The Martin Beck books are widely acknowledged as some of the most influential detective novels ever written. Written by Swedish husband and wife team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö between 1965-1975, the ten-book series set a gold standard for all subsequent Scandanavian crime fiction. Long before Kurt Wallander or Harry Hole, Beck was the original flawed policeman, working with a motley collection of colleagues to uncover the cruelty and injustice lurking beneath the surface of Sweden's seemingly liberal, democratic society. This complete collection includes:Roseanna (1965) - translated by Lois Roth and dramatised by Jennifer HowarthThe Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie HimsThe Man on the Balcony (1967) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Katie HimsThe Laughing Policeman (1968) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer HowarthThe Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie HimsMurder at the Savoy (1970) - translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel and dramatised by Jennifer HowarthThe Abominable Man (1971) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Katie HimsThe Locked Room (1972) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer HowarthCop Killer (1974) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Jennifer HowarthThe Terrorists (1975) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Terrorists is the last Martin Beck mystery, finished just a few weeks before Per Wahl''s death. The book is, in effect, a marvelous summing up of the series. The story centers on the visit of an American senator to Stockholm. Martin Beck tries to protect him from an international gang of terrorists, while they decide that Beck too should be removed from the scene. Interwoven with this basic story are two fascinating subplots. One, a classic mini-mystery, is the story of a millionaire pornographer bludgeoned to death in his own bathtub. The other is the story of a young girl, a Swedish hippie caught up unexpectedly in the maze of police bureaucracy. As in other Martin Beck books, the plot comes together in a totally unexpected climax.
"Ingenious'Their mysteries don't just read well; they reread even better'The writing is lean, with mournful undertones." 'New York Times
A young blonde in sunglasses robs a bank and kills a hapless citizen. Across town, a corpse with a bullet shot through its heart is found in a locked room'with no gun at the scene. The crimes seem disparate, but to Martin Beck they are two pieces of the same puzzle, and solving it becomes the one way he can escape the pains of his failed marriage and the lingering effects of a near-fatal bullet wound. Exploring the ramifications of egotism and intellect, luck and accident, this tour de force of detection bears the unmistakable substance and gravity of real life.
Translated by Paul Britten Austin
"Admirers of the series - and who is not an admirer? - will find the usual deftness, the fine shades of characters.''New York Times
The bloody murder of a police captain in his hospital room exposes the particularly unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality. Nonetheless, Martin Beck and his colleagues scour Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman. As the tension builds and a feeling of impending danger grips Beck, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That's when an even stronger sense of responsibility and something like shame urge him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster.
Translated by Thomas Teal
'A taut, gripping narrative....A book you won't easily put down.''Chicago Tribune
In this penultimate installment of the classic Martin Beck series, Beck is drawn into a case that turns up mysterious echoes of his past cases. Now head of the National Murder Squad, Beck is called in to a sleepy Swedish town to investigate a woman's disappearance. When she is found already murdered, her body dredged from the bottom of a lake, suspicions swirl around Folke Bengtsson, the killer Beck caught in the first novel of the series for committing a similar murder, and who has since been released. But Beck is beginning to doubt that Bengtsson is guilty of any murder at all.
The cunning incendiary device that blew the roof off a Stockholm apartment not only interrupted the small, peaceful orgy underway inside, it nearly took the lives of the building's eleven occupants. And if one of Martin Beck's colleagues hadn't been on the scene, the explosion would have led to a major catastrophe because, for reasons nobody could satisfactorily explain, a regulation fire truck has vanished. Was it terrorism, suicide, or simply a gas leak? And what, if anything, did the explosion have to do with the peculiar death earlier that day of a forty-six-year-old bachelor whose cryptic suicide note consisted of only two words: "Martin Beck"?
When Viktor Palmgren, a powerful Swedish industrialist, is shot during his after-dinner speech in the luxurious Hotel Savoy, it sends a shiver down the spine of the international money markets and puts the tiny town of Malm' on edge. No one can identify the gunman when Martin Beck takes over the scene and finds a web so despicable that it's hard to imagine who wouldn't want Palmgren dead.
