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7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 82 | https://fivebooks.com/best-books/swedish-crime-roslund-hellstrom/ | en | The Best of Swedish Crime Writing | [
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"Henning Mankell",
"Dennis Lehane",
"Maj Sjöwall",
"Per Wahlöö",
"Edgar Allan Poe",
"Five Books"
] | 2012-05-22T06:24:36+00:00 | The celebrated Swedish crime-writing duo take turns to recommend gripping and grisly Scandinavian thrillers, as well as to tell us about visiting prison – and being in it | en | /favicon.ico | Five Books | https://fivebooks.com/best-books/swedish-crime-roslund-hellstrom/ | Anders, when did you personally realise that Swedish crime fiction was becoming so popular outside Sweden?
Although we were popular in the rest of Europe, the problem we used to have is that Swedish crime fiction was fighting for its share of the 5% of books in the UK that are translated. That includes every language and Swedish is just a small language, so initially it was hard for us to break into the market.
But in 2003 at the London Book Fair our Swedish agent called us and said, “Guys, they are going to translate you into English!” For us it was a big surprise because English was considered such a hard language to get translated into. Of course Stieg Larsson’s success had a lot to do with it. But in Sweden he actually started publishing his books after us. We already had a big readership and had won the Nordic Prize and then we started to get known elsewhere but it was Larsson who opened the door for Swedish crime novels to be translated.
How would you describe Swedish crime fiction as a genre?
I think, and I am quite convinced that I am correct, that the Swedish genre is connected through language and coming out of the same tradition, but at the same time there is a wide variety of styles within that genre. Many people are inspired by the whodunits. And then we have thrillers and books like ours that include the former tradition and the new one. And I think that is why the genre has boomed here. That kind of writing somehow got new energy through to the whole genre. So we share a language and we share a tradition but there is a lot of diversity as well.
What is the tradition?
It was started by the two authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. They were a couple who were writing in the seventies and I grew up reading their books. They showed everyone how you could combine entertainment, excitement and a thrilling story with some sort of conflict – if you want it. They also included discussions on the state of society and they were very politically aware. They were writing between 1965-1970, when everyone was talking about politics.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are actually the authors of a very popular series of books called the Martin Beck mystery series, which you have chosen as your first choice.
They were very popular in the seventies and I see them as being the founders of Swedish crime novels. They wrote their first book in 1965 and then they wrote one book a year between 1965 and 1975. They saw every book as being like a chapter in a big book. And the 10 books are considered as a whole book. They showed it was possible to write in this way and made this kind of writing acceptable with the Swedish publishers. But it was another 15 to 20 years before my generation, who had grown up with them, started to use these tools. That is where the tradition comes from. Maj Sjöwall is still alive and she is a dear friend to me and Börge.
I know you have read and enjoyed all the 10 books but can you tell me a bit about their fourth novel, The Laughing Policeman?
This book was made into a Hollywood film and it got the Best Novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The hero of the story is Martin Beck, a Swedish police detective. But you also get the story from the point of view of many different policemen who are all contributing to solving the story. And that is one of the things we have inherited from Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö that we use in our books – we try to write from different people’s perspectives.
How did they go about writing the books together and is that similar to the way that you and Börge work?
They had a very different way of working from me and Börge. According to them they wrote a chapter each and they imitated each other’s styles. I know for a fact that that is very very hard – at least for us. In the end it must be one pen delivering the final version. The reader can tell if someone is trying to imitate someone else’s style and feels uncomfortable with that. So if they really did manage to write like that they are even more fantastic than I thought! To me it feels like one person was writing the story and it doesn’t matter who is writing it.
I re-read The Laughing Policeman a few years ago because I was writing the foreword for it and what struck me is that despite some of their descriptions obviously coming from the 1970s the plot is timeless. So even though in the book they talk about the price of electricity very much in terms of back then and people are lying about in bed smoking all the time, the story isn’t old. The plot still works. Forty years later the story is still gripping. The way they switch between the different policemen contributing to the investigation is really good.
What about you and Börge – how do you go about writing your books together?
Börge and I are very happy to talk about anything apart from the actual process of how we write our books together. We gave a promise never to talk about the actual process of writing the books. I like to keep some mystery around that. But I can tell you about the lead up to writing our books. We have worked together for 15 years and when we are thinking of writing a book we divide it into three periods.
Our latest book took us three years. We had a year of research to get the unique people we needed for the story. Then there was one year of sitting face to face plotting about 120 pages. So we know exactly what is going to happen in chapter 18 and chapter four before the writing process even starts. And then the actual writing takes eight months to a year. We had to invent this style because there are two of us and we had to agree on everything before the writing process, when we turn those 120 pages into 500 pages.
But we have seen that it works. Our books have been turned into movies both in Hollywood and here in Sweden and when the script writers get in touch with us they often comment on how they haven’t been able to find anything which is illogical and doesn’t work within the story.
That must be because of all the preparation you do before writing.
Yes.
Next up you’ve gone for someone who is very well known on the international scene, Henning Mankell and his book One Step Behind, which is one of the Kurt Wallander mysteries. For those who haven’t come across him, can you describe Kurt Wallander as a character?
Kurt Wallander is the nineties version of Martin Beck, the hero from the last book I was talking about. He is a police detective who thinks a lot and likes to be on his own. But unlike the Martin Beck books, Henning Mankell uses Wallander as the main voice throughout the book.
In 1991 I was working at the biggest news station in Sweden, which is a bit like the BBC because it is a public service one as well. My editor came to me and said, “Anders, there is some sort of new prize about crime – it is the Nordic Prize. I am not sure what it is about. There is this new guy called Henning Mankell. Can you do a story on him?” So that was the first time Henning Mankell was on television. And then when we got the Nordic Prize in 2004 I was so happy. But Mankell was the one who took the Swedish tradition from Martin Beck and turned it into Wallander.
One thing he did was place him in a small town called Ystad in the south of Sweden. That is different from the Martin Beck books and our books, which are based in Stockholm. We think that if you base a story in Stockholm it is more realistic in that a lot of crime is going on there already. He chose to set his books in a peaceful town. But that is his thing and it works. Even though I don’t know how realistic it is to set the stories there, I still really enjoy them. They are well written. He is so productive. He writes a whole range of other books as well and also writes plays.
Before I move on to Börge’s choices, let’s finish with your final book, which although not a Swedish crime novel is something which has inspired your writing – Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.
This is the best non-Swedish crime book I have ever read. It has the same ingredients as his other more serial-like books – the surprising end and the language. He was in Stockholm not long ago and I missed that and I am still angry I wasn’t there. He is someone I really admire because he writes the almost complete crime.
What do you mean by that?
It has characters I believe in, there is good writing and it has an ending which I didn’t see coming. So for me that was perfect. He takes me by the hand and he leads me through the story as a storyteller should.
Is he someone you try to emulate or do you just appreciate his talent?
I just appreciate him. Whenever you write yourself you have to be yourself and believe that you are good enough as yourself. You can’t try to take on someone else’s style. But of course other good writers can always inspire you to do better and Lehane is one of them.
I am interested that none of your three choices were by Stieg Larsson – why not?
I was picking books which have inspired me, and Stieg was inspired by us! I am not trying to sound difficult. But you have to understand that in Sweden we had such a big audience before he even started to publish. If anyone was inspiring anyone it was Stieg at that stage being inspired by me and Börge because we had already published our books. In the UK and US he was successful before us, so I realise that for people in countries like the UK and the US it seems as if he was the first one.
I knew him as a journalist and he helped me when I was investigating a story on a right-wing extreme party. I had to have a bodyguard for my own protection and he helped me to deal with that because he was living under the same circumstances. So I really appreciate him because of that.
Why do you think he became so popular outside Sweden so fast?
In my opinion he invented a character in Lisbeth Salander that was the perfect character for his story. The books are somewhat longer in Sweden. I guess we get more of the Swedish politics than when they are published for a wider audience. The English publisher has, of course, changed parts.
Thanks Anders. Now it’s time to talk to Börge. Let’s start with The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The book is set in your childhood neighbourhood. Do you think they do a good job of describing the area?
Yes, they did a very good job. I grew up in that area and everything is very well described. They are writing about a part of Stockholm and there is a helicopter crash in a local square in the story. A policeman gets killed and just beside that square is a place I used to go as a child when I went to the dentist, so I remember it well. Also, at the end of the story the murderer is up on the roof of the building that he was operating from. And that house actually belongs to a friend of mine from school.
What happens in the story?
It starts with a murder in the local hospital. A senior policeman is killed. Martin Beck is investigating the murder and he realises that the policeman who got killed wasn’t a good policeman. Everyone hated him. The story shows how the murderer is in some way connected to the bad policeman. The policeman made one bad choice which links him to the murderer and that is why the killer started killing policemen. The authors are great at doing the dialogue. It is so realistic. They were a little bit radical in their politics and there are lots of discussions to do with that. They describe Swedish society in the late sixties and early seventies.
Finally, you have chosen a poem which you came across as a child – The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
This is very special. I first came across it when I was nine years old. I still remember this cartoon which had the raven in it. It really affected me because the raven was so sinister and nasty. It really scared me. It was so close to things to do with death and the supernatural. What I was looking at was a cartoon version of Poe’s The Raven. I was so taken by the story I asked my mother to track down the original for me.
Do you think that is what made you interested in getting to know more about the darker side of life?
Yes, definitely.
Years later you became a crime writer. And for the last few days you have been caught up in a whirlwind of press activity and it has been very hard to pin you both down for an interview. It is all because you have recently published a new book, Two Soldiers. What is it about?
Every big city has gangs in the suburbs. This is a book about those gangs, made up of young people. We are exploring how they think and act. They are extremely violent, these gangs. They are involved in a lot of crime.
Is this something which is becoming more of an issue in Sweden?
I have seen this problem growing over the last 20 years and exploding in the last six months. So now it is on the map. Everybody knows about it. Not that long ago a female prison guard was murdered in prison by one of these gangs. We describe something similar in our book. We wrote about it before this had actually happened.
You recently did a talk with Anders in a high-security prison. What kinds of things do you talk to the prisoners about?
We go to the prison as part of a support group for the people who are trying to make the prison more of a cultural place. So the prisoners get to work with different cultural groups. We started talking about our books to the prisoners and the guards. But then when we finish everyone comes to us and we talk about lots of different things. It was very interesting because some of these prisoners were gang members so we can find out from them what is going on.
You are someone who is well known in Sweden for fighting hard to prevent crime but you are also an ex-convict. What made you change your ways?
I have been in prison twice in my life. I was very young. I was using drugs. Today I am a recovering alcoholic. I have been sober for 19 years now. As a young kid I used to fight a lot and got mixed up in crime.
But now I have completely changed. I no longer have a criminal record and I have realised that by preventing crime you can also help both criminals and victims. I help the criminals not to create more victims. Every time a person does a crime, they create a victim. As long as you are not a psychopath, the chances are you will have feelings towards your victim. I know I did and other people do. So to prevent crime you have to try to stop people from suffering, be that the criminal or the victim. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 21 | https://www.thenatureofthings.blog/2014/06/the-locked-room-by-maj-sjowall-and-per.html | en | The Locked Room by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo: A review | https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tnj1tpso1xnwzGdamNFGzF6bOKvReIPRuKOvU_HsUDC4K6l6loxwFMhqq5psV0nnhsXcJrMLvNeP8XZoN1Kn1R6L_D310uDmud_Joqoy1mZGH57Y7-MBHUhw=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu | https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tnj1tpso1xnwzGdamNFGzF6bOKvReIPRuKOvU_HsUDC4K6l6loxwFMhqq5psV0nnhsXcJrMLvNeP8XZoN1Kn1R6L_D310uDmud_Joqoy1mZGH57Y7-MBHUhw=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu | [
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"Dorothy Borders",
"Visit profile"
] | 2014-06-30T00:00:00-05:00 | The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall My rating: 4 of 5 stars Each of these reissues of the 1960s-70s Swedish crime series by Maj Sjowall and P... | en | https://www.thenatureofthings.blog/favicon.ico | https://www.thenatureofthings.blog/2014/06/the-locked-room-by-maj-sjowall-and-per.html | Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver
How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no
Overboard by Sara Paretsky: A review
This is the twenty-first novel in the V.I. Warshawski series that Sara Paretsky first began publishing in 1982 with Indemnity Only . I've read them all. I've been a Warshawski fan since the beginning. So for forty years, Paretsky has been writing these books and I've been reading them. And one thing that I have enjoyed about them is that V.I. has aged through them, if not exactly forty years then at least enough to simulate reality. In this latest book, V.I. may be feeling the weight of those years a bit but her passion for justice is undiminished. As often in her cases, a teenager is involved. V.I., the hardboiled detective, has a certifiable soft spot for teenagers. This time it is a teenage girl who V.I.'s dog Mitch finds when they are on a walk around Lake Michigan. The girl is injured and unconscious and has only a faint pulse when V.I. checks her. She calls an ambulance and the girl is taken to the hospital after uttering only one word which seems to make no s | |||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 38 | https://www.parigibooks.com/pages/books/21637/maj-sjowall-per-wahloo/the-locked-room-the-story-of-a-crime | en | The Locked Room: The Story of a Crime | [
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"Maj Sjowall",
"Per Wahloo",
"Maj; Wahloo",
"www.bibliopolis.com"
] | null | New York: Pantheon Books, 1973. First US Edition. Hardcover. Item #21637 ISBN: 0394485335 A fine copy in very good+ price-clipped dustjacket with light wear. A mystery featuring Martin Beck of the Swedish police. Translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin. ; Octavo. | en | /apple-touch-icon-57x57.png | Parigi Books | https://www.parigibooks.com/pages/books/21637/maj-sjowall-per-wahloo/the-locked-room-the-story-of-a-crime | Parigi Books is taking inventory. Orders placed now will ship after September 16th.
Sjowall, Maj; Wahloo, Per
The Locked Room: The Story of a Crime
New York: Pantheon Books, 1973. First US Edition. Hardcover. Item #21637
ISBN: 0394485335
A fine copy in very good+ price-clipped dustjacket with light wear. A mystery featuring Martin Beck of the Swedish police. Translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin. ; Octavo.
Price: $50.00
See all items in Mysteries and Thrillers
See all items by Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 80 | https://746books.com/2022/01/25/no-386-roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo-translated-by-lois-roth/ | en | No 386 Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, translated by Lois Roth | [
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] | null | [] | 2022-01-25T00:00:00 | The series of ten ‘Martin Beck’ police procedurals, which were written in the ‘60s and ‘70s by the Swedish couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are considered classics of the genre, influencing a generation of crime writers across the world. Of their work, Henning Mankell said; They realized that there was a huge, unexplored territory… | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | https://746books.com/2022/01/25/no-386-roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo-translated-by-lois-roth/ | The series of ten ‘Martin Beck’ police procedurals, which were written in the ‘60s and ‘70s by the Swedish couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are considered classics of the genre, influencing a generation of crime writers across the world. Of their work, Henning Mankell said;
They realized that there was a huge, unexplored territory in which crime novels could form the framework for stories containing social criticism.
Indeed, their books are most known for that social criticism, which, when included in ten books published over ten years explores a decade of social and cultural development in Sweden.
Roseanna is the first in the series and opens on a summer’s day in July with the discovery of the strangled body of a young woman, found during a dredging operation in Lake Vättern. The local police in Motala open an investigation, but without being able to even identify the victim, they make little headway and call in assistance from the National Homicide Bureau, led by Detective Martin Beck. When Beck and his team arrive, they have little to go on aside from an approximate time and cause of death. From this, they have to work out who their victim is first, before they can even think about finding her killer.
We haven’t learned a thing since then. We don’t know who she is, we don’t know the scene of the crime, and we have no suspects.
Roseanna takes a while to get going and features a deceptively simple and sparse style. As a procedural it is detailed and lucid, exploring inter-agency working and the day to day slog of detective work, where the officers have to painstakingly identify and contact almost 80 tourists who have now returned to their countries of origin. What it also explores in a fascinating way is the sheer amount of time that an investigation of this kind would take.
The narrative starts in July, with the discovery of the woman’s body and the investigation proceeds at a snail’s pace. Beck and his colleagues don’t find out the woman’s identity for three months and a break in the case doesn’t come until Christmas time. For such a compact and well-paced book, its depiction of the drudgery of this kind of work is spot-on.
Having said that, Roseanna is not a dull book and a lot of that is down to the fact that solving the mystery is not the only concern, with Sjöwall and Wahlöö clearly just as interested in characterisation, believable working practices and the depiction of balancing police work and family life. A lot of the success is clearly down to the character of Beck, who although not fully rounded in this first book, is still an engaging character.
Although crime readers are well-used to the dour, antisocial, dyspeptic detective nowadays, in the form of Wallander or Rebus, Beck’s sheer normality must have been a shock to crime readers in the 1960s. Here is a credible detective – overworked, under-resourced and curmudgeonly because of it. He has trouble at home, trying to communicate with his children and placate his hassled wife. He smokes too much and isn’t fit. He gets sick easily. Beck, and the officers who work for him, come across as normal human beings with lives that are put on hold as they carry out the slog required of a murder investigation.
What’s also impressive about this book is that it doesn’t feel dated despite police work being a completely different world nowadays. Beck and his crew have no mobile phones, no computers and no internet. They rely on telegrams and written reports, pay-phones and holiday photographs. Despite this, and despite the slow nature of the investigation, the novel reads as all good crime novels do, successfully building a growing sense of tension and pace which builds to a really impressive and quite nail-biting denouement.
I read Roseanna for this month’s Nordic FINDS hosted by Annabookbel and look forward to exploring more of the Martin Beck series. | |||||
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"Jeremy Megraw",
"Paul Burke",
"Vicki Weisfeld"
] | 2014-09-21T20:37:41+01:00 | Read our complete guide to the Martin Beck novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, which began in 1965. Set in Stockholm, they gave rise to the Nordic noir genre | en | Crime Fiction Lover | The site for die hard crime & thriller fans | https://crimefictionlover.com/2014/09/cis-a-guide-to-the-martin-beck-series/ | Between 1965 and 75, the husband and wife team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (above) wrote a series of 10 police procedurals set in Stockholm, all carrying the subtitle ‘The Story of a Crime’. Their work was distinct from other crime fiction at the time due to the attention given to the personal lives of the detectives, an emphasis on forensic procedure and, most importantly, how each case held a magnifying glass over society at large. The series features the dyspeptic Detective Martin Beck and his Murder Squad, working cases in the Swedish capital. The homicides they investigate carry them through all strata of society, where skeletons are found in every closet. For Beck and his team, closing a case also means navigating the insufferable bureaucracy of the police, sometimes against all odds.
The birth of a sub-genre
The Martin Beck novels gave rise to the Nordic noir sub-genre. They are the classics and nearly all crime fiction originating in Scandinavia has been influenced – directly, or indirectly – by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s work. One of the books formed the basis for the 70s film The Laughing Policeman, even though it was set in San Francisco, and several others were filmed in German and Swedish. There have been radio adaptations and between 1997 and 2018, there have been seven Swedish TV series with Peter Haber as Martin Beck, and written by the likes of Rolf and Cilla Börjlind.
Scandinavian crime fiction is famous for its use of the gloomy climate to mirror the detective’s tortured psyche. But here each murder victim also speaks volumes about the socio-political climate that is intimately woven into the narrative of police work. Martin Beck’s fictional cases are an historical prism charting Sweden’s progress building its famous welfare state and social democracy. The authors were journalists too, and wanted to explore the moral grey areas of society where so much was meant to be good, but where institutional corruption, the soulless machinations of the police state, terrorism, and the alienation of the citizenry also festered. Their Marxist leanings were no secret, but the novels never feel didactic, and their wry humour always makes us chuckle. Beck himself loathes politics and takes no outward stance. He always supports his colleagues, however incompetent, even as new policies threaten to undermine his ability to do his job.
A thriving market
Sjöwall and Wahlöö used an interesting technique. They would write alternate chapters individually, blending the realism and inherent tedium of police procedure with an irreverent commentary. Their brand of murder, bad weather and social commentary continues to be very much in demand, as is evident in the success of Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbø, Karin Fossum, Arnaldur Indriðason, and many others. Just as their influence endures across crime fiction’s continental borders, so do many of their themes. The trenchant issues in these early novels are prescient of today’s headlines, where increasing social inequality and the militarisation of the police remain vital fodder for crime fiction.
And while all that sounds quite serious, let’s not forget that the Martin Beck series is very entertaining. The stories provide a virtual tour of the Swedish countryside with its variety of dialects and character types. The personal and professional travails of Beck, Kollberg and their colleagues in the Murder Squad become so familiar you can’t help but follow them with genuine concern.
The collaboration between the authors, who were in a 13-year relationship, ended prematurely when Per Wahlöö died after an operation necessitated by pancreatic cancer in 1975. They are so highly regarded in Swedish that stamp was made in their honour in 2010. What follows is a guide to the series – perfect if you want to discover the classics of Scandinavian crime fiction…
Roseanna (1965)
The series begins with the nude body of a young woman found by a dredger in Lake Vättern, in the small district of Motala. It turns out to be an American librarian named Roseanna McGraw who was raped and murdered. When we are introduced to Martin Beck and his investigative team, they all appear quite cranky and don’t even get involved in the case until well into the book. Beck, a chronic smoker, has a perpetual cold and upset stomach, symptoms which seem to align with his failing marriage. He is aided by Sten Lennart Kollberg, an overweight, free-thinking sensualist who detests guns. Kollberg’s appearance belies his martial arts ability. He can be lithe as a tiger when needed.
Kollberg and Beck go way back and seem to read each others’ mind, making extraneous chatter unnecessary. Leaning back in his chair smoking his pipe is Fredrik Melander. Dispassionate and analytical, he is hard-working (when he’s not in the bathroom) and thorough. He has a photographic memory, so never forgets a name, a face or a random fact, making him a very valuable asset. With the help of a local policeman and their American counterpart in Nebraska, Beck devises a crazy plan that just may work – lure the misogynistic killer into a trap using a female undercover cop as bait. For a more comprehensive appreciation of Rosanna, read our earlier article here.
Buy now on Amazon
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
(Mannen som gick upp i rök – 1966)
On the first day of a well deserved vacation, Beck gets a call that he is needed back at HQ. Alf Matsson, a famous journalist, has gone missing. Beck learns that the journalist wasn’t well liked and had planned a trip to Hungary, but not much else, so he follows the reporter’s trail. In Budapest, he wanders around the Eastern Bloc city looking for clues and pondering his failing marriage. He is tailed by the police, tempted by a local woman, and almost murdered for his troubles. After slinking back home in defeat, a tiny detail in the investigation finally delivers a truth nobody could ever have suspected. An interesting historical note, Derek Jacobi portrayed Beck in a 1980 Hungarian film adaption of this book (Der Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste).
Buy now on Amazon
The Man on the Balcony
(Mannen på balkongen – 1967)
During a hot summer in Stockholm, Beck’s Murder Squad is desperately trying to catch a paedophile serial killer before he strikes again. As internal and public pressure mounts, the only clues they have are a three-year-old witness, an old subway ticket and a local thug’s description. The gargantuan grouch Gunvald Larsson is introduced. We also meet the sad sack Einar Rönn, the only known friend of the thunderously abrasive Larsson. Thanks to Melander’s memory, Beck and his team home in on the killer. Two bumbling radio patrolmen from Skane named Kvant and Kristiansson play a pivotal role in the case. A 1993 film adaption of this book starred Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck and Rolf Lassgård as Gunvald Larsson.
Buy now on Amazon
The Laughing Policeman
(Den skrattande polisen – 1968)
In the early dawn hours, a bus full of passengers crashes in a side street. Inept patrolmen Kvant and Kristiansson happen by and they find a bloodbath. There are eight passengers dead, one survivor, all shot execution style by machine gun. Beck and his team learn that one of the victims is their own colleague Detective Åke Stenström. As they wait for the lone survivor to wake up, they learn Stenstrom was conducting a secret investigation unbeknownst to them or even to his widow Åsa Torell, a case which may relate to the massacre. Kollberg learns that Stenström’s grieving widow may join the force herself. As the title indicates, the morose Beck laughs for the first time, but we’ll let you discover why. The famous film adaptation, starring Walter Matthau was wholly unfaithful to the book but is still an enjoyable example of a 1970s American police drama.
Buy now on Amazon
The Fire Engine That Disappeared
(Brandbilen som försvann – 1969)
On a cold winter night Gunvald Larsson assigns the useless Bo Zachrisson one simple task: stake out a doorway. When Zachrisson drops the ball, the whole building explodes into flames. Larsson arrives in time to save many of the inhabitants, but the fire engine called never arrives. Forensics point to suicide by gas by a small-time crook, but a high-tech incendiary device found under his bed raises the flag of terrorism. Coincidentally, another suicide victim across town leaves a simple note: ‘Martin Beck’. Are the cases connected? Meanwhile, at home, Beck’s daughter leaves the nest and advises Beck do the same. Beck’s investigation becomes a hunt for a professional killer, aided by the squad’s young newcomer Benny Skacke.
Buy now on Amazon
Murder at the Savoy
(Polis, polis, potatismos! – 1970)
A nondescript man calmly walks up to a dinner party in a hotel in Malmö and shoots the guest of honor, successful businessman Viktor Palmgren, point blank in the head. He then slips out of a nearby window. Beck’s team has their pick of Palmgren’s many enemies, and uncover a ring of corrupt officials involved in housing and arms dealing – some quite close to home. Larsson sends the bumbling cops Kvant and Kristiansson to cut off the perpetrator’s exit, but in an epic failure involving a hot dog, the murderer slips away. In Murder at the Savoy, the wry irony of the previous books gives way to a more poignant tone as Beck begins to sympathise with the everyman, even the hapless perpetrators of crimes.
Buy now on Amazon
The Abominable Man
(Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle – 1971)
A sadistic police officer is himself brutally murdered while recuperating in the hospital. While the Murder Squad interviews a long list of his abuse victims, rumour has it that Martin Beck is being considered for police commissioner, which is the last thing on his mind. By the time the Murder Squad tracks down the the killer, the man has already positioned himself with an automatic rifle reminiscent of the infamous tower sniper at the University of Austin, and he’s aiming for cops. Beck feels somehow responsible, and makes a daring attempt to capture the killer. In the extremely taut and suspenseful denouement, it is clear that there are no winners, even when the perpetrator is finally taken down.
Buy now on Amazon
The Locked Room
(Det slutna rummet – 1972)
Martin Beck, now divorced and convalescing from a near-death encounter with a sniper, works on an unsolved locked-room case. A man has been found shot dead in his own flat, but no weapon is found and the door is locked from the inside. Beck meets his new love Rhea, who comes to his aid in unexpected ways. Kollberg decides to quit but has one more robbery to solve. The very colourful character Sten ‘Steamroller’ Olsson takes command with one disastrous strike after the next, as the untouchable mastermind Werner Roos eludes capture. Olsson reacts to defeat by convicting the wrong guy. As the Robbery Squad groans in despair at the police’s quasi-military tactics, the true identities of robber and patsy are some of the many it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-so-sad ironies of the book.
Buy now on Amazon
Cop Killer
(Polismördaren – 1974)
When a woman disappears in the sleepy coastal town of Anderslöv, suspicion turns to Folke Bengtsson, the convicted killer of Roseanna from the first book. A decade has passed and now he leads a quiet life in the town. Beck is sent and finds a friend in rural police chief Herrgot Allwright, and they attempt to get to Bengtsson before local vigilante justice can. Lacking evidence, Bengstsson is arrested anyway by the gun-ho commissioner. Meanwhile in Malmö, a troubled youth in the wrong place at the wrong time becomes the subject of a manhunt when a cop dies during a scuffle with his gang. As the public clamors for the young man’s blood, Gunvald Larsson and the Murder Squad must rescue the delinquent before an armed police task force takes him out.
Buy now on Amazon
The Terrorists
(Terroristerna – 1975)
In this final instalment of the Story of a Crime, finished by Maj Sjöwall upon Per Wahlöö’s death, irony abounds as do fast-paced suspense and dark humour. With echoes of the cop killer theme in the previous book, an ordinary girl named Rebecka Lund is wrongly accused of robbing a bank and becomes a victim of the system (note the statement made by the original book cover, left). Although he must solve the case of a murdered pornographer, Beck’s activities are mainly occupied with foiling a terrorist plot to kill a visiting American senator. Rebecka Lund’s fate leaves Beck with the bitter after taste of justice system doled out according to social class. He goes home to play Scrabble with his friends, and on the board at least, Kollberg gets the last word of the series.
Buy now on Amazon | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 42 | https://mrspeabodyinvestigates.com/2012/10/05/foreign-bodies-new-fifteen-part-radio-4-series-on-european-crime-fiction-begins-22-october-2012/ | en | ‘Foreign Bodies’: New fifteen-part Radio 4 series on European crime fiction begins 22 October 2012 | http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Friedrich-Durrenmatt-Judge-and-His-Hangman-SCARCE-1st-1st-1955-NR-/00/s/NDc2WDMxOQ==/$(KGrHqJ,!ngE8VTJ0kn)BP(tSr3Kjw~~60_12.JPG | http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Friedrich-Durrenmatt-Judge-and-His-Hangman-SCARCE-1st-1st-1955-NR-/00/s/NDc2WDMxOQ==/$(KGrHqJ,!ngE8VTJ0kn)BP(tSr3Kjw~~60_12.JPG | [
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] | null | [] | 2012-10-05T00:00:00 | This major new series showcases the best of European crime fiction and will be an absolute treasure trove for fans of international crime. Entitled 'Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives', and presented by Front Row's Mark Lawson, it will air on Radio 4 over three weeks, at 1.45pm from Monday 22 October to Friday 9 November (accessible here).… | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/dd9441eea6906dc567d5793119fe3bcc40625e3f40556df0311555301ce14f3c?s=32 | Mrs. Peabody Investigates | https://mrspeabodyinvestigates.com/2012/10/05/foreign-bodies-new-fifteen-part-radio-4-series-on-european-crime-fiction-begins-22-october-2012/ | In ‘Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives’, Lawson investigates the tensions and trends of Europe since the Second World War by focusing on some of the celebrated investigators from European fiction, and their creators.
The series accompanies dramatizations of all the Martin Beck novels, starring actor Stephen Mackintosh in the title role. Written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö the novels are widely acknowledged as some of the most important and influential crime fiction ever written. The authors paved the way for subsequent generations of crime writers to illustrate society and its most dysfunctional elements through crime and criminal investigations, future fallible heroes – Kurt Wallander and John Rebus to name but two – making the best fist they can of their own lives, whilst trying to tackle the violence and crime around them.
Gwyneth Williams, Controller BBC Radio 4, said: “This Autumn we explore the mood and mores of European cities in the company of eccentric detectives. And what better way to take a Radio 4 journey through Europe than to travel with the likes of Martin Beck, Inspector Rogas, Pepe Carvalho, Kemal Kayankaya.
“And at the heart of the series we bring you a complete dramatization of the little-known but hugely respected Martin Beck books by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – all ten of them. These are the stories that inspired the Scandinavian explosion of crime writing we have seen in recent years and are referenced by many eminent writers such as Ian Rankin. Stephen Mackintosh plays Martin Beck and he is sure to hook you in.”
In crime fiction, everyday details become crucial clues: the way people dress and speak, the cars they drive, the jobs they have, the meals they eat. And the motivations of the criminals often turn on guilty secrets: how wealth was created, who slept with who, or a character’s role during the war. The intricate story of a place and a time is often explained in more detail in detective novels than in more literary fiction or newspapers, both of which can take contemporary information for granted.
In ‘Foreign Bodies’, Mark Lawson focuses on some of the most celebrated investigators – everyone from popular modern protagonists including Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander; Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole; and Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano; through to Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus; Lynda La Plante’s DCI Jane Tennison; and Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck; back to a Belgian created by an Englishwoman and a French cop created by a Belgian – Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret.
Through the framework of cases investigated by these fictional European police heroes and heroines, ‘Foreign Bodies’ pursues the shadows of the Second World War and the Cold War, conflicts between the politics of the left and right, the rise of nationalist sentiments and the pressures caused by economic crises and migration. Among the writers helping Lawson with his inquiries into their characters are: Jo Nesbø, Andrea Camilleri, PD James, Henning Mankell, Liza Marklund, Ian Rankin and Lynda La Plante.
The ten Martin Beck detective novels featuring Detective Inspector Martin Beck and his colleagues in the National Police Homicide Department in Stockholm will air in two parts. The dramatizations of the first five novels will start on October 27th, 2012 with the second five airing in Spring 2013. The radio dramas are written by Katie Hims and Jennifer Howarth, and directed by Mary Peate and Sara Davies.
Accompanying the dramas and Mark’s series, Radio 4 Extra will broadcast a reading, in five parts, of The Judge and His Hangman in October. Originally published as a novella in 1950 by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, it explores the themes of guilt and responsibility following the Second World War, and shows protagonist Inspector Bärlach finding his own solution to bringing a career criminal to justice.” | ||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Beck | en | Martin Beck | [
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] | 2004-05-21T00:52:50+00:00 | en | /static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Beck | Fictional Swedish police detective
For other uses, see Martin Beck (disambiguation).
Martin BeckRoseanna
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
The Man on the Balcony
The Laughing Policeman
The Fire Engine That Disappeared
Murder at the Savoy
The Abominable Man
The Locked Room
Cop Killer
The TerroristsAuthorMaj Sjöwall and Per WahlööTranslatorLois Roth (1), Joan Tate (2, 5, 6, 10), Alain Blair (3, 4), Amy and Ken Knoespel (6), Thomas Teal (7, 9) and Paul Britten Austin (8).CountrySwedenLanguageSwedish, translated into EnglishDisciplinePolice proceduralPublished1965-1975No. of books10
Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in a series of ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö,[1] collectively titled The Story of a Crime. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been adapted into films between 1967 and 1994. Six were adapted for the series featuring Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck.
Between 1997 and 2018 there have also been 38 films (some released direct for video and broadcast on television) based on the characters, with Peter Haber as Martin Beck. Apart from the core duo of Beck and his right-hand man Gunvald Larsson, the latter adaptations bear little resemblance to the plots of the original series. They feature a widely different and evolving cast of characters, though roughly similar themes and settings around Stockholm.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Sjöwall and Wahlöö conceived and wrote a series of ten police procedural novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the Swedish national police; in these the character of Martin Beck was the protagonist.[2] (Both authors also wrote novels separately.) For the Martin Beck series, they plotted and researched each book together, and then wrote alternate chapters simultaneously.[3] The books cover ten years and are renowned for extensive character and setting development throughout the series. This is in part due to careful planning by Sjöwall and Wahlöö.[4]
Roseanna (Roseanna, 1965)
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966)
The Man on the Balcony (Mannen på balkongen, 1967)
The Laughing Policeman (Den skrattande polisen, 1968) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1971)
The Fire Engine That Disappeared (Brandbilen som försvann, 1969)
Murder at the Savoy (Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970)
The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971)
The Locked Room (Det slutna rummet, 1972)
Cop Killer (Polismördaren, 1974)
The Terrorists (Terroristerna, 1975)
Martin Beck: The protagonist of the series, Martin Beck goes from being an unhappily married man and father of two young teenagers, to a divorced man in a happy unmarried relationship with Rhea Nielsen, a kind and emphatic landlady whom Beck meets while investigating the death of a man who was Nielsen's tenant. Beck is prone to colds and often suffers from ailments and physical discomforts. Beck also gets several promotions, from Detective to Inspector, and Chief of the National Murder Squad by the end of the series. This seems to be to the chagrin of everyone involved, including him, as he hates the vision of being confined to desk work. In Cop Killer, he is happily spared a promotion to a Commissioner. In The Terrorists, he is, however, forced to become Chief of Operations in an important job protecting an American senator, meaning that he is for once, in theory, higher in position than his superior, Malm. He is allowed to assemble his perfect team, consisting of Larsson, Rönn, Skacke, Melander and himself. He does extremely well coordinating the desk work and keeping in communication (through allowing Melander to handle all telephone communications, and diverting all telephone calls, or switching off the telephone altogether whenever he needs time to think), impressing the Commissioner. In The Abominable Man, he is shot and severely wounded. He quits smoking after the incident as his favourite manufacturer discontinues his preferred type of cigarette.
Lennart Kollberg: Beck's most trusted colleague; a sarcastic glutton with a Socialist worldview; served as a paratrooper. After having shot and accidentally killed a person in the line of duty, he refuses to carry a gun. He is newly married in the second book and fathers two children over the course of the series. In The Fire Engine That Disappeared, he refers to Gunvald Larsson as "the stupidest detective in the history of criminal investigation", and in The Abominable Man, Larsson informs him, "I've always thought you were a fucking idiot". Through working with each other on numerous investigations, they later come to understand each other. He resigns from the force at the end of the penultimate book, Cop Killer. He realises he was ashamed of what the police force had become, but still has the last word in the last book.
Gunvald Larsson: A former member of the merchant marine and the black sheep of a rich family, he has a liking for expensive clothes and pulp fiction including the work of Sax Rohmer. He is one of the few people outside East Germany who owns and drives a sports car manufactured by Eisenacher Motorenwerk. He is somewhat lacking in interpersonal skills and is disliked by most of his colleagues. He and Kollberg share a mutual antipathy, but are capable of working together efficiently when the occasion demands it. However, although he often treats Einar Rönn with the same boorishness, Rönn is his only friend. The two are close, often spending time together off the job. His rich, cultured family taught him how to behave correctly in all circumstances, something which the Commissioner notes that he tries to conceal. Larsson has a penchant for expensive clothes, and his tailored suits frequently get ruined during his investigations. He is tall and has china blue eyes, and is in extremely good shape. He is noted as the best in the team at breaking down doors.
Einar Rönn: Larsson's friend from Arjeplog in the rural north of Sweden, he is married to a Lapp woman. He is permanently red-nosed, incapable of writing a coherent report and totally unimaginative, but a hard-working and efficient policeman. He is very calm and peaceful, losing his temper only once (on Larsson's behalf) in all the books. By the end of the series, Beck notes that Rönn had defied all expectations to become a valuable asset to the team, and someone whom he could trust.
Benny Skacke: A young ambitious, overzealous and sometimes hapless detective. He is introduced in the fifth book as a new member of the homicide commission, but later transfers to Malmö for personal reasons. Skacke is still somewhat naïve, seeking to become police commissioner, but he is noted by Beck in the last book as having matured significantly.
Fredrik Melander: Noted for his flawless memory and for always being in the lavatory when anyone wants him. Melander is described as a first-class policeman in The Fire Engine That Disappeared, but also as very boring. He insists on getting ten hours of sleep every night and has illegible handwriting. He is noted for having no temper displays and being immune to flattery. He later transfers to the Burglary and Theft division in an effort to avoid overtime. After, he is featured briefly in the later books in the series (except The Terrorists). In the Terrorists, Beck puts him in charge of telephone communications for his skill in having a long conversation with someone and getting nothing done.
Evald Hammar: Beck's boss until he retires in the end of The Fire Engine That Disappeared. He is mild-mannered, trusts his men's judgment, and dislikes the political infighting which increasingly accompanies his job.
Stig Malm: Beck's boss from Murder at the Savoy onwards. A politician with little understanding of police work who is willing to do anything to get up the career ladder, for whom Beck eventually feels sorry by the end of the book. Malm is often ordered around by the National Police Commissioner. He has an overly high opinion of himself, not hampered by his one case as Chief of Operations ending in disaster.
Kurt Kvant and Karl Kristiansson
Lazy and inept partner patrolmen from Skåne who are shouted at by Larsson. At one point their trampling all over a crime scene resulted in a lengthy investigation, as no footprints or fingerprints could be taken at the scene. After Kvant is killed in The Abominable Man, Kristiansson has a new partner, Kenneth Kvastmo, who is equally inept but far more zealous.
Per Månsson
A leisurely but very competent Malmö detective who becomes involved in several of Beck's cases. He is particularly known for his searching skills.
Åke Stenström
A young detective noted for his shadowing skills. He is killed in The Laughing Policeman.
Åsa Torell
Widow of Åke Stenström, who later decides to become a cop herself. She appears prominently in Murder at the Savoy and The Terrorists.
Aldor Gustavsson
A mediocre policeman, who bungles the initial investigation in The Locked Room.
Backlund
An unimaginative and rigid detective in Malmö.
Inga Beck
Martin Beck's wife, whom he later divorces.
Ingrid Beck
Martin Beck's daughter, often described as mature and independent. She has a good relationship with her father, and they often go out for dinner together. She urges Beck to leave her mother Inga.
Rolf Beck
Martin Beck's lazy son, with whom he has a poor relationship. Beck finally admits to himself in a later book that he dislikes the boy.
Rune Ek
One of the detectives. The character is usually minor, but appears more prominently in The Laughing Policeman.
Emil Elofsson and Gustav Borglund
Two partner patrolmen in Malmö. They appear in The Fire Engine that Disappeared and Cop Killer. In the later book, Borglund is killed by a wasp.
Norman Hansson
A uniformed police sergeant in some of the books.
Oskar Hjelm
A highly skilled but vain and temperamental forensic scientist, who is highly susceptible to flattery. Beck uses this weakness on a daily basis.
Gun Kollberg
Kollberg's young wife and mother of his two children.
Rhea Nielsen
Martin Beck's new girlfriend after he divorces his wife. She is an open socialist, and enjoys cooking. The series ends with Kollberg and his wife Gun, and Beck and Nielson having a happy New Years' party, in a perfect atmosphere with Nielsen's delicious cooking. She is a landlady, having inherited a block of apartments. Unlike many other landlords, she takes good care of the property, and builds a social community around her apartments. She charges less rent than average, and has them well refurbished. She meets Beck in The Locked Room, as the ex-landlady of the deceased man. Intelligent and straight-talking, she is a professional social worker.
Herrgott Nöjd (Herrgott Allwright or Herrgott Content in English translations)
A down-to-earth police officer from the rural district of Anderslöv, who gets on well with just about anybody. Appears in the books Cop Killer and The Terrorists.
Sten Robert "Bulldozer" Olsson
A very busy, energetic and enthusiastic public prosecutor in charge of investigating and prosecuting bank robbers. He has a big part in The Locked Room, where several fiascos occur under his watch when he insists on personally overseeing the investigation. He is known for being so busy, with often 10 cases at once, that he never appeals a case after losing, which he rarely does.
Strömgren
A Stockholm detective with a minor role in some of the books. Little is known about him, but he is disliked by both Beck and Larsson. In The Terrorists he apparently is a spy for Bulldozer Olsson.
Richard Ullholm
A pedantic and nit-picking detective in some of the books. He is constantly making official complaints about his colleagues over usually minor details.
Bo Zachrisson
Another mediocre policeman, who appears in The Fire Engine That Disappeared and later lets the Prime Minister get assassinated in The Terrorists. Eric Möller, the chief of Security Police, mistakes Larsson's "CS" (meaning Clod Squad) list of policemen who should not be used for any important duties, as the "Commando Section".
All ten novels have been adapted to film. Some have been released under different titles and four have been filmed outside Sweden. The first actor to play Martin Beck was Keve Hjelm in 1967. Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt portrayed Beck in 1976.
In 1993 and 1994, Gösta Ekman played the character in six films. American audiences are likely most familiar with Walter Matthau playing the Beck role in the 1973 film called The Laughing Policeman, where his character was called "Jake Martin."
Martin Beck has also been played by Jan Decleir, Derek Jacobi and Romualds Ancāns. Two of the novels, Roseanna and Murder at the Savoy, have each twice been adapted for films. In the later TV series films based more on the named characters than events, Martin Beck is played by Peter Haber.
1967 – Roseanna (Sw) (based on Roseanna, starring Keve Hjelm)
1973 – The Laughing Policeman (US) (based on The Laughing Policeman, starring Walter Matthau; the setting is changed to San Francisco and the characters have different names)
1976 – Mannen på taket ("The man on the roof") (Sw) (based on The Abominable Man, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt)
1979 – Nezakonchennyy uzhin ("The unfinished supper") (USSR) (based on Murder at the Savoy, starring Romualds Ancāns (lv)
1980 – Der Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste ("The man who disappeared into thin air") (Ger) (based on The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, starring British actor Derek Jacobi)
1993 – Beck – De gesloten kamer ("Beck- the closed room") (Neth) (based on The Locked Room, starring Jan Decleir)
1993 – Roseanna (based on Roseanna)
1993 – Brandbilen som försvann (based on The Fire Engine That Disappeared)
1993 – Polis polis potatismos! (based on Murder at the Savoy)
1993 – Mannen på balkongen (based on The Man on the Balcony)
1994 – Polismördaren (based on Cop Killer)
1994 – Stockholm Marathon (loosely based on The Terrorists)
Further information: Beck (Swedish TV series)
The BBC dramatised the ten stories for radio and broadcast began in October 2012 on BBC Radio 4 under the umbrella title of The Martin Beck Killings.
The series stars Steven Mackintosh as Beck, Neil Pearson as Kollberg, Ralph Ineson as Larsson, Russell Boulter as Rönn, and Adrian Scarborough as Melander.[5]
1 – Roseanna (27 October 2012)
2 – The Man who Went Up in Smoke (3 November 2012)
3 – The Man on the Balcony (10 November 2012)
4 – The Laughing Policeman (17 November 2012)
5 – The Fire Engine That Disappeared (24 November 2012)
6 – Murder at the Savoy (6 July 2013)
7 – The Abominable Man (13 July 2013)
8 – The Locked Room (20 July 2013)
9 – Cop Killer (27 July 2013)
10 – The Terrorists (3 August 2013)
Sjöwall and Wahlöö's technique of mixing traditional crime fiction with a focus on the social issues in the Swedish welfare state received a great deal of attention.[6] The concept has been updated in the 1990s with Henning Mankell's detective character Kurt Wallander and in the 2000s with Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy featuring Lisbeth Salander. The basic concept has, by extension, given rise to the entire Scandinavian noir scene. The Mystery Writers of America, in 1995, rated The Laughing Policeman as the 2nd best police procedural, after Tony Hillerman's Dance Hall of the Dead.[7] | ||||||
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"Amy Dale",
"Jill Hunter",
"Phyllis Sakinofsky",
"Stewart King",
"Dr Alistair Rolls",
"Jesper Gulddal"
] | 2022-09-12T03:50:52+00:00 | Once seen as the purview of British and American writers, crime fiction is very much a global phenomenon. Fictional investigators such as Lisbeth Salander, Kurt Wallander and Jules Maigret are now perhaps as well known as Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. | en | Law Society Journal | https://lsj.com.au/articles/turning-the-page-how-crime-fiction-went-global/ | By Stewart King, Dr Alistair Rolls and Jesper Gulddal - Sep 12, 2022 1:50 pm AEST
Once seen as the purview of British and American writers, crime fiction is very much a global phenomenon. Fictional investigators such as Lisbeth Salander, Kurt Wallander and Jules Maigret are now perhaps as well known as Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.
Crime fiction today is written, published, sold and read on all continents. In many countries, it ranks among the most popular forms of literature. It might not be an exaggeration to claim that crime fiction is the most global of literary genres.
For English-language readers, however, the world of crime fiction was, until recently, limited to a few authors writing in other languages, like Franco-Belgian Georges Simenon and Swedish partners in crime Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Other writers were of course translated, but they found it hard to enter a marketplace already crowded with British and American crime fiction.
When readers of English wanted to go beyond Paris and Stockholm, British and American writers themselves filled in the gaps. They did this either by sending their detectives on investigations abroad (one model is Poirot’s excursions in France and the Middle East), or by writing “foreign” crime novels – like Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.
That English-speaking readers had little access to the world’s crime fiction did not, of course, mean that it didn’t exist. It just wasn’t available in translation. This has changed over the last 20 years as a result of a boom in crime fiction translations. In particular, translations of “Nordic Noir” have exposed English-language readers to the diversity of the world’s crime fiction.
A long history of innovation
The publication in English of crime fiction from around the world has surprised many, challenging some firmly held views about the genre.
Consider the common idea that Edgar Allan Poe invented the genre in 1841 when he published The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe’s story itself is more modest and mentions Eugène François Vidocq, the real-life criminal cum chief of the Parisian police, whose fictionalised memoirs predate Poe’s story.
Poe was also influenced by E.T.A Hoffmann, whose 1814 novella Mademoiselle de Scuderi contains an amateur detective of sorts. Poe may also have found inspiration in stories of crime and investigation in classic literature. In Arabian Nights, for example, Scheherazade tells the story of a murder investigation to stave off her own murder.
Looking further east, a popular and dynamic form of crime writing known as gong’an, or court-case fiction, had already emerged in China in the 10th century. These court-case stories were exported to Korea and Japan in the 17th and 18th centuries, where local writers adapted the Chinese originals to Korean and Japanese settings.
Chinese court-case fictions made their way to the West in 1949 through Robert Van Gulik, a Dutch diplomat and sinologist. Van Gulik translated into English an 18th-century novel featuring Judge Dee before launching a long series of his own featuring this Chinese magistrate.
Despite this more complex, transnational account of the genre’s worldwide development, there is a persistent belief that crime fiction from around the world is merely imitative of British and American models. This belief is a consequence of the widespread adoption of the western conventions of crime writing, sometimes displacing, but not erasing local traditions, like the gong’an.
In China in 1914, for example, Cheng Xiaoqing, a translator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, began a series of popular short stories featuring amateur detective Huo Sang. Similarly, in Japan, Seishi Yokomizo played with the locked-room mystery format in The Honjin Murders (1948). This novel launched a series of 77 titles that eventually sold over 55 million copies. It has only recently become available in English translation.
The adaptation of British and American models has tended to reinforce the view that, as mere imitation, the fundamental interest of world crime fiction lies in its depiction of place. This assumption is only reinforced by critics who seek to account for the growing popularity of world crime fiction.
The Independent’s Jonathan Gibbs focuses on place by taking readers Around the World in 80 Sleuths. In the essay Death Takes a Holiday, Marilyn Stasio recommends a crime fictional tour for her New York Review of Books’ readership that begins in Cuba and ends up in Botswana, stopping on the way in places such as Melbourne, Shanghai, Sicily, Japan, Spain and Egypt.
Gibbs and Stasio share a belief, summed up by Clive James in his New Yorker essay Blood on the Borders, that international crime novels “essentially […] are guidebooks”. Having “run through all its possible variations of plot and character”, the crime novel, James asserts, is not a matter “of what happens but of where”.
This is a compelling idea, one that is often repeated by critics and scholars. But James is wrong. Editing The Cambridge Companion to World Crime Fiction (2022) has taught us that world crime fiction is nothing of the kind. For writers like Ukrainian Andrey Kurkov, Argentine Claudia Piñeiro, and Israeli Dror Mishani, both crimes and where they happen are important.
These writers don’t produce edgy guidebooks for foreigners. They use the international forms and tropes as a means of critically examining the political, socio-economic and historical issues of the local setting for local readers. For James and others, these crime scenes may be foreign, but they are not foreign for the citizen-readers of the places the novels are set.
The crime novel, moreover, is far from having exhausted its ability to innovate, as James suggests. Our research into world crime fiction has thrown up some fascinating examples of the ways in which writers from around the world, including here in Australia, have blended international and local literary conventions and expanded the genre’s possibilities.
This blending of different literary traditions sometimes happens in a smooth and almost seamless way. Indonesian Eka Kurniawan is a good example. When growing up in a Javanese village, Kurniawan was exposed both to local legends and Western popular fiction. At university, he was equally interested in postcolonial Indonesian writers and the classics of Western modernism. As a result, his crime novel Man Tiger (2004) mixes local and Western influences.
The novel tells the story of a good-natured young man, Margio, who one day brutally murders a wealthy villager. In telling this story, Kurniawan sends a nod to another classic of world crime fiction, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981). Like Márquez’s novella, Man Tiger turns the crime novel upside down by revealing the identity of the murderer on the first page. The rest of the book is dedicated to explaining this seemingly unmotivated murder. As readers learn early in the novel, Margio harbours within him a ferocious white tiger. An unexpected supernatural element in a crime story, this spirit being is a striking symbol of rage and the desire for justice and revenge. When Margio is pushed beyond his breaking point, the tiger erupts with uncontrollable violence.
Interestingly, Kurniawan combines various literary styles and influences. The frequent shifts between different narrators and points in time can be seen as a device inherited from oral storytelling. Yet a see-sawing narrative of this kind is also a hallmark of Western modernism. In the same way, the spirit tiger is based on a local Indonesian legend, but it also has links to the Western literary motif of the “animal within”, as depicted most famously in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Although Kurniawan draws on Western crime-fiction conventions, he always blends them with Indonesian forms and themes.
Reflecting Indonesia’s historical status as a place where East meets West, Man Tiger is a hotchpotch of influences. The combination is both productive and innovative. It enables Kurniawan to tell a poignant story about injustice and lack of opportunities for young people in rural Indonesia. Man Tiger is both highly localised and highly globalised; it creates a literary form that is hybrid rather than simply the product of a single national tradition.
Some critics have argued that crime fiction is condemned forever to repeat the classic plot structures. But global crime fiction, far from being touristic or second-rate or formulaic, is a laboratory of innovation.
First Nations’ crime fiction
The melding of traditions can sometimes undo rather than integrate Western crime fiction conventions. First Nations’ crime fiction from the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries is a particularly good example of the push for genre reinvention.
For Indigenous authors, simply taking over Western crime fiction tropes is not an appealing option. These forms are often tainted by links to colonial and racist ideologies. Think, for example, of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, such as The Sign of Four or the short-story The Speckled Band, which are rife with racist and imperialist ideologies.
Moreover, canonical crime fiction is mostly based on Western forms of knowledge and does not reflect the Indigenous experience of policing and justice. Indigenous authors are therefore faced with the task of “decolonising” crime fiction – that is, reinventing the genre in ways that break with the colonial heritage and open up the form to Indigenous perspectives and knowledges.
Murri author Nicole Watson’s The Boundary (2011), for example, is a novel that draws on the standard elements of crime fiction, while at the same time trying to radically transform them. The story plays out against the background of colonial dispossession and its legacies in contemporary Australia.
Led by the Aboriginal lawyer Miranda Eversely, the fictional Corrowa people have filed a case with the Native Land Tribunal to reclaim part of their ancestral lands in central Brisbane. The claim is rejected, reflecting current Australian law. To gain Native Title, Aboriginal communities have to show a continuous connection to the land. This is something that Aboriginal communities cannot always do in a legally acceptable way, as colonisation often resulted in the severing of those connections.
The following morning, the judge in the case is found murdered. Shortly afterwards, two lawyers on the opposing side are also killed. Seeing the murders as acts of revenge, the police immediately cast their suspicion on the Corrowa People.
This all sounds like the blueprint for a standard police procedural, only with Aboriginal themes. The Boundary, however, is nothing of the sort. The novel is mainly interested in the police as a means of drawing attention to the organisation’s systemic racism. It describes how the two lead officers respond to the investigation in different ways. One of them, Jason Matthews, embarks on a process of reconnecting with his Aboriginal roots. The other, Andrew Higgins, goes on a rampage and beats an Indigenous man to death – a reflection of the ongoing tragedy of Aboriginal deaths in custody.
The Boundary pointedly undermines the notion that the ending of a crime novel is a moment of truth and healing. The solution offered by the police is shown to be either wrong or incomplete. Instead, the novel offers other possible solutions, one of which involves Red Feathers, an Aboriginal “cleverman”, who has returned to avenge the injustices done to the Corrowa. In another break with conventional Western crime fiction, this spiritual being is accepted as part of the novel’s broad Indigenous concept of reality.
The novel’s reluctance to answer the question of “whodunit” is important. It suggests that, from an Aboriginal perspective, true closure is difficult to achieve. Even if the murders could be pinned on a single person, the fundamental crimes of colonisation and dispossession would not be resolved. The Corrowa remain cut off from their traditional lands.
What Man Tiger and The Boundary have in common is the attempt to bend and mould the conventions of crime fiction to suit a new, non-Western setting. In doing so, they repeatedly violate the “rules” of the genre. Kurniawan’s early revelation of the killer and Watson’s unwillingness to offer a definitive solution are two examples of a much broader tendency. These are not simply responding to Western conventions. They also create new, locally sourced ways of telling a crime story – notably by introducing supernatural elements that traditionally have no place in traditional Western crime fiction.
Contemporary issues
Authors from around the world also use the genre to debate issues that traditionally had little role to play in crime fiction. Often these debates revolve around crimes that transcend the nation and are of concern to both local and global readers.
Crimes against the environment have become an important topic in world crime fiction. In Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (2009), Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk uses a crime narrative to call attention to animal rights. Provocatively, her protagonist equates the killing of animals with the murder of people. Chilean author Roberto Ampuero’s El alemán de Atacama (1996) – “The German from Atacama” (the novel is yet to be translated into English) – focuses on multinational mining corporations that use Third World countries as a dumping ground for toxic waste. Authors such as Jordi de Manuel (Spain/Catalonia) and Antti Tuomainen (Finland) have written crime fiction with climate change as the central theme.
However, the range of world crime fiction is much wider and also involves other transnational themes such as global capitalism, drugs trafficking and migration.
Gender roles and gender inequalities are also examples of classic themes of Western crime fiction that are now being addressed in new ways by non-Western authors. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer (2018) offers a darkly humorous take on gender expectations and social media in Nigeria. Kishwar Desai has published three confronting novels about gender-based violence in India. And in Japan, Kirino Natsuo explores the impact of exploitative neoliberal practices on working-class women in Out (1997).
Some critics have argued that crime fiction is condemned forever to repeat the classic plot structures. But global crime fiction, far from being touristic or second-rate or formulaic, is a laboratory of innovation. It is constantly rewriting the genre’s rulebook and expanding its thematic repertoire. It has created new pathways for the genre by mixing international and local forms.
The next time you pick up a foreign crime novel you might find something that goes far beyond a gritty form of literary tourism. On the contrary, the harrowing acts of violence committed in world crime fiction provide insights into issues that affect us all.
Stewart King, Senior Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University; Dr Alistair Rolls, Associate Professor of French Studies, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Newcastle, Australia, University of Newcastle, and Jesper Gulddal, Associate Professor, University of Newcastle
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 20 | https://www.cageyfilms.com/2011/01/walter-matthau-man-of-action/ | en | Walter Matthau, man of action? | [
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"actors",
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"Kenneth George Godwin"
] | 2011-01-06T05:08:30-06:00 | The series of ten Martin Beck novels written by Swedish husband and wife Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall between 1965 and 1975 are not entirely conventional mysteries. They are police procedurals which focus on the tedious sifting of facts and clues which may or may not lead anywhere, in which accident and coincidence often abruptly | en | Cagey Films | K. George Godwin - Film Editor | https://www.cageyfilms.com/2011/01/walter-matthau-man-of-action/ | The series of ten Martin Beck novels written by Swedish husband and wife Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall between 1965 and 1975 are not entirely conventional mysteries. They are police procedurals which focus on the tedious sifting of facts and clues which may or may not lead anywhere, in which accident and coincidence often abruptly alter the course of the narrative, or bring it to an abrupt end without much sense of surprise or revelation, or suddenly transform it into a completely different story which then has to be pursued through more painstaking analysis of evidence. The authors used the series to paint an increasingly critical portrait of Swedish society and politics, and to document the decline of the police into a brutal, almost fascist organization whose purpose shifted steadily from the solving of crimes to the “control” of what the authorities considered an unruly society.
A few months ago, I watched a DVD of Man on the Roof, Bo Widerberg’s 1976 adaptation of the seventh novel, The Abominable Man, a faithful and efficient conversion from page to screen of one of the series’ most straightforward stories. It begins with the brutal murder of a terminally ill police officer in his hospital room; Beck and his colleagues know that the victim, Nyman, was a terrible policeman, violent and corrupt. So they have to dig back into the records and investigate people who had filed formal complaints against him, quickly narrowing the list down to one, a policeman for whose wife’s death Nyman was responsible – and just as they figure out who the murderer is, he takes to the roof of his apartment building in central Stockholm and starts shooting at any policemen he sees down in the streets. While Beck empathizes with the sniper, the police commissioner mounts a disastrous military-style assault on the building.
Watching this movie triggered a renewed interest in the books, the last of which I had read some 35 years ago. It took me a while to dig them out of boxes in the basement, but I eventually found all ten and have just finished reading them in sequence. Gloomy, to be sure, but also engrossing.
It was while reading the fourth book, The Laughing Policeman (1968), that I recalled seeing the American adaptation back in 1973, scripted by Thomas Rickman and directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Rickman had just co-written Kansas City Bomber (1972), the roller derby movie starring Raquel Welch, and would follow Policeman with the script of Philip Kaufman’s The White Dawn (1974) and later, among other things, Coalminer’s Daughter (1980), for which he got an Oscar nomination. Rosenberg, of course, is best known for Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and The Amityville Horror (1979).
The Laughing Policeman is not a very good adaptation of the book – not because it’s been transposed to San Francisco, but because the script strips out all the detail, the ways in which the investigators have to dig back through the identities and backgrounds of the victims of a mass murder on a city bus, leading back to another crime (in the book, committed sixteen years previous; in the film, only two). In the book, Beck has to solve the old cold case in order to understand the motive for the bus murders; in the film, the old case was already his and he had a suspect, but simply couldn’t pin the crime on him. So, very little detecting, all leading to an implausible action finale rather than the book’s sad exposure of pathetic human behaviour.
Having tracked down a copy of The Laughing Policeman on DVD, I realized that it marked the centre of an odd two year period in the early ’70s when Walter Matthau briefly became an unexpected lead in thrillers. While he had started out as a dramatic actor in the early ’50s (he delivers a wicked Kissinger impersonation in Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe [1964]), he switched almost exclusively to comedy after making The Fortune Cookie for Billy Wilder in 1966. But then, in 1973, Don Siegel cast him in Charley Varrick, one of the director’s best features, in which Matthau played a small-time bank robber who inadvertently steals a big stash of mob money and finds himself pursued by both the police and a hit man played by Joe Don Baker. With his loose, shlubby looks, Matthau works well as a guy who’s much smarter than the people around him think he is and he successfully outwits everyone.
He followed Varrick with Policeman, then the next year capped this run of thrillers with the best of the three, Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), in which he plays a New York transit employee who has to deal with the hijacking of a subway train (a role Denzel Washington took in Tony Scott’s fine 2009 remake).
Seen together, these three movies illustrate something odd about Matthau as an actor. In Varrick, at tense moments he pops a stick of gum in his mouth and chews with highly exaggerated lip movements. Then in Policeman, the gum completely takes over – the entire performance is built around this bizarre chewing, and frankly I recalled when watching it again that this was the main reason I didn’t like the movie when I saw it back in 1973; it’s an actorly mannerism which is so distracting that you barely notice what else is going on in a scene. But the next year, in Pelham, there isn’t a stick of gum in sight. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is the primary reason Pelham is the best of the three films, but it does allow the tension of the plot to do its work without unnecessary distractions. Did Matthau somehow believe that this cud-chewing signalled “drama” rather than “comedy”, finding those sticks of gum a necessary crutch? Did Sargent tell him to get rid of it and just get on with playing the character? Was having to perform the transit cop without the aid of gum the reason that Matthau returned to comedy later that year?
Either way, these three movies offer a peculiar interlude in the middle of a long career: Walter Matthau, almost-an-action-star. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 22 | https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/24/archives/per-wahloo-author-with-wife-of-detective-beck-series-dies.html | en | Per Wahloo, Author With Wife Of Detective Beck Series, Dies | [
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] | 1975-06-24T00:00:00 | Wahloo, Per | en | /vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico | https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/24/archives/per-wahloo-author-with-wife-of-detective-beck-series-dies.html | Per Wahloo, who achieved worldwide recognition for the detective novels that he and his wife, Maj Sjowall, created while their children slept, has died. His death, at the age of 48, was announced yesterday in Malmo, Sweden, where he lived.
Although Mr. Wahloo won favorable comment as the author of Kafkaesque allegories set in police‐procedurai novels, he was perhaps best known—and most popular—for the collaboration with his wife that introduced Detective Martin Beck of the Stockholm police force to mystery fans.
Mirror to Society
In such novels as “The Man on the Balcony,” “The Man Who Went Up in Smoke,” “The Laughing Policeman,” “Murder at the Savoy” and “The Abominable Man,” the team set out to mirror society through the novel of crime.
And, although the plots ostensibly were woven around a brutal mugging, perhaps, or the disappearance of a globetrotting journalist, or the shooting of eight people on a bus, they had a purpose beyond the traditional entertainment of the genre.
As Mr. Wahloo put it while here in 1971 with his wife to accept an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for “The Laughing Policemen,” judged the best mystery novel the previous year, the aim of their work was to trace a man's personality.
He and his wife, who, like him, had a background in journalism, planned a series of 10 books, covering a 10‐year‐span in the career of Martin Beck.
Mr. Wahloo said they wanted to show “the man's personality changing under the years, the milieu and the atmosphere changing, the political climate, the economic climate changing, the crime rate, so you can get the whole picture.”
The Wahloos, who also edited the Swedish literary magazine Peripeo, prided themselves on accuracy of detail.
“If you read of Martin Beck taking off on a certain flight, there was that flight, at that time, with those same weather conditions,” Miss Sjowall once said.
During their visit here, Mr. Wahloo explained how the collaboration had begun. “We met,” he said, “working for two separate magazines for the same publisher in 1961. She worked for Idun, a women's magazine. I worked for Se, which is ‘look’ in Swedish.
“We were sitting in a restaurant during lunch one day, and we suddenly started talking about this idea we had both been nursing,” he said. It was the concept of the crime novel as a mirror to society.
Exactly 300 Chapters
They began plotting their escape from the magazine business and working out the outline of the Martin Beck series, which they looked upon as one very long novel of exactly 300 chapters.
With the spare, disciplined style of their journalistic past, the Wahloos were able to collaborate in singular style—writing alternate chapters. “While Per is writing chapter one, I am writing chapter two,” Miss Sjowall said.
“If Maj had written the first part and I had written the second, there had been no difference,” Mr. Wahloo said.
They made their home in a $125 ‐a ‐ month, seven ‐room apartment overlooking a graveyard; and they wrote at night, after 10 or 11, when their children were asleep.
They found the silent hours between 2 and 5 A.M. their most productive. Sitting at opposite ends of a table in their study, writing in longhand, they worked until the children awoke.
“I don't see how you do it,” an American mystery writer teld Mr. Wahloo. “My wife and I can't even collaborate on boiling an egg.” | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 77 | https://themillions.com/2012/02/crime-pays-jo-nesbo-talks-about-killing-harry-hole-and-the-best-job-in-the-world.html | en | Crime Pays: Jo Nesbø Talks about Killing Harry Hole and the Best Job in the World | [
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] | 2012-02-17T11:00:42+00:00 | I had worked as a taxi driver, a stockbroker. A fishing trawler. I had many kinds of jobs. And I know this is the greatest job that you can have. To actually get up in the morning and people are paying you to do what you really want to do. To come up with these stories. | en | /wp-content/themes/millions-v2/dist/images/apple-touch-icon.png | The Millions | https://themillions.com/2012/02/crime-pays-jo-nesbo-talks-about-killing-harry-hole-and-the-best-job-in-the-world.html | Even a slight familiarity with pop culture provides the awareness that Scandinavian crime stories are ascendant — due in part to Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s internationally bestselling trilogy. There are, of course, numerous other practitioners of the crime genre from ice-bound precincts — Åke Edwardson, Karin Fossum, Anne Holt, Camilla Läckberg, Henning Mankell, husband and wife team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö and Arnaldur Indriðason, and so on.
Norwegian Jo Nesbø, whose CV includes stints as a stock trader, cab driver, musician, and soccer player, has seen six novels featuring his driven and single minded Oslo homicide detective, Harry Hole, published in English translation. Harry likes jazz, ’80s rock, booze, and solving crimes. And, naturally, Hole resents and resists authority — a burdensome characteristic for a big city policeman. All of which produces entertaining and, dare I offer, suspenseful reading.
In our face-to-face chat we talked about American crime writers, Nesbø’s ineptitude as a taxi driver, who is making a movie from his book, Lord of the Flies, his reading habits and more:
Robert Birnbaum: How do you pronounce your name?
Jo Nesbø: Ah, well. Outside Norway I prefer Jo Nesbø (both laugh). It’s the simple version. The Norwegian version is Ug Nespa.
RB: Say it again.
JN: Ug Nespa.
RB: Is there a “g” at the end of your first name?
JN: No there’s not.
RB: Sound’s like it. There’s a hard sound at the end. And Harry Hole is pronounced how?
JN: Same thing — outside Norway I am happy with Harry Hole and so is he, but in Norway it’s Hahree Whoule.
RB: Since your book is translated, it must be first written in Norwegian, yes?
JN: Absolutely.
RB: When you think about American crime fiction, there are a number of icons that people around the world refer to — Chandler, Hammett, Cain, and Thomson. Is there someone like that in Norway?
JN: Yeah, you have [Henrik] Wergeland. [He] is recognized as the godfather of Norwegian crime literature. In Scandinavian crime you have to go to the ’70s — Maj Sjöwall andPer Wahlöö founded the modern Scandinavian crime novel based on social criticism.
RB: And more procedural.
JN: It was. So everyone in Scandinavia who writes a crime novel, whether they l know it or not, they are influenced by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
RB: You have a varied CV — how did you come to writing?
JN: Um.
RB: You were a stockbroker, a rock and roller, soccer player, taxi driver.
JN: I was a really bad taxi driver. I was famous for it.
RB: Bad sense of direction or poor driving?
JN: Just bad driving. Lack of concentration. But I come from a book reading home. My mother was a librarian. My father was a book collector. And so he would always be reading. So I started reading as soon as I could tell the letters [of the alphabet]. The first novel that I made my father read to me was Lord of The Flies by William Golding. A Nobel Prize winner. I wish I could say I chose that book because I have good taste, but I liked the cover. It was a pig’s head on a stake. Actually, when I wrote my first novel at the age of 37, none of my friends were surprised that I had finally written a novel. They were more like, “What took you so long?” It took some time, but it came very naturally.
RB: I am a little confused. There are eight novels in the Harry Hole series and four have been published in the U.S. [there are actually six available, with a seventh on the way in fall 2012]?
JN: I’m a bit confused myself. Because the first two novels feature Harry Hole in Australia and then in Bangkok, Thailand. And when we started selling the rights abroad we decided we would not sell the rights to the first two novels because they were a bit far-fetched — a Norwegian detective in Australia and Thailand. So we started with the third novel, but then the U.K. and later on the U.S. decided they would publish them out of order. So it is a bit confusing. Not only are they out of order, but also they are in different print sequences in different countries.
RB: And Headhunters?
JN: That’s a stand-alone.
RB: And Harry Hole is not in it at all?
JN: No, he is not mentioned and he is not there.
RB: Headhunters has been made into a movie in Norway — will it play in the U.S?
JN: Yes, which is rare. I just came back from Cannes and we showed it to distributors and the American distributor was so happy with it that it will be shown in at least 15 cities.
RB: Is Working Title the distributor?
JN: No, they bought the rights for one of the Harry Hole stories.
RB: Which means they effectively bought them all.
JN: Yah, yah.
RB: Working Title is the Coen Brothers?
JN: That’s right. That was their opening line when they phoned me. Because I had turned down offers for the Harry Hole series for a long time. Not that I don’t love movies, but they’re so strong compared to novels, so I wanted to keep that universe untouched. But they phoned me with a great opening line — “Hi, we are Working Title and we made Fargo.” (both laugh) And so I said, “OK, I’m listening.”
RB: Why did they mention Fargo, of all their films?
JN: I think they had a hunch that I liked that movie. It was probably on my top 10 list of movies ever.
RB: That’s great. I always have liked them, but I gained a lot of respect for them in the way they re-made True Grit.
JN: I just saw the first part of True Grit on the plane — I hadn’t seen it. And the dialogue was great. And I was curious because I hadn’t seen the original and it was really whippy great dialogue. It reminded me of Deadwood. Different, but still with great attention to dialogue.
RB: I recommend the novel Deadwood by Pete Dexter.
JN: I didn’t know there was a novel. Is it written in the same, almost Shakespearean way?
RB: Dexter is a great American writer, most well known for Paris Trout.
JN: I’m so ignorant.
RB: Is this your first visit here?
JN: No, I was here two years ago [for a book tour] and I was here before that. My father grew up in New York, in Brooklyn, with my grandparents. So I have some ties and bonds with the U.S.
RB: Besides gruesome deaths, what would define and distinguish Scandinavian crime literature? As opposed to American?
JN: Hopefully, Scandinavian crime has — the quality is good. You do have bad Scandinavian crime lit — but I think what separates it from not only American, but the rest of Europe also, is there is a tradition stemming from the ’70s that it was OK to write crime literature. It was prestigious. Sjöwall and Wahlöö sort of moved the crime novel from the kiosks into the bookstores, meaning that young talented writers would use the crime novel as vehicles for their storytelling talents. And so you have had good crime novelists, good writers, who would, from time to time, write so-called serious literature and almost all the well-known, established serious writers in Scandinavia have at one time written a crime novel. It’s sort of a thing that you do. You must have a go at genre.
RB: Here it seems acceptance of genre fiction as legitimate has come later. Elmore Leonard is championed, by among others Martin Amis, Michael Connelly, and George Pelecanos.
JN: James Lee Burke.
RB: I have read three of your books — and you have avoided what I think is the reason I don’t read series. Harry Hole is not predictable and clichéd. You know some of his habits, but the plots aren’t cookie cutter. What’s on your mind when you write the next Hole story? When are you done with him — how old does he get to be?
JN: That’s a secret.
RB: You know?
JN: I know — I have a storyline for him. He is not going to have eternal life. And he is not going to rise from the dead. So after the second novel, I sat down and wrote his story — I am not 100 percent sure how many books there will be, but if we are not near the end, we are nearer the end.
RB: Philip Kerr, who has written seven Bernie Gunther novels, says that the problem with writing a series is that the author usually writes one or two too many. They don’t know when to stop. Will you know when to stop?
JN: I don’t know. (laughs) I have no idea. Hopefully somebody will tell me. As long as the books sell, probably they won’t.
RB: Sales and quality don’t necessarily correspond.
JN: Actually, I think that — I am reading Jim Thompson on the plane. He had to write to pay the rent. I am so lucky I don’t have to write. I don’t have to sell books. So I can focus on what I want to do — what’s interesting. Do I know when to stop? Yes. It will not be decided by sales numbers. From the start I wrote for myself and two friends that I wanted to impress — two friends that had more or less the same taste in culture. And it’s still the same. Those are the two guys I am writing for — they don’t know this. If they say, “I read the last book and it was OK, then I am over the moon.”
RB: OK is good?
JN: OK is great.
RB: Do you have first readers?
JN: Yah, at the publishing house.
RB: But not friends?
JN: No, nothing like that. I have four or five people at the publisher. They coordinate their opinions and we sit down and have a meeting.
RB: Chandler was in the same situation as Thompson — so it goes. So, there is a limit to the Harry Hole. Are you already thinking about other fiction that you want to write?
JN: I am.
RB: How far ahead are you in your aspirations and goals?
JN: Other series or novels? I don’t like to think that long term. The problem is that I have more ideas than I have time. So I have — I am 51 now. I probably won’t be able to read all the books I want to read. And I won’t have the time to write all the books I want to write. So I try to give them the right priority, meaning that— — I have a children’s book series that I am working on now. There will be one more book in that series. And then a stand-alone children’s book. And then I will finish the Harry Hole series. I have some ideas for maybe a new series. I haven’t quite decided yet because I want to write this stand-alone thriller. When you write, it’s important to do it while you have the enthusiasm for the idea. Maybe the most important period of your writing is when you are convinced that your idea is the best idea any writer ever has had. So you have to use that energy, because the time will come when you wake up in the morning and you will doubt your idea. And then it’s good that you have already more than half–
RB: That doesn’t happen when you start something?
JN: Not when I start. And it doesn’t really happen that often. I wake up in the morning unsure. It did happen two years ago. I had been working on a novel for a long time and I started doubting. I went to my publishers and they were quite happy with it. But they had some suggestions and I immediately knew that they read it the way I read it myself. And what I did was delete the whole novel. Two years’ work out the window. Like I said, I am in the fortunate situation that I don’t have to publish books to pay the rent.
RB: It sounds like you don’t encounter writer’s block.
JN: No, I never experienced writer’s block, no.
RB: Do you have to write every day?
JN: I try to write every day, and I can write almost anywhere. I have been writing on the plane coming here. I thought our meeting was at four o’clock, so I was planning to write for an hour. When we are done here, I am going to write for two hours before my next meeting.
RB: Sounds like you love it.
JN: I love it. I started writing so late in life. I was 37 — I had worked, as you said, as a taxi driver, a stockbroker. A fishing trawler. I had many kinds of jobs. And I know this is the greatest job that you can have. To actually get up in the morning and people are paying you to do what you really want to do. To come up with these stories. It’s unbelievable having that as a job.
RB: Do you go for periods without writing?
JN: I don’t. Not really. Like I said I have more ideas than I have time. When I am going on vacation with my daughter for a week, she says, “Daddy, don’t bring the laptop, ok?.” I say, “No, no, no, I won’t.” Like an alcoholic, I will have it hidden somewhere. No, I have one week a year that is sort of sacred, that I don’t write.
RB: Can you imagine not writing?
JN: I can. I had a long life not writing, so I can imagine. But it would a poor life, that’s for sure.
RB: What is life like for a successful writer in Norway — do you live in Oslo? Is there a literary circle?
JN: I live in Oslo and there is a literary circle. I guess I am not part of it. I never was. I have my friends before I started writing and I stick with them. We hang out and do things.
RB: No publishing parties and movie openings?
JN: Not really. I probably did that more when I was a musician. And you get tired of it — talking about books, talking about writing. I do that enough when I am traveling. It’s good to go back home and go rock climbing or just talk about Bob Dylan — anybody but me. When I first started talking about myself at interviews like this, I though this must be the best job ever. To have people absolutely listening to you, talking about yourself for hours and hours. So I was a bit surprised when after a couple of years I felt I was getting tired of myself. Listening to my own voice, retelling the story of my life.
RB: Answering the same questions–
JN: You know this interview is a bit better than most–
RB: Well, thank you. Is there a big boom in writing programs, MFA programs in Scandinavia as in the U.S?
JN: Ah, yah. Something happened in the ’90s that suddenly writers became pop stars. They started being interviewed on talk shows and they started having their own shows called Book Box — there was an old building in Oslo where they had an indoor pool. They started interviewing writers there. They were like rock concerts. Actually, they had rock concerts in the same arena. It would be sold out — just for a writer being interviewed for 45 minutes. Ever since that, all the young talented people, they want to become famous writers because they would be treated like pop stars.
RB: What is the book business like in your part of the world? Is it prospering?
JN: It is. Norway — I am not sure about Sweden and Denmark, but Norway is one of the best countries in the world to be a writer. Both economically and artistically. I just went to France and I asked a bookseller there, “How many writers can write full time?” He said, “Probably, 50 or 60.” In Norway there are probably 200. Which has a smaller population — smaller than Massachusetts — 4 or 5 million.
RB: Which Americans do you try to read? How do they filter into Norway?
JN: I guess European literature has traditionally been more important in Norway than American. But myself, maybe because my father grew up here, I was influenced by American literature from a young age. Mark Twain, who I still regard as one of the great American writers. And Ernest Hemingway. Later on I read the Beatniks — Jack Kerouac. I was a great fan of Charles Bukowski.
RB: And contemporary novelists?
JN: Michael Connelly. James Lee Burke. There are so many greats. I didn’t read that much crime fiction before I started writing it myself. I can remember reading Lawrence Block. Dennis Lehane, of course. His Mystic River. I went to Asia and I bought 10 crime novels that were supposed to be good. Out of the 10, I found one good book — which was Mystic River.
RB: There is another Bostonian, Chuck Hogan [The Town] who is excellent. And there is [the late great] George Higgins who wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Do you know it?
JN: No.
RB: It’s also a great movie with Robert Mitchum. You are here for an extensive charm initiative?
JN: I will be here for nine days, trying to charm as many [people] as I can. Toronto, NYC, and the West Coast.
RB: By the way, how is it that your father grew up here?
JN: My grandmother left Norway for the U.S. when she was 16 and then she went back and met my grandfather. They made my daddy. And they went back to Brooklyn. To a part of Brooklyn where you had many Scandinavians in the ’20s and ’30s.
RB: Do you watch crime movies?
JN: I do. When I started writing I was probably more influenced by crime movies based on novels than the original novel. In some cases the films are better than the novels. The Godfather is probably a better movie–
RB: Someone is actually writing a prequel. What a god-awful idea.
JN: Yah.
RB: Did the HBO series The Wire make it to Norway?
JN: Yes. I have seen it and it’s great. The most interesting thing happening in storytelling right now is probably in American TV series. Breaking Bad—
RB: Justified based on an Elmore Leonard character — pretty funny. Are there original serials like that in Norway?
JN: We do, but with a small population and limited resources — there is a Danish series that made its way at least to the U.K. It’s called The Crime.
RB: It’s called The Killing here. A female cop tries to solve the killing of a young girl–
JN: That’s it. Are you seeing the original series?
RB: No, it must be made for the U.S. It’s in English and set in Seattle using American actors.
