The Martin Beck Mysteries

Earlier in this month I came across the obituary in the Washington Post for Swedish author Maj Sjowall, who died in April at the age of 84.  She along with her husband Per Wahloo were the authors of a series of police procedural novels featuring Swedish police homicide detective Martin Beck.  I was vaguely familiar with their names, but the story in the obit prompted me to seek out some of the books and give them a whirl, and I am glad that I did.

First off, the Sjowall/Wahloo team is credited for being the first authors to develop what is now known in the mystery field as "Nordic Noir", and they are given credit for being antecedents to the literature that eventually provided the Lisbeth Salander trio of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo novels by Stieg Larrson in the last decade.   Besides being top notch examples of the police procedural form (Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series strongly influenced the Beck series), they make, much like McBain did, some biting commentary on the national politics and society in general - Sweden in this case.  Their plan was to produce ten novels in the series, and that is exactly what they did before Wahloo died in 1975 at the age of 49.

Here are the books and the year of publication:

1. Roseanna (1965)
2. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966)
3. The Man on the Balcony (1967)
4. The Laughing Policeman (1968) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1971)
5. The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969)
6. Murder at the Savoy (1970)
7. The Abominable Man (1971)
8. The Locked Room (1972)
9. Cop Killer (1974)
10. The Terrorists (1975)

Over the last two weeks I was able to get ebooks from the library for both "Roseanna" and "The Laughing Policeman", and that has been enough for me to tell you that I have set a goal to read the other eight over the next year or so, they we're that good.   They detail what can often be the drudgery of police work.  In both books sometimes weeks and even months can go by where nothing happens on the case at hand.  The characters are not glamorous.  In both books that I read, Beck was constantly battling colds and illnesses, the weather is always lousy, and his marriage to a nagging wife is far from ideal, yet he trudges forward, albeit slowly at time, to solve the crime.  Note the years of publication for the books.  Despite characters constantly looking for payphones, and occasional references to the Viet Nam War and Lyndon Johnson, the books are amazingly relevant and not dated at all.   

If you are looking for a new series of mystery/detective/crime stories, I highly recommend the Martin Beck stories, but I will say that the Swedish names of both people and places does take some getting used to.  

The Grandstander is giving this series a solid Three Stars.

Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo