloaded from audible.com
This is the first Mankell book that I’ve been disappointed with. In this book, Wallander and the national police force of Sweden inadvertently become involved in an assassination plot in South Africa. The perpetrators are being trained in Sweden. Wallander’s involvement begins when a man comes into his office and says that his wife, a real estate agent, has disappeared. S...more
4 likes · like · see review
This is the third Henning Mankell book I've read, and I'm just as happy with the third as I was with the first. I have really enjoyed Kurt Wallendar. I like the fact that he seems human with human weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He and his fellow law enforcement officers were totally confused about the central crime in this book. He is the first to admit that he knows little about countries other than his native Sweden. I can relate to that. He has a lot of doubts about himself and his relations...more
This was a CD gift to me. I had not read Henning Mankell books before and now I will read his other novels. A murder happens quickly in the story and the hunt for the killer by Detective Kurt Wallander becomes intense and actually obsessive by the policeman. The problem I had was the introduction of so many characters from another location with another plot. The turns, twist, intertwining and ultimately the knitting together of each character is a feat accomplished by the author. The plot is abo...more
A last chance for Mankell, having read but not necessarily enhoyed the first two in the series.
And it was worth it. My problem with Mankells previous books is he writes on too grand a canvass - the mysteries always seem to include massive international consipracies that seem most unlikely. This is no exception but for some reason, I seem to get on with it better.
This is probably because of the excellent first two chapters. Chapter 1 has the mystery with Wallander discovering a pointless murder o...more
And it was worth it. My problem with Mankells previous books is he writes on too grand a canvass - the mysteries always seem to include massive international consipracies that seem most unlikely. This is no exception but for some reason, I seem to get on with it better.
This is probably because of the excellent first two chapters. Chapter 1 has the mystery with Wallander discovering a pointless murder o...more
Van Henning Mankell had ik al meerdere romans gelezen, maar de Wallander reeks niet, omdat ik de serie al op televisie had gezien. Op aanraden van Adriana ben ik er toch aan begonnen. Eén deel heb ik wel gelezen, maar die zal ik wel herlezen. Ik heb na het lezen van Moordenaar zonder gezicht en Honden van Riga inmiddels De witte leeuwin uit. Het is knap, hoe Henning Mankell schrijft, goede karakterbeschrijvingen, psychologie en spanning. Die combinatie zorgt ervoor, dat ik er echt 'verslaafd' aa...more
A história passeia-se entre a África do Sul e a Europa mais propriamente a Suécia e mostra-nos o contraste entre duas sociedades distintas que graças à crescente globalização tornam-se alvo de uma rede de acontecimentos que afectam os dois países.
Trata-se de um policial, onde o racismo e as diferenças sociais estão em foco, sendo que estas estão tão enraizadas naquele pais africano que luta há muito tempo por essas causas, uns para mantê-las outros para tentar encontrar uma saída desse fosso ca...more
Trata-se de um policial, onde o racismo e as diferenças sociais estão em foco, sendo que estas estão tão enraizadas naquele pais africano que luta há muito tempo por essas causas, uns para mantê-las outros para tentar encontrar uma saída desse fosso ca...more
Delves a little bit deeper into Wallander's questions about God and the meaning of life than earlier novels. A God-fearing woman is murdered, Wallander's father gets engaged, he himself is abducted and nearly killed by a couple of ruthless assassins, and his estranged daughter Linda comes to stay with him briefly.
The story veers away from what makes these novels so compelling, though, when it departs from the dogged police work of chasing down facts following up leads and devolves into Wallander...more
The story veers away from what makes these novels so compelling, though, when it departs from the dogged police work of chasing down facts following up leads and devolves into Wallander...more
An ambitious and wide ranging story in the Inspector Wallander series.
As well as being set in Skane as per normal the story runs in parallel in South Africa. The story is set in the early 1990’s just as fundamental change is occurring in South Africa, the release of Nelson Mandela having just taken place. The ambition of the author to weave into his traditional Wallander story one that reflects events in South Africa is steep but he successfully keep the two themes linked logically while mainta...more
As well as being set in Skane as per normal the story runs in parallel in South Africa. The story is set in the early 1990’s just as fundamental change is occurring in South Africa, the release of Nelson Mandela having just taken place. The ambition of the author to weave into his traditional Wallander story one that reflects events in South Africa is steep but he successfully keep the two themes linked logically while mainta...more
This is another very good Wallander book, the third in the series. The best part of each of these books is Wallander himself. He is a conflicted, insecure jumble doing extraordinary things as a police detective. The writing style is smooth and even and enjoyable.
All these Wallander books are nearly 4-star efforts. In White Lioness, the plot is a bit flabby and not very believable in parts. Mankell tries to juggle 3 or 4 different locations and subplots, but only to moderate success. We're in Sou...more
All these Wallander books are nearly 4-star efforts. In White Lioness, the plot is a bit flabby and not very believable in parts. Mankell tries to juggle 3 or 4 different locations and subplots, but only to moderate success. We're in Sou...more
I don't usually read more than one book at at time in English, but over the New Year break, which we usually spend in a hot spring hotel in Miyagi, I always like to have an easy reading murder mystery to get absorbed in. Something from Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series used to be a favorite choice, but since that came to an end I had to find something else this year. The Inspector Wallander series looks like being a good substitute; another hard-working policeman with flaws we can all identify...more
The is a relatively early Kurt Wallander novel, follows The Spies of Riga which I just read (but I read several later ones first). This one is long with a multi-faceted plot and it drags in places but is nevertheless worth reading. A woman is missing after going to out to visit a potential client (she's a realtor) and when the police find a old farm house (possible the one she was going to) it suddenly bursts into flame. They don't take particular notice of a Mercedes that came out of that road...more
I have been reading Henning Mankell's books about the detective Wallander for a number of years. Wallander is something of the clichéd doughy, sleepless, overworked police investigator. The type is used in various iterations across the world of crime fiction. What makes Mankell's books interesting though is his taught writing and dry Scandinavian perspective. Wallander is a homicide detective in a smaller Swedish town, Ystad, and continually comes up against the problems that plague larger citie...more
Enjoyed it, though this one is more fragmented than his other Wallender novels. Set in both Sweden and South Africa, right at the time apartheid is ending (1993), it concerns a plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela. The training of the assassin is done in Sweden by a guy who is a former Russian KGB agent; complications ensue. It is not light-hearted, as the South Africans race to prevent an assassination they only have marginal information about, and the Swedish police try to solve the murder of an...more
It is evident that police work in Sweden, and everywhere, must be tedious, slow and painstaking while always overshadowed by the possibility of personal injury. It's even worse if your Wallander because you also carry around a lot of personal baggage. This is my first book by Henning Mankell and I am determined to read a few more just to see what all the fuss is about.
This is a good detective novel, but I was frustrated by the pace and the slowness of the unfolding of the plot. Maybe it's my im...more
This is a good detective novel, but I was frustrated by the pace and the slowness of the unfolding of the plot. Maybe it's my im...more
A missing person case in Sweden turns into an international event, focusing on South Africa in 1992. Nelson Mandela is out of prison and has become a force to be reckoned with as nominal head of those who support the ANC. de Klerk is sitting president of South Africa, representing the Afrikaners and supposedly trying to lessen the brutality and power of Apartheid.
This is another good book, taking the reader into places she doesn't know that much about, and presenting questions and avenues for f...more
This is another good book, taking the reader into places she doesn't know that much about, and presenting questions and avenues for f...more
There's a rumor going around that Henning Mankell has written his final novel in this popular series, and in The White Lioness, we see Wallander beginning to burn out of police work. The mystery begins when he's called into a missing persons case, that of a religious, happily married mother. It grows into something much deeper - something international, in fact, with the potential to disrupt the balance of power in Africa.