JN: Yah, the original is shot in Copenhagen. It’s great, if you can get it. It has subtitles.
RB: When I saw The Wire, I never saw it in episodes — I got the DVD and watched four or five hours at a time. It seems counterintuitive to watch these long stories a piece at a time.
JN: I agree. Watching the DVDs is like books, you decide when to consume the story. But don’t forget Charles Dickens would serialize his stories.
RB: Who knew the difference then? What is it, a new phenomenon?
JN: I think he was the first one who did it — if not, it was unusual to do that. I heard he would receive letters from his readers advising him how the story should go. And he would actually listen to them.
RB: Dickens was fascinating character. I’ve read a few novels where he actually appears as a character — Richard Flanagan’s Wanting and Joseph O Connor’s Star of the Sea. What kind of music do you like — jazz appears a lot in the Hole books?
JN: Jazz and American rock from the ’80s. I still play about 50 to 60 gigs a year. I play guitar and I sing. So most of the gigs are with my bass player. We also go touring with my old band. We are going touring this summer — just for a few festivals. Just for fun. We keep the tour short enough so we don’t kill each other (laughs). So we are having fun.
RB: Do you tour outside Norway?
JN: No, the lyrics are in Norwegian and I don’t think the music makes sense outside Norway.
RB: Who comes to Norway to play? Anyone big?
JN: Most of them — either to Oslo or Stockholm or to Copenhagen — which is not so far from where I live in Oslo.
RB: Do you travel in Scandinavia?
JN: The land is more or less the same — just different dialects.
RB: Danish is understandable?
JN: No you have to read Danish. They speak funny. Actually, and I love Danes, but Danish is difficult. Children all over the world learn their mother tongue at the same age except for one country — Denmark. It takes a little longer.
RB: Apparently Dutch is unpronounceable by anyone except the Dutch. That’s how the Dutch Resistance tripped up spies in World War II. So will you participate in the making of the Harry Hole movie?
JN: The deal is done. I am an executive producer. I have a veto when it comes to the director and screenwriter. And that was what was important to me. I wasn’t too eager to sell the rights for the books as long as I was writing the series. So that was a condition — that I would have veto. The first time we met they said, “We can’t do it like that. We can’t go to Martin Scorsese and ask him to write a screenplay for this unknown Norwegian writer and if he likes it then maybe this unknown Norwegian writer will say yes. And have you direct the movie.” I said, “I completely understand but that is my condition. I am happy not to have the series filmed, yet.”
RB: Is it difficult that once the film is made there will be a tangible character and so when you write–
JN: That was one of the reasons I wasn’t eager to have it filmed, you know. I‘d rather there be a 1,000 Harry Holes in the heads of my readers than one character defining him.
RB: Having said that, who do you think may be a good Harry Hole?
JN: I have no idea.
RB: Norwegian or American?
JN: I have been thinking hard — Nick Nolte is probably too old. But I have no idea.
RB: Do you like Harry Hole?
JN: I do. He is a bit annoying at times. But most of the time I like him.
RB: Because he comes through — for truth, justice, and the Norwegian way?
JN: I mean he is irritating. He always has to do things the difficult way. He can’t ever — he has this problem with authority. And in my opinion he should try to avoid authority more, instead of always picking a fight. He’s a bit annoying in that sense. He is not the kind of guy I would like to hang out with — he is a bit too intense.
RB: He doesn’t really have any friends. One guy — his tech guy; he is sort of a friend. Even his colleagues who seem to respect him don’t gravitate to him. He is a tough cookie. His girlfriend obviously has problems with him.
JN: I think women want to save him more than that he is pleasant to be around. But he has one childhood friend — the hard drinking taxi driver. Apart from that, a psychologist and women.
RB: Often in crime stories, the crimes are not that important. Certainly in Raymond Chandler, in The Big Sleep who could figure that one out. Or in Chinatown where you are told not to try to understand “because it’s Chinatown.” In the Harry Hole stories, you do plot out a crime and have surprising solutions and endings. It’s something you care about?
JN: Yes. I like the dialogue you have with the reader — I am going to give you a chance to sort out the riddle. And I will give you enough information to solve it. I am not going to give you all the vital information from the last 30 pages. But before that, at least you have a chance. That was what Dennis Lehane did in Mystic River — there was a bit of information in the middle of the book and an experienced reader or writer — you could probably tell, okay, here is the killer.
RB: I liked his standalone novel about the 1919 Boston Police strike, Any Given Day.
JN: Yah, yah.
RB: It mentioned the Great Molasses Flood where a big vat of molasses escaped killing 19 or 20 people and wreaking untold havoc. Robert Parker also wrote a number of series and I thought his best work was a standalone, All Our Yesterdays. Did you read Parker?
JN: No. One American writer I read recently was Richard Matheson’s I am Legend. A great novel — short and to the point. It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
RB: When The Road came out, I wasn’t in the mood to read it. But I did read a post-apocalyptic novel by Jim Crace called Pesthouse. Twenty years hence, most of America has been destroyed and survivors are searching for safe areas and viable communities. And of course they encounter obstacles. It came out around the same time as McCarthy’s book and was overshadowed by it. Do you know of Jim Crace?
JN: No. There are so many writers. We been sitting here almost an hour now and you are mentioning well-known writers and I don’t know about them. I probably should be embarrassed, but I am not. There are so many books and we don’t have time to read them all.
RB: It is frustrating. If you read 200 books a year, you still don’t scratch the surface.
JN: How many do you read a year?
RB: I may complete 150.
JN: 150!
RB: I start a lot more. I used to feel bad about not finishing a book. I’m better at that.
JN: I ‘m a slow reader. I read more like 30 a year. It’s a crazy thing — there so many talented writers that you are not going to hear about. That’s why I feel so privileged and lucky to be able to come here after years of writing and have a name in Europe and hopefully some day in the United States. It’s not enough to be good.
RB: Is your backlist available here now? Harper has four, Knopf as two. The others?
JN: The first novels will translated to English next year. Harper will probably keep the backlist.
RB: Which one will be made into a movie?
JN: The Snowman.
RB: The new one.
JN: Actually that’s the previous one — the next one is called The Leopard.
RB: All right, thank you
JN: Thank you. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/14/sweden-crime-writers-interested-love | en | Sweden's crime writers too interested in love, says Maj Sjöwall | [
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] | 2013-08-14T00:00:00 | Too much romance and too little police work in today's thrillers, says architect of modern Scandinavian crime thrillers | en | the Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/14/sweden-crime-writers-interested-love | The grandmother of Scandinavian crime writing has said her counterparts today are too concerned with screen adaptations of their work and "are not about police work and crime, but very much about love and relationships – like girls' books".
Maj Sjöwall wrote the 10 bestselling Martin Beck novels with her partner in life and writing Per Wahlöö over a decade from 1965. Together they invented the Swedish police procedural, preparing the ground for authors such as Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, and TV series such as The Bridge and The Killing.
By the time of the 10th novel, The Terrorists, Wahlöö was ailing: he died in 1975, aged 49, before the book came out. Now 77, Sjöwall has barely written a detective story since: there has been a short story and another cowritten book, but mainly she has worked as a translator. "It's a bit boring to go on writing the same kind of novel. I don't want to publish any more. I don't want to be part of this circus."
The Martin Beck novels – although they were bestsellers and eventually became the basis for TV and film adaptations – never made her a wealthy celebrity author in the manner of such figures as Henning Mankell. "When we were writing no one was interested in the authors. Now the writers are themselves almost like film stars," she told audiences at the Edinburgh international book festival.
She described how a political engagement as Communist party members led to her and Wahlöö writing the Beck novels.
"When we began, there were no police procedurals, just Agatha Christie-type stories with amateur detectives," Sjöwall said. "But we wanted to present a view of our society and to describe an era and a time in Sweden."
This "new kind of genre", she said, produced a new kind of reader: a young, politically radical generation of Swedes. Their project was to show "how the social democrats were pushing the country in a more and more bourgeois and rightwing direction".
She met the political activist and former crime reporter in 1961, after he had been deported from General Franco's Spain in 1957. "It was the Spanish civil war that made him a socialist," she said. The last word of the last novel in the series is "Marx" – though Sjöwall left the party and describes herself now as a socialist.
The couple would discuss the stories in detail, establishing a shared language between them. "We were talking, talking, talking about our characters: what did they think, what did they do." Having worked out a 30-chapter synopsis, at night, after the three children were in bed (a girl from a previous relationship of Sjöwall's and two boys) they would set out to write. They would sit at opposite ends of the table: one of them would take the first chapter, the other the second. The next night they would swap, typing up each other's work and editing along the way.
Crime writer Ian Rankin, who was chairing the event, pointed out that it was Sjöwall who "we have to blame for all us British crime writers who have to walk past tables and tables of Scandinavian crime fiction". "Jo", she replied succinctly – and with a wicked grin. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 98 | http://www.jottings.ca/john/thriller_bkup.html | en | Thriller: Backups | [
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] | null | [] | null | Thrillers, by John Fraser. The Best Thriller is an overview of the kinds of works that I have in mind when I use the term “thriller” followed by an extended appreciation of my own nominee. “A Philosophical Thriller” is an extended analysis of a particularly fine American thriller that went beyond the now fascinating noir values. “Writer at Work” is an even longer analysis of the development of another American writer during his early years, in two parts for easier accessibility. “Quickies” comments on about fifty thriller writers (this mostly was fun to do), also in two parts. “Reading Thrillers (1990)” is an account of my own enjoyment of thrillers. “Back-Ups” are some informal theoretical thoughts, followed by a list of all the thriller writers I remember reading something by; and a list of secondary works that I’ve looked at. | null | Back-Ups
1. A Dab of Theory
Overviews are for the birds.
A saying.
I
It can be irritating to note the omission of obvious-seeming names from a discussion and not know whether the omissions were due to ignorance.
In Thrillers; Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre (1978), Jerry Palmer defines what he sees as that genre without mentioning John D. MacDonald, Ross Thomas, Eric Ambler, Peter O’Donnell, Richard Stark, Michael Gilbert, Ted Lewis, Stanley Ellin, Graham Greene, Charles Williams, Richard Stark, or Donald Hamilton.
It’s still an intelligent and interesting book, socio-historical-political, and he collapses the conventional distinction between thrillers and mysteries. But his definition of a thriller excludes too many of my own favourites.
The trouble is, the term “thriller” floats.
A detective story is about detection, a spy story is about spying. But a thriller isn’t about thrills, any more than a hardboiled novel is about eggs. It is a work that thrills, or at least tries to. That grips you.
A detective novel, a spy novel, a crime novel, can all be thrillers—sometimes hardboiled thrillers. For me, at any rate. And obviously for others.
II
So you can say, perfectly reasonably, “I’m going to talk about a group of works with such-and-such features, to which I’ve given the name thrillers.” And what you say about them may indeed be interesting.
But you can’t, or at least you shouldn’t, add, “And this is what thrillers really are. This is what the genre is.”
And you also shouldn’t go on from there to talk about what people who enjoy such works must be feeling as they read them.
As Ralph Harper does in The World of the Thriller (1969).
It seems quite a bright book when I flip its pages. But, “The Reader; His Inner World” ? “The Reader; His Secret World”?—who is Ralph Harper, intelligent though he may be, that he presumes to know anything about my own inner world. Or, God forbid, my secret ones?
Would you talk about the inner world of Jane Austen’s readers?
And the world of the thriller?
The World of the Regional Short Story? The World of the Urban Poem? The World of the Psychological Novel?
Would you really be in a hurry to read such books? Or publish them?
Isn’t there some condescension here towards “thrillers”? And what, anyway, is a “world”? Let alone the world.
III
Of course we do use the term “world” figuratively, particularly about a single author, or even a single substantial work—figuratively and usually evaluatively. Maybe we’d like to be there ourselves as one of those fortunate characters, doing those things in those pleasant places. Or we feel a bit oppressed, we’re not at home, too much of what we ourselves know seems left out.
If this or that book were all that remained of our civilization, what inferences would a future researcher make from it about what our lives were like? And/or about how the author viewed—what? The world?
Something like that?
But once we, or you, get beyond a single work or author and start talking about several authors and their books, what’s going on? What kind of conflation, what averaging is taking place?
No, Harper does not know how I myself feel. Sorry! Unless, I suppose, he’s dipped into this site.
Nor do I myself know what it would mean to talk about the world of the non-thriller.
The “real” world? The way things really are? In contrast to a fanciful one?
What world am I in when I watch the daily news on CNN? Or, post-9/11, contemplate buying a transatlantic plane ticket?
The term “world,” like the term “organic unity,” is a slippery metaphor.
IV
And mostly unnecessary.
“In Sapper’s world, foreigners are either knaves or fools”? Hmm, maybe, maybe not.
But how about, “In Sapper’s view of the world”? At least that gets us into the perceiver.
Well, then, why not simply “For Sapper”? Or better still, “In the Bulldog Drummond novels,” which gets us to a point where we can really start testing the truth of the claim.? And which makes it easier to shift to a comparison like, “For Buchan, on the other hand,” or, “In the Hannay novels.”
If every writer has his or her “world,” they become like an infinitude of Leibnizian monads rolling around on an infinite pool-table.
V
When you say “thriller,” you’re not talking about something like a sonnet, with subsets of rules to observe if what you submit to a poetry competition is to be considered a sonnet.
(Loose though the rules are, nineteen lines of blank verse are not going to make it into the competition.)
You’re pointing to a configuration, a configuration of your own perceiving. As I have done here.
Which is not to say that it’s wholly private. Configurings and lists overlap. The Thirty-Nine Steps is usually there in discussions of thrillers, and Jane Eyre, The Red Badge of Courage, and The War of the Worlds aren’t. (But how about The Island of Doctor Moreau?)
Wittgenstein’s analogy of a family is particularly appropriate here.
There’s a large family reunion—grandparents, second-cousins, the whole schmeer—and an outsider can see that some of them, perhaps a lot, are obviously members of the same family. But this isn’t because of features that they all share.
No, Mary and Bill have the same eyes and nose, and Bill and Nelly have the same nose and mouth, and Nelly and Lester…well, you know how it goes. And there are fadings, so that it’s hard to tell from their looks whether some of those present are family members or not. Second-cousins-once-removed, perhaps?
Actually most genres are like this, but we’ve forgotten it. What is a novel? A poem? For that matter, what is prose?
Shades of the examination chamber. “Define.”
VI
To judge from the books on my shelves, the titles that I’ve remembered unprompted, and the ones that I’ve recognized in secondary works, I have read or skimmed at least one crime/suspense/espionage/etcetera work, and in some instances as many as twenty or thirty, by all the writers on the list that follows after these reflections. The symbol (ss) indicates short stories.
How many of these authors would be on most lists of thrillers, I wonder? Not all of them would be on mine, I’m sure.
How many others (to judge from the works that I’ve praised) would I enjoy if they were to come to my attention?
I would love to hear of more. I guess it’s time for me to take out a subscription to Crime Time.
VII
A word or two about enjoyment, though.
In his brilliant and sometimes very funny An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction (1989), Thomas J. Roberts discusses what he calls “junk fiction” as if thrillers, Harlequin romances, science fiction, and so on, constitute some kind of aesthetic category, rather than a social one.
He is fascinating when he settles down to explaining the pleasures to be derived from particular works that are indeed junky or trashy, badly written, simplistic, foolishly sentimental, and so forth, and yet the aficionado loves them, and it is a pure love, and not simply coarse or dumb—in fact, an art experience.
Richard Usborne’s at times hilarious and probably very influential Clubland Heroes is admirable in that regard. The novels of “Sapper” (the term for a British army engineer) are preposterous, and politically reprehensible, and Usborne brings this out, and yet he writes affectionately about Hugh (“Bulldog”) Drummond and his under-employed, ex-service, men-about-town cronies.
On the other hand, he is justifiably irritated by Buchan’s paragons. Buchan, like Kipling, obviously sees himself as a definer of decent values.
By his own account, Donald Hamilton used to enjoy Leslie Charteris’ Saint novels at a time when he himself was trying to become a writer.
I myself loved the Saint books when I was twelve or thirteen, along with Sapper’s and Dornford Yates’. They were totally unputdownable—then. And I was getting art experiences from them that I wasn’t getting from most of my school texts.
I have done my own share of junk reading.
VIII
But when I myself was, and sometimes still am, reading, the works in my lists in “The Best Thriller” and “Quickies,” I’m not saying to myself, “This is junk but/and I love it.” I’m not in there among John Waters’ trailer-park trash, or on 42nd Street in its great days in the Seventies and early Eighties when Bill Landis was on the prowl for his remarkable zine Sleazoid Express.
I’m simply reading, the way I’d be reading works by Jean Rhys, or B.Traven, or Stephen Crane, or Penelope Fitzgerald that I have enjoyed. Which is to say, advancing pleasurably from one sentence to the next, one paragraph to the next, one chapter to the next, and caring about the evoked experiences.
IX
In other words, I am reading good writing, good works of literature. Not great ones. But there aren’t all that many of those anyway, are there? once you get away from the delusion that there is a correlation between distinction and size.
And you’ll miss out on a lot if you feel that the term “minor” implies some kind of deficiency, a lack, a failure to be what works ought to be, namely—ta-DAH!— “major.”
Limericks last, novels vanish. Unfair—but lots of limericks (our haiku) are perfect.
Someone recently said, “When will people realize that it’s just as hard work being a minor writer as a major one?” Or words to that effect.
To adapt Jeremy Bentham’s famous remark about animals and pain, we should be enquiring of a work, not, is it major, or is it minor, but is it good?
A lot of bad writing comes from authors, mostly American, who aren’t content simply to be good.
X
A word, too, about “genres.”
Of course we need the term. We need a set of pigeonholes for comic strips, sitcoms, movie documentaries, limericks, ghost stories, elegies, nature poems, detective stories, and so on and so forth.
But Scylla and Charybdis lurk, as always.
XI
On the one hand, ignorance.
It can be too lightly assumed that anything in some genre will be beyond the pale. You’ve glanced at one or two works, and they’re dreadful, or so you think, and you’re not going to waste time finding out about the others.
Some of the casual dissings of Seinfeld and The Simpsons by self-appointed guardians of culture have been like that. “But how many episodes have you seen?” one wants to shout at them.
And sometimes it may be true, I mean about being beyond some pale.
But the Surrealists, especially André Breton, with their collapsing of mechanical distinctions between “high” and “low,” showed how valuable art experience can be had in unlikely places.
Such as in so-called “exploitation” movies—another floating term.
The history of “culture” is partly the history of things being eventually allowed inside the pale—King Kong, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the drawings of Robert Crumb. Often because of their dark humour (but please, not camp).
Hammett made it. Ted Lewis will. Heaven knows, he deserves it.
XII
On the other hand, too much knowledge, of a sort, can be a problem.
You’ve read or looked at enough examples to believe that you’ve cracked the code and understand what the real dynamics of works like that are.
Which is to say, why every work in the group has to be the way it is because that’s, well, that’s simply the nature of the genre.
Bruce Merry, in Anatomy of Spy Fiction (1977), knows that spy novels are mostly pretty romantic and silly, as well as being politically noxious. Always excepting, of course, that famous realism of writers like Somerset Maugham and John Le Carré.
(Though why academics should feel that they can take Maugham and Le Carré on trust, I don’t know. But then, some non-academics probably thought Lucky Jim was giving them the lowdown on academic life.)
But things can also go the other way.
Whatever the features that are there in the work, they are there because they had to be there, they are part of the conventions of the genre. Or so we are assured.
They were meant to be there. They were what the writer intended.
So you have to switch off your critical faculties and not complain about gross inconsistencies, moral confusion, technical incompetence, heavy-handed symbolism, and so forth.
If that’s what you perceive there.
XIII
Years ago, C.S.Lewis defended Paradise Lost like that against reality-check criticisms of its moral and narrative rhetorics.
You had to realize that the poem belonged to its own special genre, the literary epic. Meaning that it was sort of like The Aeneid, in which Virgil had been trying to get one up on Homer by combining features from The Iliad and The Odyssey in a twofer that would put him in solid with the Boss.
I forget what the genre-creating precedent for the Aeneid had been. If there was one.
He also (Lewis) wrote as if this was how sin really had come into the world. He was mad at Eve and Satan. Talk about a willing suspension of disbelief!
But then, Paradise Lost is itself a sort of thriller, I guess. How will Satan do his prison-break ? How will he get into the guarded estate? How will the tenants react?
XIV
But everything doesn’t have to be the way it is (in fact nothing does), and quality doesn’t travel by osmosis.
