Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Wallander: Series 2'

This week, the most interesting DVD to appear on release lists is:

“Wallander: Series 2”

As fans of bleak, Nordic crime dramas eagerly await the final film of Steig Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”), an equally compelling trilogy of chilly Swedish whodunits comes to DVD this week in “Wallander: Series 2.”

Adapted from the noirish novels of Henning Mankell, the Wallander series has aired since 2008 on PBS’s “Masterpiece Mysteries” (the three episodes of Series 1 are also available on DVD). The series stars the brilliantly intense Kenneth Branagh, looking appropriately stubble-faced and careworn, as Kurt Wallander, a keenly intelligent and driven police inspector in the Swedish town of Ystad whose troubled personal life often spills over into his investigations.