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  • The Dogs of Riga

Synopsis

A life raft bearing two dead men floats into Ystad harbour from the Baltic Sea. Victims of a Latvian gangland hit, the corpses are covered by Russian mafia tattoos and disfigured by gruesome chemical burns, evidence of their horrific torture. Inspector Wallander expects Karlis Liepa, a major with the Latvian police force, to work with him to solve the murder, but the suspicious and secretive detective keeps him at arm's length.

Yet when Wallander learns of the raft's true cargo and finds Liepa grieving, the two connect. Like Liepa, isolated and burdened by his responsibility for the men's death, Wallander is haunted by his failed relationship with Vanja and his part in the attack on Ann-Britt. Still, Liepa returns to Riga with his secrets intact.

But devastating news draws Wallander to Riga: Liepa is dead, assassinated in similar gangland style. Interrogated by Liepa's superiors, Colonel Murnieks and Jazeps Putnis, Wallander discovers that Liepa's case file is missing and the fax he'd sent from Skåne never arrived. So focused on the case file are Murnieks and Putnis that it seems they're investigating its disappearance rather than Liepa's murder. But whatever the goal, their aggressive interrogation of Liepa's widow, Baiba, and their Soviet-style arrests remind Wallander that he's not in Sweden anymore.

Installed in a hotel, a wire-tap on his phone and a minder on his tail, Wallander is sucked into the very case that killed Liepa. Can he trust the journalist claiming to be Liepa's contact, or Liepa's beautiful, desolate widow? Only the major's case notes will reveal the truth, but they're buried in the rubble of post-Soviet corruption. On the run in an alien atmosphere of surveillance, threats and lies, Wallander is determined to bring Liepa's killers to justice. But for once, he is not alone.
 

Read full synopsis. WARNING! Contains significant plot spoilers!

A fishing boat in the Baltic Sea makes a gruesome find: a life raft adrift with two dead men, being picked apart by gulls. The fishermen flee, and when the raft finally washes ashore in Kurt Wallander’s jurisdiction, the bodies prove to be Latvian gangsters, horribly tortured and then executed.

Latvian police major Karlis Liepa flies to Sweden from Riga to investigate. Chain-smoking, alcohol-swilling, and tight-lipped, Karlis bonds with Kurt as only terse tough cops can. Then he flies back to Riga and is immediately reported murdered.

Karlis’s superiors, Colonels Murnieks and Putnis, invite Wallander to the major’s funeral, but they want something more: their colleague’s missing case notes. It seems that the life raft was smuggling cocaine as part of a drug ring run by former KGB officials. After Latvia’s break with the Soviet Union, some KGB agents stayed with the police, some went over to the mafia, and some did both. Karlis was apparently on the trail of a mafia mole inside his department.

Murnieks and Putnis toy with their Swedish colleague by habitually calling him “Colonel.” (“I'm not a colonel! We don't have colonels!” Wallander insists.) They bug his phone and take him on police raids in search of Karlis’s killer, finally arresting an obviously innocent journalist who once had an affair with Karlis’s beautiful wife, Baiba. The journalist immediately hangs himself in prison—or so his jailers say.

Wallander finds that his only sure ally in this nightmare of corruption is Baiba, with whom his intimacies follow their usual course. Detained by police, Baiba is rescued by Wallander, who tells the cops he has found Karlis’s case notes. He has indeed—in Karlis’s camera. But the digital images of incriminating documents do not satisfy the still-mysterious high-placed mole, who wants the originals.

Now on the run, Wallander and Baiba know that their only ticket to safety is Karlis’s original notes. Baiba guesses that he would have hidden them in plain sight in an obvious place. The police archives! Wallander breaks into the facility with the help of one of Karlis’s old pals on the force. Although he doesn’t read Russian, the sleuth manages to find the file, guided by a dropped, crushed cigarette pack of Karlis’s preferred brand, showing the major had been there.

With the documents in hand, Wallander escapes outside and is approached by Putnis, who inadvertently lets slip a clue that he is in fact the mafia mole. On the verge of shooting Wallander to silence him, Putnis is felled by a police sniper, planted by Murnieks, who turns out to be a good guy.

In the aftermath, Wallander learns that Putnis, afraid of being exposed, lured Karlis to his death. After parting with Murnieks and paying Baiba a farewell visit, the angst-ridden Swede returns to his orderly homeland, where criminals are corrupt and cops are just trying to be cops.

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