Editing Firewall (Mankell novel) (section)

==Synopsis==
A series of bizarre incidents sweep across Sweden: a man dies in front of an [[Automated teller machine|ATM]], two young women slaughter an elderly taxi driver, a murder is committed aboard a [[Baltic Sea]] ferry, and a sub-station engineer makes a gruesome discovery while investigating the cause of a nationwide power cut. As Wallander investigates, he uncovers a sinister plan to bring the Western world to its knees.

===Theme===

The major background theme around which the action takes place is the dilemma of the Western economic system versus poverty. The criminal mastermind is a persuasive and talented IT specialist who plans to right the wrongs of the world by deleting vast quantities of money from multinational banks' accounts system, so bringing on a credit and financial panic.

The criminals believe their intended cybercrime is justified; for them the big picture involves the sacrifice of the banking system in order to wipe out [[Debt of developing countries|third world debt]]. At a crucial moment Wallander unwittingly manages to persuade a key accomplice that, ethically, there is in fact no big picture, that instead we just have lives that are fragile but also miraculous.