The Best Beck - Rated 
This is the most gripping of the Martin Beck series of ten novels, with a hideous murderer killing young girls, and the murder squad's desperate search for him. The whole case hinges on a chance conversation which leaves the reader turning the page to seek the resolution.
Alongside Roseanna and The Fire Engine That Disappeared, this is definitely required reading for lovers of Scandinavian crime fiction.
A Nicci French precursor - Rated
I was really interested to discover and read this 1960s Scandinavian detective novel by a husband-wife team in the style of Nicci French meets Henning Mankell. A lot of 1960s/70s crime fiction doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny, marred by among other things casual racism and sexism. The Man on the Balcony is a marked exception - and a fascinating one. The authors' biog (which is quite brief) passes an interesting comment - identifying them as lifelong Marxists. An unusual statement in a crime novelists' author blurb - a context which usually tends to more anodyne comments. But it is, I suspect, quite significant.
The Man on the Balcony ticks all the crime/thriller boxes of plot, characterisation and atmosphere, but more interestingly it provides an understated but compelling critique of modern (or at least post-War) society. Throughout the book the reader is made aware of the corrosion eating away at social structures, mores, workplace, family relationships. It is incredibly well done - not an in-your-face lecture, just a gradual accumulation of inference. Like Nicci French, there is no sense of two authorial voices or any division of purpose and it is a very smooth and convincing read. I believe Sjowall and Wahloo wrote 10 novels in the series before Per Wahloo died and the books stopped. There's quite a lot about them on the internet including this Britannica entry, and there is a lot of comment on both their literary and political legacy. I am very excited to have found them by chance and can't wait to get my hands on the other 9 books. They also appear to have influenced some fairly awesome literary luminaries including Grahame Greene and Henning Mankell.
The summer of love in Stockholm - Rated
In the third in the series, Martin Beck is back on Swedish soil, and has been promoted. Unfortunately, it's not 'peace and love' for Beck and his colleagues Kollberg, Melander, et al. The crimes in this story are grisly, but there's a warmth and intimacy in the book - and the whole series - that is endearing. The story virtually reads itself, and there are (as in all the books) comments of a political and societal nature that were true in 1967 and which still ring true today. Civilisation is in decline in Sweden - and by extension throughout the whole of the western world.
This edition of the series from Harper is very attractively designed, and the letter on the spines spell out the main character's name: MARTIN BECK. This is book R - the third in the series.
|