The promising opening of a work no more guarantees that the rest of it will be good than the promising start of a snooker break mandates what will follow.
Nor, contrariwise, does fumbling at one stage in a game mean that the fumbling will continue.
Literary works have more in common with snooker and pool than they do with trees and plants (though the term “organic unity” can be a useful metaphor for a certain kind of start-to-finish rightness and flow).
Thrillers are literary works.
XV
So how do we interface with this “genre”?
I have just dipped again into John G. Cawelti’s Adventure, Mystery, and Romance and realized something more clearly.
Cawelti writes intelligently and sensitively as he constructs his typologies, and he’s read widely enough to pick up some of the lesser names, such as Richard S. Prather and Brett Halliday. But I knew why I didn’t want to set to and really read the book.
Surely by now there must be a literary concept like the Heisenberg Principle, whereby you change something in the act of observing it? The something here being your enjoyment of a work, rather than your enjoyment of observing yourself enjoying the work?
The more subtle the typologies, and the more you’ve studied them, the more you’re going to be asking yourself what what you’re reading is an example of. Which slot does it belong in? What formulae are being used in it?
One of the most important movie books for me was Ado Kyrou’s Le Surréalisme au cinéma (1953). But all he did was talk about lots and lots of movies in a roughly chronological sequence and make me want to see them.
If he had talked about them in terms of “types” of Surrealism, and kept refining on the types, he’d have killed the subject dead for me, and probably everyone else, apart from a few academics.
Isn’t that the definition of being “academic,” namely converting experiences into objects of study, so that the studying overrides and falsifies the experiencies, making them shallower and blurring differences?
Regretting that he couldn’t attend the first academic conference on Sade, Jean Paulhan cautioned the organizers, “Respectez le scandale” respect Sade’s scandalousness.
I hope I haven’t been academic in these pages.
XVI
A work should work if it’s the only one of its kind that you’ve read. Otherwise you’re trapped in a Borgesian regress wherein to understand work A you must first read work B and to understand work B you must first read…
But genre pleasures are real, of course.
Development, variations, adaptation, differentiae, individuation—the true genre pleasures, for both readers and writers.
The thrill of the good key-setting first paragraph. Like stills outside a movie theatre in the (truly) good old days of movie-going.
Promises. Expectations. Including the covers.
The paperbacks on my shelves are old friends, some of them going back forty years.
I am grateful to Geoffrey O’Brien’s Hardboiled America; Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir (1981, rev. ed. 1997) and Max Allan Collins’The History of Mystery (2001) for their recoveries of cover art.
XVII
A caution, though, about “formulae” (Cawelti again).
It can be tempting to feel that you've cracked a code, that you understand a formula, you being a possible writer as well as reader.
How do I break into the pulps? (Donald Hamilton never managed it when he was starting out.) How do I do a Harlequin Romance? How do I write an airport bestseller and be able to quit this horrible job of mine?
Please tell me the formula. PLEASE! ("Take one tough private eye, one enigmatic brunette, one friendly/hostile police captain...")
“Formula”? Another slippery metaphor, with its implication of success.
If you know the recipe for Miracle Whip, what you make will be Miracle Whip. But good works of fiction aren’t simply combinations of “elements” or “patterns,” not even when dignified with talk about structures or deep structures.
XVIII
You can’t, or at least you shouldn’t, take the simple as paradigmatic of the complex, and treat the complex as though it were a variant on the simple (or simpler), as if Beethoven’s symphonies and Bach’s fugues were variants on folk music.
Or as if Pride and Prejudice were one of the Harlequins that are its lineal descendants.
For that matter, the “simple” itself may not be all that simple either. “The Story of Hansel and Gretel,” as told by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, is its own fascinating point-by-point narrative about those two particular brave and resourceful children, not just a bundle of type situations as classified by Viktor Propp, or a culinary blend.
So that to try experiencing the complex by approximating it to the simple may be to falsify the simple as well.
F.R. Leavis, bless him, was deconstructing structuralist-type reductiveness and dichotomizing long before Derrida and De Man, the latter of whom obviously knew his work.
XIX
The gratifications of repetition and variation are real, of course.
The child being told a bedtime story for the umpteenth time wants it to be told without additions and omissions.
The story as it stands (or has come to be) is satisfying. There are others that he/she never wants to hear again.
A list of all the things we enjoy in Travis McGee or Modesty Blaise or Quiller novels would be a long one. Again, it’s “families” time. Not all those things have to be in every novel, but some of them do. I forget whether Quiller tangles with his home-base superiors in every novel, but those tangling are so enjoyably there for me now in memory that I suspect he does.
Some procedures, some forms, go on generating satisfaction.
We enjoy, we demand that shift into courtroom work half way through each week’s rerun of Law and Order. We know that Columbo is going to have just one more question, sir, to ask before he actually exits through that door—a relevant question.
Forms like the Petrarchan sonnet, the limerick, the Chandleresque private-eye novel make it possible for some things to be done well, and to go on being done well, not requiring ground- (or rule-) breaking talent.
Good imagist poems (another “family”) are still being written almost a century after the Imagist manifestoes of Ezra Pound and others.
But the operative word is “possible.” There’s no guarantee that things will be done well.
XX
How irritating it is to watch the merely formulaic Western or drive-in thriller on TV, and feel the presence of the camera crew just out of sight, and catch yourself thinking about genres because there’s nothing else to think about.
And oh, the dreariness of some of those once oh-so-beloved black-and-white TV shows that get excerpted from time to time.
And the melancholy of the new (doomed) formulaic sitcom pilot, like a stand-up comic who’s dying on his feet.
Television is a graveyard of failed formulae.
But when something's working, you're experiencing the work, not noticing (ah ha! got it!) the formula.
The “same” elements may recur, but as potentials. The same chessmen are there at the start of a game, the same balls on the pool table.
But when you’re watching an episode of The Simpsons which you haven’t seen before, you will not be able to predict how it goes.
And once you’ve seen it, yes, of course, it’s a real Simpson episode.
XXI
Writers have often said that their characters take over.
Donald Hamilton has told us that he’d be bored if he knew in advance what would happen in a new Helm book.
But yes, given such-and-such a situation, that is how such-and-such characters will behave.
And when the situation is right…
I bet that’s how Hamilton’s lovely Line of Fire simply came, by his own account, in six pain-free weeks.
XXII
At bottom, it’s a matter of creating satisfying characters, isn’t it?—Helm, Quiller, Hannay, McGee, Modesty and Willy, McCorckle and Padillo—and then putting them in the right situations.
It’s uncomfortable watching the failed characters that early silent comics devised--Larry Semon, Billy Bevan, Stan Laurel while he was still imitating Chaplin to the point of plagiarism.
Like bad old TV programmes, they are merely fictive, a bundle of conventions.
Whereas with Laurel and Hardy and in the marvellous delicate mimicry of the best Carol Burnett shows we have real-world dynamics.
A "character" is itself a form, a conjunction of potentials—things that someone like that does, might do, would never dream of doing.
How satisfying it is, too, when you get the right actor and right characterization for a fictional character—David Souchet's Poirot, Peter Cushing's Frankenstein.
And narrators too are characters, willy-nilly, whether first-person, single p.o.v., or omniscient.
When things are right, it’s a living voice that’s there at the outset of the work.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediment"; “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”; “I was forty and I felt it.”
And certain forms permit a satisfying defining, exploring, resolving.
XXIII
Part of the pleasure of embarking on a new thriller if the opening’s been promising, is that you really don’t know in any detail what’s coming next, even when you’ve read other works in the series, if it’s a series.
You’re on a journey of expectations, at times disappointments, at times pleasurable surprises, all the more interesting because of how what you’re reading departs from and improves upon what you’ve read already, whether by that author or others.
How will the bank be robbed this time?
You’re reading another spy novel, another detective novel, another robbing-the-bank novel, another innocent-man-on-the-run novel, another Modesty Blaise book.
You are in suspense, something has to be done more or less urgently, there’s danger along the way, there’s some kind of illegality, the train is running, you can’t jump off.
You’re reading a thriller.
XXIV
It may not be all fun and games, of course. What you’re reading can disturb you, some event be truly shocking. With challenges to moral thought.
George Orwell famously contrasted the value systems of E.W. Hornung’s late-Victorian stories about gentleman-thief A.J. Raffles and James Hadley Chase’s kidnap-and-rape gangster novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which he nevertheless considered “a brilliant piece of writing, with hardly a wasted word or a jarring note anywhere.”
(He was too generous there, but at least the prose of the original version never sank to the level of most of Faulkner’s Sanctuary, from which it derived.)
I myself had a go at the question of values in Violence in the Arts (1973), including violences in thrillers.
Thrillers as a group are charged with values—with multiple and conflicting value-systems.
Erik Routley is far too kind to Dorothy Sayers in his The Puritan Pleasures of the Detective Story (1979). And to various other authors of so-called classic puzzlers. And there are some big absences in his account, such as Arthur Upfield’s Bony books.
But this out-front personal book by an eminent, at least that’s the word on the dust-jacket, eminent musicologist and theologian is exemplary in its uncondescending and, in the proper sense of the word, discriminating exploration of a genre that he loves.
Thriller aficionados have been too much on the defensive.
XXV
Continuities are comforting, and thrillers can provide them.
There are probably more series about recurring characters in thrillers than in any other, can’t avoid the term, genre, a lot of them first-person or single-point-of-view narratives.
Thrillers, like other works, involve problem-solving, and part of what makes them readable for relaxation—well, most of them— is that the problems are solvable.
A romance ends with marriage. In thriller series, there’s always a new problem to be confronted by the protagonists next time—robbing another bank, preventing another terrorist attack, finding out who really killed Cock Robin.
But the problems, if they’re going to matter, have to be, in part, real-world ones. Blows hurt, cars skid out of control, there are penalties, sometimes terminal, for error.
There is no “world” of thrillers. There is the world, ours, made temporarily more interesting and more manageable in a variety of ways.
2002
2. List of authors
When I look at the novels on my shelves, and remember others that I have read, and have had my memory jogged by references in secondary works, I can say that, over the years, I have read at least one work by each of the following writers that might, at least initially, be considered a thriller, and in some instances thirty or forty.
I don’t remember what’s in a lot of the books on the shelves. But obviously I bought them in the expectation of pleasure, and I didn’t throw them away. The symbol “ss” indicates short stories. I have included pseudonyms.
•Aarons, Edward S. •Adams, Cleve F. •Allingham, Margery •Ambler, Eric •Armstrong, Anthony •Armstrong, Charlotte •Avallone, Michael •Azimov, Isaac •Bagley, Desmond •Baker, W. Howard •Ballard, W.T. •Ballinger, Bill S. •Bardin, John •Barlow, James •Barry, Joe •Baynes, Jack •Beeding, Francis •Berckman, Evelyn •Blackburn, John •Bleeck, Oliver •Blodgett, Matthew •Blood, Matthew •Boothby, Guy •Borges, Jorge Luis (ss) •Braine, John •Brandon, William (ss) •Brewer, Gil •Brown, Carter •Brown, Frederic •Bruen, Mark •Brunner, John •Buchan, John •Buckley, William F. •Burke, James Lee •Burnett, W.R. •Byrd, Max.
•Caillou, Alan •Cain, James M. •Cain, Paul •Cannon, Jack •Carr, John Dickson •Carter, Nick •Cassiday, Bruce •Chaber, M.E. •Chandler, Raymond •Charlton, John •Charteris, Leslie •Chase, James Hadley •Chesterton, G.K. •Cheyney, Peter •Child, Lee •Crichton, Michael •Christie, Agatha •Clancy, Tom •Cleeve, Brian •Clements, Calvin •Collins, Michael •Condon, Richard •Constiner, Merle (ss) •Cory, Desmond •Coxe, George Harmon •Craig, David •Craig, Jonathan •Crais, Robert •Crawford, Robert •Creasey, John •Crisp, N.F. •Cross, James •Crumley, James •Cumington, O.J. •Cunningham, E.V.
•Dale, John •Daly, John Carroll •Davidson, Lionel •Davis, Norbert (ss) •Dean, Spencer •De Felitta, Frank •Deighton, Len •Dent, Lester •Diehl, William •Dickson, Carter •Diment, Adam •Dodge, David •Donaldson, D.J. •Doyle, Arthur Conan •Driscoll, Peter •Dürrenmatt, Friedrich •Ehrlich, Jack •Ellin, Stanley •Elroy, James •Estleman, Loren D. •Eustis, Helen •Evans, John •Fairman, Paul W. •Fearing, Kenneth •Finney, Jack •Fischer, Bruno •Fish, Robert L. •Fleming, Ian •Follett, Ken •Forbes, Bryan •Forester, C.S. •Forsyth, Frederick •Fox, James M. •Francis, Dick •Freeling, Nicolas •Furst, Alan •Gardner, Earle Stanley •Gardner, John •Garner, William •Garve, Andrew •Gault, William Campbell •Gifford, Thomas, •Gilbert, Michael •Goldman, William •Glinto, Darcy •Goodis, David •Gores, Joe •Graeme, Bruce •Gray, A.W. •Greene, Graham •Gruber, Frank
•Haggard, William •Hall, Adam •Hall, Andrew •Halliday, Brett •Hamilton, Donald •Hamlin, Curt (ss) •Hammett, Dashiell •Hardy, Lindsay •Harling, Robert •Harvester, Simon •Heard, H.F. •Heath, W.L. •Heatter, Basil •Hiaason, Carl •Hichens, Dolores •Higgins, Jack •Highsmith, Patricia •Himes, Chester •Himmel, Richard •Hone, Joseph •Horler, Sydney •Hornung, E.W. •Household, Geoffrey •Huggins, Roy •Hughes, Dorothy B. •Hunt, Howard •Hunter, Stephen •Innes, Michael •Irish, William •Janson, Hank •Japrisot, Sébastien •Jenkins, Geoffrey •Kakonis, Tom •Kane, Henry •Keene, Day •Knight, Adam •Kyle, Robert •Lacy, Ed •Latimer, Jonathan •Lauden, Desmond. •Laumer, Keith •Le Carré, John •Leason, James •Lehane, Dennis •Leonard, Elmore •Leonard, Frank •Lewis, Colin •Lewis, Ted •Ludlum, Robert •Lyall, Gavin •Lybeck, Ed (ss) •Lyons, Arthur
•MacDonald, John D. •Macdonald, Philip •Macdonald, Ross •Mackenzie, Donald •Maclean, Alastair •MacRoss, Ross •Mair, George B. •Manchester, William •Manor, Jason •Mara, Bernard •Markham, Robert •Marlowe, Dan J. •Marlowe, Stephen •Marsden, Richard •Marshall, William •Martin, Aylwin Lee •Mayo, James •McBain, Ed •McCarry, Charles •McClure, James •McDowell, Emmett •McGivern, William P. •McKimmey, James •McPartland, John •Millar, Kenneth •Millar, Margaret •Miller, Rex •Miller, Wade •Mills, John •Mitchell, James •Morrell, David •Morse, L.W. •Mosley, Walter •Myles, Symon
•Nebel, Frederick (ss) •Neely, Richard •Noel, Sterling •Nolan, William F. •O’Donnell, Peter •Ozaki, Milton K. •Parker, Robert B. •Pendleton, Don •Porter, Henry •Powell, Richard •Prather, Richard S. •Presnell, Frank G. •Puzo, Mario •Quarry, Nick •Queen, Ellery •Quinn, Simon •Rabe, Peter •Rae, Hugh C. •Raymond, Derek •Rice, Craig •Rigsby, Howard •Rohde, William •Rohmer, Sax •Rome, Anthony •Runyon, Charles •Rutherford, Douglas •Sanders, Lawrence •Sandford, John •Sangster, Jimmy •“Sapper” •Sarto, Ben •Schoenfeld, Howard •Scott, Chris •Sela, Owen •Shay, Reuben Jennings (ss) •Sheers, James C. •Sheppard, Stephen •Simenon, Georges •Simon, Roger L. •Singer, Bart •Sjöwall, Maj and Per Wahloo •Skinner, Robert F. •Smith, Don •Smith, Martin Cruz •Smith, Neville •Souvestre, Pierre and Marcel Alain •Spillane, Mickey •Stark, Richard •Starnes, Richard •Sterling, Stewart
•Teran, Boston •Thomas, Ross •Thompson, Jim •Timlin, Mark •Tinsley, Theodore (ss) •Torrey, Roger (ss) •Trinian, John •Upfield, Arthur W. •Vachss, Andrew V. •Valin, Jonathan •Vance, Louis Joseph •Vian, Boris •Wallace, Edgar •Walsh, Thomas •Warwick, Lester •Watkins, Leslie •Waugh, Hillary •Westlake, Donald E. •White, Lionel •Whitfield, Raoul (ss) •Willeford, Charles •Williams, Alan •Williams, Charles •Williamson, Tony •Wise, Arthur •Woodhouse, Martin •Woolrich, Cornell •Worley, William •Yardley, James •Yates, Dornford •Yuill, P.B.
3. Bibliography; Thrillers
I am a lazy researcher these days, but I have at least dipped into the following.
Aird, Catherine and John M. Reilly
The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing
N.Y., OUP, 1999
Benstock, Bernard and Thomas F. Stanley, eds.
British Mystery and Thriller Writers Since 1940; First Series
Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 87
Detroit and New York, Gale Research, 1989
Barnes, Melvin
Best Detective Fiction; A Guide from Godwin to the Present
London, Clive Bingley and Linnet Books, 1975
Breen, Jon. L and Martin Harry Greenberg
Murder off the Rack; Critical Studies of Ten Paperback Masters
Metuchen, N.J. and London, 1989
Cawelti, John G.
Adventure, Mystery, and Romance
Chicago, University of Chicago, 1976
Collins, Max Allan
The History of Mystery
Portland, Oregon, Collectors Press, 2001
De Andrea, William L.
Encyclopedia Mysteriosa: A Comprehensive Guide to the Art of Detection in Print, Film, Radio, and Television
N.Y., Prentice Hall, 1994
Gorman, Ed, Lee Server, and Martin H. Greenberg
The Big Book of Noir
N.Y., Carroll and Graf, 1998
Goodstone, Tony, ed.
The Pulps: Fifty Years of American Pop Culture
N.Y., Chelsea House, 1970
Hagen, Ordean A.
Who Done It? A Guide to Detective, Mystery and Suspense Fiction
N.Y. and London, Bowker, 1969
Harper, Ralph
The World of the Thriller
Cleveland, Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969
Heising, Willetta L.
Detecting Men; a Reader’s Guide and Checklist for Mystery Series Written by Men
Dearborn, Purple Moon Press, 1998
Henderson, Lesley, ed.,
Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, prefaces John M. Reilly and Kathleen Gregory Klein, 3rd ed.
Chicago and London, St. James Press, 1991
Holland, Steve
The Mushroom Jungle; a History of Postwar Paperback Publishing
Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire, 1993
King, Nina, with Robin Winks, eds.
Crimes of the Scene; a Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler
N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, 1997
McCormick, Donald
Who’s Who in Spy Fiction
N.Y., Taplinger, 1977
McCormick, Donald and Katy Fletcher
Spy Fiction; a Connoisseur’s Guide
N.Y., Facts on File, 1990
McLeish, Kenneth and Valerie
Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Murder, Crime Fiction, and Thrillers
London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1990
Melvin, David Skene and Ann Skene Melvin
Crime, Detective, Espionage, Mystery, and Thriller Fiction and Film; a Comprehensive Bibliography of Critical Writings through 1979
Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1980
Merry, Bruce
Anatomy of the Spy Thriller
Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977
Murphy, Bruce F.
The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery
N.Y., Palgrave, 1999
O’Brien, Geoffrey
Hardboiled America; Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir (expanded edition)
[N.Y.?], Da Capo, 1997 (1981)
Orwell, George, “Raffles and Miss Blandish” (1944)
A Collection of Essays by George Orwell
N.Y., Harcourt Brave Jovanovich,1953
Palmer, Jerry
Thrillers; Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre
London, Edward Arnold, 1978
Porter, Dennis
The Pursuit of Crime: Art and Ideology in Detective Fiction
New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1981
Reilly, John M., ed.
Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers
N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, [1982?]
Roberts, Thomas J.
An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction
Athens, Ga., University of Georgia Press,1990
Routley, Erik
The Puritan Pleasures of the Detective Story; From Sherlock Holmes to Van der Valk
London, Gollancz, 1972
Silver, Alain, Elizabeth Ward, and others, eds.
