As Midsummer approaches police inspector Kurt Wallander clears his desk and prepares to set off on holiday with the new woman in his life. However his plans are ruined when a teenaged girl commits suicide before his eyes, dousing herself in petrol and burning herself to death. She leaves no clue as to who she was or why she chose to end her life in this terrible way. Then a former Minister of Justice is butchered in a murder that will prove to be the first strike of a killer who will again and then again. Wallander s search for the identity of the girl, and his hunt for a serial killer who scalps his victims, lead him to uncover corruption in high society and place him, and those he loves most, in grave danger. Sidetracked demonstrates again Henning Mankell s skill as a craftsman of engrossing and original European noir fiction.