This is a plot that is slow to develop, with layers of complexity that fa...more
This is a plot that is slow to develop, with layers of complexity that fa...more
Oct 24, 2010
BoekenTrol
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
all people who like Mankell and / or nordic thrillers
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Jul 30, 2012
AC
marked it as i-get-the-picture
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
crime-spy-mystery
Something I read gave away too much of the plot..., and the lack of suspense is killing me.
I have to avoid all blurbs, GR reviews, wiki entries, amz reviews... total blackout..
This one, moreover, looks like it's not Mankell's best, and I mainly started it because I've decided to read whole series, whenever possible - and in sequence -- rather than simply random books.
Anyway... I'm going to skip it now.
I'm juggling four writers: Mankell, MacDonald, Sjöwall-Wahlöö, and LeCarré (though his books do...more
I have to avoid all blurbs, GR reviews, wiki entries, amz reviews... total blackout..
This one, moreover, looks like it's not Mankell's best, and I mainly started it because I've decided to read whole series, whenever possible - and in sequence -- rather than simply random books.
Anyway... I'm going to skip it now.
I'm juggling four writers: Mankell, MacDonald, Sjöwall-Wahlöö, and LeCarré (though his books do...more
Z jakimś masochistycznym uporem eksploruję twórczość Mankella i po trzeciej z kolei książce muszę stwierdzić, że nie znam drugiego, tak słabego pisarza w obrębie gatunku zwanego powieścią kryminalną. W przypadku "Białej lwicy" nie sposób oprzeć się wrażeniu, że autor miał pomysł na zupełnie inną, nie związaną ze szwedzkim detektywem powieść, która choć ciekawa z założenia, sprzedałaby się raczej słabo, niż deklarowana kolejna część lubianego - kompletnie nie wiem za co - cyklu.
Mankell nieodmienn...more
Mankell nieodmienn...more
Having read the first two books in the Inspector Wallander series, this book came as a disappointment. Granted, Henning Mankell's writing is not going to set the world alight: it's easy-reading junk fiction with very short sentences with a literary style along the lines of Jeffery Archer. Mankell overstretched his abilities in this story piling unlikely events onto unlikely events. The whole thing ended up being quite preposterous and when he couldn't work a way of getting Wallander, or whoever,...more
Ein Geniestreich
Mit diesem Buch ist Mankell wirklich Großartiges gelungen. Die Art und Weise wie er die Charaktere beschreibt, wie er es versteht den Leser in die Gedankenwelt der verschiedenen Gruppierungen hineinzuziehen ist außergewöhnlich. In herrlichen Bildern beschreibt er was in dem aus der afrikanischen Tradition kommenden Auftragsmörder vorgeht.
Die Einblicke die er in die Umbruchszeit Südafrikas bietet - aber auch in die vollkommen anderen Weltbilder die hinter den jeweiligen handelnden...more
Mit diesem Buch ist Mankell wirklich Großartiges gelungen. Die Art und Weise wie er die Charaktere beschreibt, wie er es versteht den Leser in die Gedankenwelt der verschiedenen Gruppierungen hineinzuziehen ist außergewöhnlich. In herrlichen Bildern beschreibt er was in dem aus der afrikanischen Tradition kommenden Auftragsmörder vorgeht.
Die Einblicke die er in die Umbruchszeit Südafrikas bietet - aber auch in die vollkommen anderen Weltbilder die hinter den jeweiligen handelnden...more
The White Lioness is the best Kurt Wallander mystery I've completed so far. This series may have finally wormed its way into the mystery rotation for good. It is the 3rd one following Faceless Killers and The Dogs of Riga.