Film Noir, revised and expanded edition
Woodstock, N.Y., Overlook Press, 1992
Smith, Myron J. Jr., and Terry White
Cloak and Dagger Fiction; An Annotated Guide to Spy Thrillers, 3rd ed.
Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1995
Stilwell, Stephen A.
What Mystery Do I Read Next?
Detroit, Gale, 1997
Symons, Julian
Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History
London, Faber, 1972
Steinbrunner, Chris and Otto Penzler, eds.
Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection
N.Y., McGraw-Hill, 1976
Swanson, Jean and Dean James
Killer Books: A Reader’s Guide to Exploring the Popular World of Mystery and Suspense
N.Y., Berkley Prime Crime, 1998
Usborne, Richard
Clubland Heroes; a nostalgic study of some recurrent characters in the romantic fiction of Dornford Yates, John Buchan and Sapper.
London, Constable, 1953
Robin W. Winks, ed.
Colloquium on Crime; Eleven Renowned Mystery Writers Discuss Their Work
N.Y., Scribner’s, 1986
Winks, Robin W.
Modus Operandi; an Excursion into Detective Fiction Boston,
David R. Godine, 1982 | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 34 | https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/wahloo_per | en | SFE: Wahlöö, Per | https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/favicon.ico | https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/favicon.ico | [
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Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1926-1975) Swedish author, best known for his ten-volume Martin Beck crime novel series, all written with his partner Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020). His Near-Future sf thrillers, all of which interrogate the form they use, include Mord på 31:a våningen (1964; trans Joan Tate as Murder on the 31st Floor 1966; vt The Thirty-First Floor 1967), in which intrusive detective work and the intrusions of a totalitarian state are seen as nearly indistinguishable, and which was filmed as Kamikaze 1989 (1982); Generalerna (1965; trans Joan Tate as The Generals 1974), set around the court-martial on an isolated Island of a soldier who has apparently "blasphemed" against the military Dystopia that society has become; and Stälspranget (1968; trans Joan Tate as The Steel Spring 1970), in which an exile from a despotic Sweden returns to find the land decimated by a deadly Pandemic. [JC]
Per Wahlöö
born Gothenburg, Sweden: 5 August 1926
died Malmoe, Sweden: 22 June 1975
works
Mord på 31:a våningen (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1964) [hb/]
Murder on the 31st Floor (London: Michael Joseph, 1966) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/D Mohan]
The Thirty-First Floor (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1967) [vt of the above: trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/George Salter]
Generalerna (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1965) [hb/]
The Generals (New York: Pantheon, 1974) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/Gary Tong]
Stålsprånget (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1968) [hb/]
The Steel Spring (London: Michael Joseph, 1970) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/]
links
Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry
Internet Archive | |||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 61 | https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/06/the-origins-of-scandinavian-noir/ | en | The Origins of Scandinavian Noir | [
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"Wendy Lesser"
] | 2020-05-06T00:00:00 | When Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall set out to write the Martin Beck mysteries, nothing of the kind had ever appeared in Scandinavian literature. | en | /favicon.ico | The Paris Review | https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/06/the-origins-of-scandinavian-noir/ | Sometime in the early eighties, I began reading a series of mysteries that featured a Swedish homicide detective named Martin Beck. I was living in Berkeley at the time, studying for a Ph.D. in English literature as I worked a variety of part-time jobs, and I knew a lot of people both inside and outside the academy. Being a talkative sort, I started telling everyone around me about this incredible Scandinavian cop series. Soon we were all reading it.
What I knew at the time was that it was written by a couple, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, who had from the very beginning envisioned it as a sequence of ten books that would portray Swedish society from a distinctly Marxist perspective. Published between 1965 and 1975, the Martin Beck series grew noticeably darker as it moved toward its end—though whether this was because Sweden itself (not to speak of the world beyond it) had worsened during that decade, or because Per Wahlöö had learned in the early seventies that he was dying of cancer, was something no one could answer. Wahlöö died, I later learned, on the exact day in June of 1975 when the tenth volume was published in Sweden, having worked like a maniac to finish it on time. (Sjöwall, who was his equal partner in many ways—they would write their alternating chapters at night, so as not to be interrupted by their small children, and would then exchange chapters for editing—has said that at the very end Wahlöö was pretty much writing everything himself.) At any rate, he left behind exactly what he had intended to produce: ten books containing thirty chapters each, which, taken together, constitute a single continuous social narrative comparable in some ways to a Balzac, Zola, or Dickens project, though clothed in the garments of a police procedural.
It would be a melodramatic exaggeration to say that the Martin Beck series changed my life, but like all such exaggerations, this one would be built on a nugget of truth. Both my idea of Scandinavia and my sense of what a mystery could do were shaped by those books. If I later became a veritable addict of the form, gobbling up hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year in Kindle purchases of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian mysteries, that habit could no doubt be attributed to many things besides the Martin Becks: the invention of digital books, for instance, which allowed for impulse buying and virtually infinite storage; the massive and surprising success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, which encouraged American publishers to bring out any and every available Scandinavian thriller; the introduction of the long-cycle police procedural on American television, including such gems as Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, and ultimately The Wire, all of which cemented my fascination with the form; not to mention dozens if not hundreds of similar behavior-shaping factors that remain, for me, at an unconscious level. We never know for sure why we read what we read. I cannot, at the moment, even call to mind who first recommended the Martin Becks to me (though I know it was a person and not, say, a bookstore display or a newspaper review). Whoever it was, in any case, deserves my eternal gratitude.
What is so special about these ten books? Or—a slightly different question—what was it that so appealed to me back in 1981 or 1982, when I was about to turn thirty and America was on the verge of becoming what it is today?
Ronald Reagan, remember, had just been elected president. Many of us who voted against him (particularly among the Californians who had suffered through his governorship) had sworn that we would leave the country if he won. We didn’t actually carry out these threats—one never does, as I have learned repeatedly in the years since—but in my imagination I must have pictured Sweden, that haven for dissident Americans since the time of the Vietnam War, as one of the ideal refuges to which one could flee in such circumstances. That the society in which the Martin Beck novels took place represented a form of humane, non-Soviet socialism was certainly a great part of their appeal for me. What I failed to notice at the time was how severely Sjöwall and Wahlöö were in fact criticizing the inadequate socialism practiced in their country. Instead, what I saw was the difference between gun-crazy, corporate-run, murder-riddled America and this small, sensible nation where even police officers hated guns, where crime was seen as a social problem rather than an individual pathology, and where the rare appearance of a serial or mass killer instantly provoked comparisons to the well-chronicled history of such crimes in the United States.
And then there was the specific affection I felt for Martin Beck’s team of homicide detectives. The idea of a team was itself appealing, especially in contrast to the usual American detective, a hardboiled rogue who typically despised collective procedures and chose to work alone and unregulated. But beyond that, I loved the individual characters in the team, who over the course of ten volumes began to seem as familiar to me as most of my real-life acquaintances.
To begin with, there is Martin Beck himself, who exhibits rectitude, fairness, a decent sense of empathy even for murderers, a useful skepticism about the criminal justice system, a healthy dislike of stupidity, careerism, and greed, and a willingness to let those around him do their best work. His home life, perhaps, leaves something to be desired—alienated from his nagging wife and distant from his two small children, he spends as many hours as possible on the job—but this changes over the course of the ten volumes, as he and his wife divorce and as he bonds with his growing daughter. And though Martin Beck is something of a loner, with few strong emotional ties, he does have a best friend, in the form of Lennart Kollberg, his second-in-command on the national homicide squad.
Kollberg is one of the great characters of detective fiction. (He is almost always called simply “Kollberg” by the omniscient narrator of these books, just as Martin Beck is always called by his full name; it is only the other characters who address them as “Martin” or “Lennart.”) His fame, in the years since he came into being, has so transcended his original circumstances that a recent Norwegian mystery writer, Karin Fossum, can name her chief detective’s dog Kollberg and expect everyone to pick up the allusion.
It’s not easy to convey what is so lovable about Kollberg. His charm and wit, though notable, don’t lend themselves to brief quotation; they are cumulative, like everything else in the series. Nor is he particularly magnetic, at least in terms of looks. For one thing, he’s distinctly overweight, though that doesn’t prevent him from being very attractive to certain women (in particular his much appreciated and significantly younger wife, Gunnar). He doesn’t have any of the special talents some of his teammates possess—the phenomenal memory of Fredrik Melander, say, or the immense physical bravery of Gunvald Larsson, or even the sheer dogged persistence of the unimaginative Einar Rönn—but his all-round intelligence and sharp, ironic sense of humor make him an invaluable collaborator and sounding board for Martin Beck. As is often remarked in this series, the two of them can understand each other without explaining themselves, which is perhaps the essential definition of a close friendship. It is also, as Sjöwall and Wahlöö must have known, the defining element of any intimate collaboration on an important and prolonged piece of work.
*
In the early sixties, when Sjöwall and Wahlöö were formulating their idea for a ten-volume police procedural that would mirror the whole society, nothing of the kind had ever appeared in Scandinavian literature. America may have produced Dashiell Hammett and Ed McBain by then, not to mention numerous noir detective films and even some early urban TV shows, like Dragnet, that edged toward this territory. But the Scandinavian tradition was different. There were mysteries, true, but they utterly lacked the broad social perspective, the insistence on some kind of realism, that Sjöwall and Wahlöö were about to introduce.
One of the existing strands, for example, descended from the book Jo Nesbø has described as the original Nordic thriller: a 1909 mystery called The Iron Chariot, written by Norway’s Sven Elvestad under the pen name Stein Riverton. It’s a readable enough work, though a bit slow and (especially compared to latter-day practitioners like Nesbø himself) grotesquely unsuspenseful. The Iron Chariot is basically a country-house murder mystery, set in an idyllic landscape somewhere on the southern Norwegian coast at the height of summer—a location and a season that together allow for a great deal of crepuscular light shimmering on the ocean at midnight and other effects of that sort. The mysteriously clanking and reputedly ghostly “chariot” of the title turns out to be a newfangled flying machine invented by a local professor, one of the murder victims. In the end, the murderer is revealed to be the story’s narrator, a weirdly impalpable creature whose crimes and methods are exposed by the Holmes-like detective called in from the nearest city—though not before we have pretty much figured them out by ourselves. The whole novel is like a combination of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, a narrative that is at once logical and insane, but in any case very particular and very enclosed, with an extremely limited pool of suspects and no perspective whatsoever on the society at large.
Another precedent—perhaps even further from the Martin Becks in style and intent, though closer temporally and geographically—consisted of the various Swedish mysteries written for children in the mid-twentieth century. These included Åke Holmberg’s novels about the private eye Ture Sventon, issued between 1948 and 1973, and Nils-Olof Franzén’s illustrated books about the detective Agaton Sax, which came out around the same time. Those detective characters, too, were clearly modeled on Holmes, though with certain features—such as a jolly round figure and an animal associate, in the case of Sax—that would make them especially appealing to children. The most famous series in this genre, perhaps because it actually employed a child as the detective, was Astrid Lindgren’s trio of mysteries featuring a schoolboy named Kalle Blomqvist (a central character who, when the books proved popular enough to export, was later renamed Bill Bergson). These three tales, which appeared in Sweden between 1946 and 1953, are somewhat reminiscent of America’s Nancy Drew series, with a youthful amateur detective who, together with the necessary age-appropriate sidekicks, always succeeds in outwitting the bad guys. Even now, the books remain sufficiently well known in Sweden so that present-day readers of the Stieg Larsson books are expected to get the joke when Lisbeth’s ally, the crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, is nicknamed “Kalle” by his friends. (This would seem to be a joke that never stales among Swedish mystery writers, for Leif G. W. Persson brings it up again in his recent novel The Dying Detective.)
But the Larsson and Persson books did not exist until decades after the Martin Becks were first published. It took a particular pair of authors working together at a specific moment in history to create that now-dominant form, the modern-day Scandinavian mystery. And despite the fact that they were naive beginners, or perhaps in some ways because of that, their achievement in the form has never been topped.
*
Let’s agree to dispense with any discussion about brow levels. If I happen to invoke Dickens, Balzac, or Dostoyevsky when talking about these books, it is not to insist that Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall are their equals as the writers of sentences and paragraphs—though nor would I want to grant outright that they are not at the same level in some other way. After all, Wilkie Collins was a thriller writer of the late nineteenth century whose best novels we are still reading with enormous satisfaction today; with each passing decade, he comes to seem more and more of a Victorian classic. One could also argue that Eric Ambler is as much a twentieth-century stylist as Ernest Hemingway, along the same spare lines, and it is not yet clear, if you ask me, which we’ll be reading longer. My point is not just that we can’t, from our limited perspective, answer questions about longevity and importance. It’s also that I don’t particularly want to.
What matters to me is how persuasively these mystery writers manage to create a world that one can imaginatively inhabit—for the duration of a first reading, initially, but also long after. The various features of Martin Beck’s world, including his Stockholm streets, his police department colleagues, his lovers, his friends, the crimes he solves, the murderers he pities, the politicians and bureaucrats he deplores, even the apartments he inhabits, all seemed terribly real to me when I first encountered them, and all continue to seem so today, even after one or more rereadings. This is the mystery novel not as a puzzle that can be forgotten as soon as it is solved but as an experience one is living through along with the characters. If they are sometimes “flat” characters in the manner of Dickens’s grotesques or Shakespeare’s clowns, that is not an absence of realism, but rather a realistic acknowledgment that in our own lives most other people remain opaque to us, often memorable mainly through their caricature-able qualities. We do not have the capacity, as George Eliot famously noted, to be fully empathetic at all times. Much of our observant life, and even much of our own experience, is conducted in a kind of shorthand.
Yet part of what makes the Sjöwall/Wahlöö books great, in comparison to most other mystery series, is precisely the opposite of this shorthand. They are oddly inclusive, with an eye for extraneous detail and a concern with the kinds of trivialities (subways ridden, meals eaten, suspicions vaguely aroused, meandering conversations, useless trains of thought, sudden bursts of intuition, random acts or events that cause everything to change suddenly) that make up not only every life, but every prolonged police investigation. This means that the timing of the books is, for some readers, excessively slow: we often have to wait for the necessary facts to surface, so we tend to find ourselves floating along rather than racing toward an increasingly visible conclusion. I always tell people that they have to wade through at least the first two volumes, Roseanna and The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, before things really get going in the Martin Beck series. Only when they reach The Man on the Balcony or, even better, The Laughing Policeman will they be able to judge how much they like the series. Patience is required of the reader, just as it is of the detective.
Nor are these the sort of “fair” mystery that lays out all the potential suspects and relevant clues (if perhaps in cleverly disguised form) early enough for you to arrive at the solution yourself. Leave that to Agatha Christie and the other puzzle-mongers. In the Martin Beck novels, the murderer might be someone we meet on the first page, but he equally well might not appear until nearly the end of the volume. The solution is only part of the point; it is getting there that matters.
Wendy Lesser is the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review. She has written one novel and eleven previous works of nonfiction; recent books include Music for Silenced Voices, Why I Read, and You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn, which won the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing and the PEN America Award for Research Nonfiction. A recipient of grants and fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Swedish Academy, and numerous other organizations, she currently divides her time between Berkeley, California, and New York City. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 95 | https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/9781137016768_10 | en | “Death of the Author”: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Police Procedurals | [
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"Charlotte Beyer"
] | 2012-08-17T00:00:00 | In a recent newspaper article, the journalist John Crace states that there is a sense of “the other” in Scandinavian crime fiction which makes it distinctive (Crace 2009).1 Indeed, in attempting to identify this “other”, John Lloyd (2011)... | en | /oscar-static/img/favicons/darwin/apple-touch-icon-92e819bf8a.png | SpringerLink | https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137016768_10 | Babin, E. H. and Harrison, K. (1999) Contemporary Composition Studies: A Guide to Theorists and Terms. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Barthes, R. (1967) “The Death of the Author.” Aspen No.5 + 6. Available at: http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthes. Accessed July 2011.
Bennett, A. (2005) The Author. London: Routledge.
Bergman, K. (2011) “The Well-Adjusted Cops of the New Millenium: Neo-Romantic Tendencies in the Swedish Police Procedural.” In Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (eds) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 34–45.
Clarke, J. (2001) “The Pleasures of Crime: Interrogating the Crime Story.” In Muncie, J. and McLaughlin E. (eds) The Problem of Crime. London: Sage, 71–106.
Crace, J. (2009) “Move Over, Ian Rankin.” The Guardian, 23 January. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/23/scandinavian-crime-fiction. Accessed June 2011.
Ede, L. S. and Lunsford, A. A. (1992) Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
France, L. (2009) “The Queen of Crime.” The Observer, 22 November. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/22/crime-thriller-maj-sjowallsweden. Accessed June 2011.
Geherin, D. (2008) Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.
Harris, B. (2009) “A Right Pair of Shockers: Is There a Dark Side to Sean French and Nicci Gerrard’s Domesticity?” The Independent, 15 March. Available at: http:// www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/a-right-pair-of-shockers-is-there-a-dark-side-to-sean-french-and-nicci-gerrards-domesticity-1644697.html. Accessed June 2011.
Knight, S. (2003) “The Golden Age.” In Priestman, M. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 77–94.
Liukkonen, P. (2008) “Maj Sjöwall (1935)” Available at: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ sjowall.htm. Accessed June 2011.
Lloyd, J. (2011) “The Art of Darkness.” Financial Times, 25 March. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6d092842–5664-11e0–84e9–0144feab49a. html#axzz1TEU0PuhM. Accessed July 2011.
Mankell, H. (2006) “Introduction.” In Sjöwall, M. and Wahlöö, P. Roseanna. London: Harper Perennial, v–ix.
McDermid, V. (2006) “Introduction.” In Sjöwall, M. and Wahlöö, P. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke. London: Harper Perennial, v–ix.
Meyhoff, K. W. (2011) “Digging into the Secrets of the Past: Rewriting History in the Modern Scandinavian Police Procedural.” In Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas P. (eds) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 62–73.
Mueller, E. V. (2010) “The Police Procedural in Literature and on Television.” In Nickerson, C. R. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 96–109.
Muncie, J. and McLaughlin, E. (eds) (2001a) The Problem of Crime. London: Sage.
Muncie, J. and McLaughlin, E. (2001b) ‘Introduction’, in Muncie, J. and McLaughlin, E. (eds) The Problem of Crime. London: Sage, 1–6.
Murphy, B. F. (2002) The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery. New York: Palgrave.
Nestingen, A. K. (2008) Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Nestingen, A. K. (2011) “Unnecessary Officers: Realism, Melodrama and Scandinavian Crime Fiction in Transition.” In Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (eds) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 171–184.
Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (eds) (2011a) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (2011b) “Introduction: Contemporary Scandinavian Crime Fiction.” In Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (eds) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1–20.
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Pyrhönen, H. (1999) Mayhem and Murder: Narrative and Moral Issues in the Detective Story. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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Sjöwall, M. and Wahlöö, P. ([1965] 2006 ) Roseanna. London: Harper Perennial.
Sjöwall, M. and Wahlöö, P. ([1967] 1990 ) The Man on the Balcony. London: Gollancz Crime.
Sjöwall, M. and Wahlöö, P. ([1975] 2007 ) Cop Killer. London: Harper Perennial.
Stone, M. and Thompson, J. (eds) (2006a) Literary Couplings: Writing Couples, Collaborators, and the Construction ofAuthorship. Madison: University of Wiscons in Press.
Stone, M. and Thompson, J. (2006b) “Contexts and Heterotexts: A Theoretical and Historical Introduction.” In Stone, M. and Thompson, J. (eds) Literary Couplings: Writing Couples, Collaborators, and the Construction of Authorship. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 3–40.
Stone, M. And Thompson, J. (2006c) “Taking Joint Stock: A Critical Survey of Scholarship on Literary Couples and Collaboration”. In Stone, M. and Thompson, J. (eds) Literary Couplings: Writing Couples, Collaborators, and the Construction ofAuthorship. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 309–333.
Tapper, M. (2011) “Dirty Harry in the Swedish Welfare State.” In Nestingen, A. K. and Arvas, P. (eds) Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 21–33. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 94 | https://petronatwo.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/crime-fiction-from-sweden/ | en | Crime fiction from Sweden | [
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] | null | [] | 2011-08-14T00:00:00 | Having recently covered crime fiction from Norway, including books by authors not so well-known to English-language readers, I thought I would do the same for Sweden but from a slightly different perspective. Over the past year there have been repeated, often identikit, articles in newspapers and magazines as well as on blogs and internet sites… | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/43d56737ccbfddb5c7c8d3e2b2b3ef60da3541373c85cf07237805cff8eada86?s=32 | Petrona | https://petronatwo.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/crime-fiction-from-sweden/ | Having recently covered crime fiction from Norway, including books by authors not so well-known to English-language readers, I thought I would do the same for Sweden but from a slightly different perspective. Over the past year there have been repeated, often identikit, articles in newspapers and magazines as well as on blogs and internet sites that don’t usually cover crime fiction, about Nordic – largely Swedish – crime fiction. I write “identikit” because almost all these articles take as a starting point the exciting Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson – and more recently, the similar-ish exciting Three Seconds by Roslund-Hellstrom (winner of the 2011 CWA International Dagger).