Having been mesmerized by Dragon tattoo, I wanted more Scandinavian thrillers and chose the Wallander mystery The Fifth Woman. Way too dry. Gave up halfway through. Probably I wasn't prepared for such a relatively down to earth police procedural after the awesome, epic, indeli...more
Having been mesmerized by Dragon tattoo, I wanted more Scandinavian thrillers and chose the Wallander mystery The Fifth Woman. Way too dry. Gave up halfway through. Probably I wasn't prepared for such a relatively down to earth police procedural after the awesome, epic, indeli...more
Apr 21, 2013
Susan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
kurt-wallander-mystery-series,
2013-audio-book-challenge,
2013-books-in-a-series-reading-chal,
2013-colorful-reading-challenge,
2013-european-reading-challenge,
2013-mystery-crime-reading-challeng,
2013-read-52-books-in-52-weeks,
2013-reading-challenge-addict,
2013-sequel-reading-challenge,
2013-mammoth-book-challenge,
2013-criminal-plots-reading-challen,
2013-what-an-animal-reading-challen
The White Lioness by Henning Mankell is the third book of the Kurt Wallander mystery series set in modern-day Sweden. Kurt’s police case starts with a local Swedish missing-person report in April 1992. While detectives follow the missing woman’s last known route, a house explodes near the location she was planning to visit. A black man’s severed finger is found at the explosion site. Neither seem connected to Louise Akerblom, but are unheard-of in the small quiet community, so Kurt suspects ther...more
It's interesting to read a detective story that involves world events in the mid-1990s, and realize that technology has changed oh-so-much since then. The "willing suspension of disbelief" was a little harder to attain in this book, primarily because I'm an American reading this book a Swedish man set primarily in South Africa. It's not entirely unbelievable, but at times, I felt myself wanting to read a book a little more similar to the first Wallander book, Faceless Killers. Mankell does a bet...more
Oct 14, 2012
Tiffani
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-in-2012,
mystery
Henning Mankell does not write ordinary mysteries. There is always a bigger picture, sometimes international in scope. The White Lioness is no exception. It begins with the execution style murder of an ordinary woman in Sweden. She is a wife, a mother of two young daughters, a real estate agent, and a frequent church goer. Nothing about her life explains why someone would execute her. As Mankell's conflicted somewhat depressed detective Kurt Wallander tries to find her killer, a half a world way...more
Nunca me gustaron las novelas policiales, pero el mundo de los libros siempre te presenta una excepción.
La Leona Blanca es esta excepción.
La leona blanca es la tercer entrega de una serie de 7 libros (creo) protagonizada por el agente Kurt Wallander (ahora una serie en BBC), escritos por el novelista sueco Henning Mankell.
A ser francos, cuando me regalaron el libro pensé para mis adentros que jamás lo leería, en primer lugar porque el genero "novela policial" lo asocio con Agatha Christie, y bue...more
La Leona Blanca es esta excepción.
La leona blanca es la tercer entrega de una serie de 7 libros (creo) protagonizada por el agente Kurt Wallander (ahora una serie en BBC), escritos por el novelista sueco Henning Mankell.
A ser francos, cuando me regalaron el libro pensé para mis adentros que jamás lo leería, en primer lugar porque el genero "novela policial" lo asocio con Agatha Christie, y bue...more
Nov 18, 2011
Stephen Hayes
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
crime-fiction,
our-books
Unlike most of Henning Mankell's "Wallander" novels, this one is set at least partly in South Africa, which gives it additional interest to me. It is set in the period between the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 and the first democratic elections in 1994. It was a period of great uncertainty, when no one knew quite what would happen. Though the National Party had already shed its ultra right wing (to the HNP in the late 1960s), and its far right wing (to the Conservative Party in t...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodreads Librari...: Please combine | 3 | 16 | Jul 11, 2012 05:22am |
Henning Mankell is an internationally known Swedish crime writer, children's author and playwright. He is best known for his literary character Kurt Wallander.
Mankell splits his time between Sweden and Mozambique. He is married to Eva Bergman, Swedish director and daughter of Ingmar Bergman.
More about Henning Mankell...
Mankell splits his time between Sweden and Mozambique. He is married to Eva Bergman, Swedish director and daughter of Ingmar Bergman.
Share This Book
13 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence together with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful about them.”
—
7 people liked it
“The game had started. Everybody was assuring everybody else how reliable they were. In fact, nobody trusted anybody but themselves”
—
1 person liked it
More quotes…