I do not intend to write here about these novels (you will probably be relieved to know), as Stieg Larsson in particular has been covered from every possible angle, with every last drop drained out of his novels and life-story by a range of opportunists, to screaming point. What I do intend to write about is the more typical Swedish crime fiction (in my experience), which is not usually a genre of breathlessly exciting, casually expressed thrillers, but is a more suspenseful, psychological and, yes, often gloomy world. Don’t think that Stieg Larsson or Roslund-Hellstrom’s Three Seconds is typical of Swedish crime fiction, because neither is (Three Seconds isn’t even typical of Roslund-Hellstrom’s earlier translated novels!).
PART ONE
I’ll soon begin highlighting Swedish authors who I think more “typical” than S Larsson, but first I should as usual mention Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, the originators of the modern crime-fiction genre (whether in Sweden or anywhere else). These authors wrote a series of ten books with the umbrella title The Story of a Crime, which followed the life of Martin Beck and colleagues as they investigate various cases (each one a take on a different crime subgenre) against a background of the crumbling of the 1970s Swedish welfare state much admired outside the country but less so by these Marxist authors. I mention these books for two reasons: one because they are not thrillers, even those that deal with bombs and other acts of group terrorism; and another because they influenced so many other Swedish crime writers to write their own novels in a similar style. First of these (to my knowledge) was Henning Mankell; subsequently authors such as Ake Edwardson and Kjell Eriksson started on their own 10-book series, well before Stieg Larsson decided to do the same (but only got as far as book 3).
I’ll go on to discuss these and some other authors whom I consider to be more typical of the output of the region – with the usual corollary that these are, of necessity, books translated into English.
Henning Mankell. First and until Stieg Larsson the most well-known of Swedish crime writers post Sjowall and Wahloo, his ten-book series about Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystaad police focuses on issues facing Swedish society as well as the character of the lugubrious Wallander and some of his colleagues and family (particularly his daughter Linda). My own take as a reader is that Mankell is more interested in these issues than his rather silly crime plots: the first novel in the series, Faceless Killers (first published in 1991), was inspired by issues of immigration and racial prejudice that had not figured in Martin Beck’s era of the 1970s. Subsequent novels addressed many of modern society’s problems, but with a veneer of sadness and depression, such as Kurt’s relationship with his father and broken marriage. Linda, Kurt’s daughter, is initially a rebellious and troubled teenager, but gradually becomes the life-force of the books, most clearly articulated in the final novel of the series, The Troubled Man, in juxtaposition with the ageing Kurt’s memories and decline. [Mankell’s Wallander series was written over many years with long gaps in between; the author has also written books that are not part of this series and which feature his take on the global sociopolitical agenda far more stridently, as well as children’s books, plays and polemics. Of course there have been popular Swedish (2) and English TV series based on the Wallander books.]
Hakan Nesser is another author of a ten-book series whose first title, The Mind’s Eye, was published in 1993 (first English translation 2009); the first six have been translated and a seventh is coming up soon. Inspector van Veeteren and team are in an indeterminate country (I see it as the Netherlands but others disagree) and, like Sjowall/Wahloo, each book (and case) is about a different crime subgenre (legal thriller, “locked room”, secretive religious community, etc). Unlike Edwardson and Eriksson (see below), Nesser shares with Sjowall and Wahloo a bleak but very funny sense of humour; and a strong disillusionment by the main character in police work and the crimes he has to investigate. After book 6, Van Veeteren is poised to quit the police force and buy a bookshop, an interesting departure from the police-procedural norm. Hakan Nesser also writes another, more recent series about Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, a Swedish police inspector of Italian descent. This series has not (yet?) been translated into English but the first book is called Human without Dog.
Ake Edwardson was an academic at the University of Gothenburg, where he sets his Inspector Erik Winter novels, of which I think five have so far been translated – starting in 1997 – with at least two to follow. Like Sjowall and Wahloo, these novels focus on a group of police detectives and their professional and personal interactions as they accrue evidence and talk through the progress (or lack of progress) of their cases. Winter is the youngest Inspector in the Swedish police force, and during the series becomes the father of a baby, with associated domestic challenges. Again like those of Sjowall and Wahloo, the books are about the problems of modern society – disaffected youths, unemployment, foreign “guest” workers, racial harassment, teenage prostitution and child abuse. The author also writes non-fiction and children’s novels, so depicts his younger characters vividly.
Kjell Eriksson, the same age as Edwardson, writes a police-procedural series set in Uppsala. Three of these novels (from mid-series) have been translated into US editions, with a fourth one to follow later this year. Billed as “Ann Lindell” mysteries, these books really lost out from being translated out of order, not least because of the domestic situation of Ann, which is confusing for English readers who have not read the early books (the first one was published in 1999). Erkisson has written 10 crime novels, but I don’t know if they are all part of this series. Of the three I’ve read, these books tend more to the pyschological and bleak than focusing on social comment, with quite detailed investigations of the foibles and worse of various characters, though of course unemployment, immigration and so on are in the background of the cases the police investigate.
Helene Tursten is the last author of the overt Sjowall/Wahloo successors I’ll discuss in this post. She writes about Inspector Irene Huss of the Gothenberg police, with the first book, Detective Inspector Huss, first published in 1998. Unfortunately only the first three titles have been translated into English – in US editions. A fourth is apparently due out in English next year. Irene is a very attractive character – independent, happily married mother to two teenage girls, clever and intuitive. The other two translated books, The Torso and The Glass Devil, are increasingly bleak, and possibly a trademark is that Irene visits Denmark and England, respectively, in them- making me wonder if she goes to a different country in each book. Inspector Huss is also a very popular TV series in Sweden. I am very fond of these books and recommend them highly as excellent examples of classic crime fiction with a modern take – as well as a great female role model in the main character.
The authors above wrote their series starting in 1991 (Mankell), 1993 (Nesser), 1997 (Edwardson), 1998 (Tursten) and 1999 (Eriksson). Stieg Larsson’s first Millennium Trilogy novel, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was first published in Sweden in 2005, and in the UK January 2008.
PART TWO.
I’ll move on now to Swedish crime fiction authors who don’t follow the police-procedural route originated by Sjowall and Wahloo. Just as Mankell is the first “icon” of these, Kerstin Ekman is perhaps the best equivalent for the rest. Ekman is more of a literary than a crime novelist, writing about a particular region in the north of the country, but her 1993 novel Blackwater (containing some characters from other novels) was the first of this set to be translated into English. I have read it but found it very dense and quite hard-going, perhaps because I had no earlier context for the large cast of characters. At its heart, it is a book about a woman who goes missing while camping, her past, and the effects of this situation on the small community of Blackwater. Its plot is very, very sad in one particular. I don’t know if this book has been influential to subsequent Swedish crime novelists, but it seems to me to be the origin of many common elements – isolation, a hard climate, a struggling small community, characters suffering inner despair or hiding deep secrets, and so on – while being on no level sensationalistic. To learn more about this fascinating author and her fictional world, please read the 2010:1 issue of the Swedish Book Review, featuring articles about her and some new translations of her work.
Asa Larsson is writing six (I think) novels about Rebecka Martinsson, a financial lawyer initially based in Uppsala who comes from Kiruna, in the far north of the country. Sun Storm (2003, aka The Savage Altar) follows Rebecka’s attempts to help an old childhood friend who is accused of murder, in the process having to confront the horrors of her own childhood. One of the many strengths of this haunting novel is the depiction of the old people in the northern village, and their way of life, in particular an old neighbour Sivving. The next two books (The Blood Spilt and The Black Path) follow these themes of small communities, religious or spiritual beliefs, and the struggle of a young woman to overcome her internal demons and some real threats to her life. The detective elements are satisfying too, with Anna-Maria Mella (mother of several children and heavily pregnant in book 1) and her increasingly complicated deputy, Sven-Erik. After a gap of 3 years, I am delighted that MacLehose Press has taken over the UK publication of this series and that the next book, Until Thy Wrath Be Past, is out in the UK this month. [Rebecka Martinsson’s name is said to be a tribute to Sjowall and Wahloo’s Martin Beck.]
Karin Alvtegen, another favourite author of mine, has written five non-series novels of psychological suspense, of which I most highly recommend Missing (2000, foreshadowing The Girl Who Played With Fire), Betrayal (2003) and Shadow (2007), all very different – Missing is very exciting, but the novels are bleak, grim, and not always leaving the reader with any hope. At a recent literary event, the author spoke about her increasing abhorrence with violence and the way it is so casually depicted on TV and other media, so has challenged herself to write a suspenseful book with no violence. I am sure she can do it, and the result will probably be my perfect crime novel!
Liza Marklund is another firm favourite of mine, in her superb depiction of a journalist, Annika Bengtzon, from her sad childhood and days as in intern with a ghastly boyfriend, desperately trying to keep her place as a subeditor in a newspaper office, to her role as a well-known journalist struggling to produce “real” stories with integrity while the media industry plunges downmarket, and equally struggling to be a good parent to two young children. Her friend Anne works in TV so we also see the crushing effects of that industry on the moral values and lives of those working in it. Annika’s job brings her into contact with dramatic stories of course, and her senior “deep throat”-like contact in the police force does her investigations no harm. She stays one step ahead of the game in the world of newspaper politics but it isn’t so clear that she’ll manage the same in her personal life. The first four books in the series were published a while ago; after a gap they are now being republished and the new novels (there are 9 so far) being translated for the first time, beginning with last year’s Red Wolf. The author is interested in journalistic values, political/historical issues (for example, sex-trafficking is the theme of the strongest (in my view) novel in the series, Paradise, and Red Wolf examines whether modern terrorism could have originated in the anti-war protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s); less so in providing “solutions” to the crimes, which are usually tossed over to the police to sort out. Hence, Liza Marklund is the perfect “anti-overblown ending” crime author – and for all these reasons is one of my very favourites.
Inger Frimansson writes very good psychological novels: so far translated are a pair and a standalone (I’ve reviewed them at Euro Crime). Disturbed protagonists, inadequate police investigations, small and superstitious communities – it is all here.
Johan Theorin is writing a marvellous quartet set on the small island of Oland, the first one published in 2007. In common with other novels in this second “tranche”, he writes so well about the old communities and residents (especially the 80-something fisherman Gerlof), embedding his novels with the superstitions and legends of the island. I can’t recommend the first three novels highly enough (the fourth one is not yet written); these novels are crime fiction at its very best. (See my Euro Crime reviews of them.)
Camilla Ceder is a new (to English speakers) novelist who on the basis of her first novel, Frozen Moment, fits into the Kersten Ekman mould. The novel is a vivid yet freezing portrait of small communities in the countryside round Gothenberg, a mystery that has its roots in the past, as many good mysteries tend to do. Both the police characters and the various witnesses and residents are portrayed with subtlety and individuality, so I am looking forward to seeing how this series develops.
AND THE REST
Two favourite Swedish authors who don’t seem to fit neatly in either of these categories are Camilla Lackberg and Mari Jungstedt. The former writes a series set around Fjallbacka, so far there are nine titles (five translated) beginning with The Ice Princess (2008). The protagonist is Erika Falk, a journalist and true crime author, who gets involved in various local cases, not least because of her relationship with Patrik Hedstrom, the sharpest of the local police force (though he isn’t as sharp as most readers!). Part crime novels and part domestic romances, these books are very popular. Mari Jungstedt sets her novels on the island of Gotland. Like Lackberg, they have police-procedural elements in the team led by Inspector Anders Knutas, and a strong romance theme involving Stockholm-based TV reporter Johan Berg and Emma, a woman who lives on the island. There are nine books in the series so far, of which the first five have been translated. Both these series contain dark themes and other typical elements of crime fiction, but they are both more preoccupied with the romantic lives of their characters than is common in a crime novel. Both series are very readable and involving, addressing many of the same contemporary themes of social and personal ills that figure in most crime novels; I very much enjoy them both.
Are these the only Swedish crime novels I’ve read? No. But they all started before Stieg Larsson began publishing his novels, or in a couple of cases began to publish at the same time. None can therefore be said to have been influenced by the Stieg Larsson phenomenon, and all can be read and enjoyed in their own right. A few details:
Mons Kallentoft’s first novel Midwinter Sacrifice will be out soon: I have read it and think he is an author worth looking out for – he writes about small-town life and has a female police detective as a main protagonist. There is also a slight supernatural element.
Lars Kepler’s The Hypnotist received a lot of publicity when first published (the authors are a husband and wife team) but my view is that although it has some good elements, it degenerates into a horror-thriller that I found too commercially driven for my taste, more hype than substance.
Lief G W Persson’s books are being translated now. The one I read, From Summer’s Longing to Winter’s End, was far too long and tedious for its content. It was as if someone had taken the “establishment conspiracy” elements common to the LeCarre end of the genre (as used by Stieg Larsson in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), created a few onion skins out of them, and added a bit of brutality to a slowly moving whole. It is the first of a trilogy but I don’t think I have the will to find out more about which spook turns out to be not as we thought, etc.
Roslund-Hellstrom’s Box 21 (aka The Vault) is perhaps the bleakest and most anger-making novel I’ve read in a long time, focusing on sex-trafficking and police corruption. Very good indeed.
Arne Dahl’s well-regarded novels will soon be available to English readers in US editions – I for one am looking forward to those.
The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist is not really a crime novel in the sense of having a perpetrator or much suspense – it has elements of science fiction – but I do highly recommend it as a haunting, thought-provoking study of both character and society.
More Swedish crime fiction authors (and reviews of some of their books) are at Euro Crime’s regional listing. If any readers of this post can recommend other Swedish authors who have been translated into English not mentioned here, I’d be very grateful and happy to read their books. [I should also note that there are writers from other countries who set novels in Sweden, of course. One I would recommend as being in the Eckman tradition is Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida, though for me it does not quite have the same resonance as the books discussed here written by Swedish authors. There is also a recent novel called Meet me in Malmo by Torquil MacLeod which is worth checking out.]
Thanks are due to the many translators who have bought these books to English-language readers: Laurie Thompson, Steven T Murray/Reg Keeland/McKinley Burnett, Joan Tate, Anna Patterson, Tiina Nunnally, Ebba Segerberg, Neil Smith, Marlaine Delargy and many others. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 62 | https://www.bookfinder.com/author/per-wahloo/ | en | Per Wahloo: used books, rare books and new books @ BookFinder.com | [
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"Roy Stafford"
] | 2024-05-28T00:00:00 | Some 1970s audiences in the UK might have known the name Ingmar Bergman, almost synonymous with the idea of a dark and twisted Swedish art film. But Bergman did not make films with many thrills or with much concern about contemporary politics. However, there is a direct link during the 1970s to the modern idea of Nordic Noir and it concerns a pair of Swedish writers who conceived a new kind of police hero in the 1960s, one who would become the character who did not just catch the bad guys but went about the job in a way that exposed political problems. And this character, a ‘revolutionary’ in terms of crime fiction, would not only survive and thrive in his contemporary world of crime fiction but would also act as a direct inspiration for many of the writers and filmmakers who produced works of Nordic Noir from 1990 onwards. This chapter explores the film adaptation of one of the novels featuring this ‘political detective’, Martin Beck. | en | /fileasset/fileasset/Hexagon.png | manchesterhive | https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526176455/9781526176455.00022.xml | You are not authenticated to view the full text of this chapter or article.
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7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 35 | https://crimefictionlover.com/2014/09/cis-a-guide-to-the-martin-beck-series/ | en | CIS: A guide to the Martin Beck series | [
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"Jeremy Megraw",
"Paul Burke"
] | 2014-09-21T20:37:41+01:00 | Read our complete guide to the Martin Beck novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, which began in 1965. Set in Stockholm, they gave rise to the Nordic noir genre | en | Crime Fiction Lover | The site for die hard crime & thriller fans | https://crimefictionlover.com/2014/09/cis-a-guide-to-the-martin-beck-series/ | Between 1965 and 75, the husband and wife team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (above) wrote a series of 10 police procedurals set in Stockholm, all carrying the subtitle ‘The Story of a Crime’. Their work was distinct from other crime fiction at the time due to the attention given to the personal lives of the detectives, an emphasis on forensic procedure and, most importantly, how each case held a magnifying glass over society at large. The series features the dyspeptic Detective Martin Beck and his Murder Squad, working cases in the Swedish capital. The homicides they investigate carry them through all strata of society, where skeletons are found in every closet. For Beck and his team, closing a case also means navigating the insufferable bureaucracy of the police, sometimes against all odds.
The birth of a sub-genre
The Martin Beck novels gave rise to the Nordic noir sub-genre. They are the classics and nearly all crime fiction originating in Scandinavia has been influenced – directly, or indirectly – by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s work. One of the books formed the basis for the 70s film The Laughing Policeman, even though it was set in San Francisco, and several others were filmed in German and Swedish. There have been radio adaptations and between 1997 and 2018, there have been seven Swedish TV series with Peter Haber as Martin Beck, and written by the likes of Rolf and Cilla Börjlind.
Scandinavian crime fiction is famous for its use of the gloomy climate to mirror the detective’s tortured psyche. But here each murder victim also speaks volumes about the socio-political climate that is intimately woven into the narrative of police work. Martin Beck’s fictional cases are an historical prism charting Sweden’s progress building its famous welfare state and social democracy. The authors were journalists too, and wanted to explore the moral grey areas of society where so much was meant to be good, but where institutional corruption, the soulless machinations of the police state, terrorism, and the alienation of the citizenry also festered. Their Marxist leanings were no secret, but the novels never feel didactic, and their wry humour always makes us chuckle. Beck himself loathes politics and takes no outward stance. He always supports his colleagues, however incompetent, even as new policies threaten to undermine his ability to do his job.
A thriving market
Sjöwall and Wahlöö used an interesting technique. They would write alternate chapters individually, blending the realism and inherent tedium of police procedure with an irreverent commentary. Their brand of murder, bad weather and social commentary continues to be very much in demand, as is evident in the success of Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbø, Karin Fossum, Arnaldur Indriðason, and many others. Just as their influence endures across crime fiction’s continental borders, so do many of their themes. The trenchant issues in these early novels are prescient of today’s headlines, where increasing social inequality and the militarisation of the police remain vital fodder for crime fiction.
And while all that sounds quite serious, let’s not forget that the Martin Beck series is very entertaining. The stories provide a virtual tour of the Swedish countryside with its variety of dialects and character types. The personal and professional travails of Beck, Kollberg and their colleagues in the Murder Squad become so familiar you can’t help but follow them with genuine concern.
The collaboration between the authors, who were in a 13-year relationship, ended prematurely when Per Wahlöö died after an operation necessitated by pancreatic cancer in 1975. They are so highly regarded in Swedish that stamp was made in their honour in 2010. What follows is a guide to the series – perfect if you want to discover the classics of Scandinavian crime fiction…
Roseanna (1965)
The series begins with the nude body of a young woman found by a dredger in Lake Vättern, in the small district of Motala. It turns out to be an American librarian named Roseanna McGraw who was raped and murdered. When we are introduced to Martin Beck and his investigative team, they all appear quite cranky and don’t even get involved in the case until well into the book. Beck, a chronic smoker, has a perpetual cold and upset stomach, symptoms which seem to align with his failing marriage. He is aided by Sten Lennart Kollberg, an overweight, free-thinking sensualist who detests guns. Kollberg’s appearance belies his martial arts ability. He can be lithe as a tiger when needed.
Kollberg and Beck go way back and seem to read each others’ mind, making extraneous chatter unnecessary. Leaning back in his chair smoking his pipe is Fredrik Melander. Dispassionate and analytical, he is hard-working (when he’s not in the bathroom) and thorough. He has a photographic memory, so never forgets a name, a face or a random fact, making him a very valuable asset. With the help of a local policeman and their American counterpart in Nebraska, Beck devises a crazy plan that just may work – lure the misogynistic killer into a trap using a female undercover cop as bait. For a more comprehensive appreciation of Rosanna, read our earlier article here.
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The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
(Mannen som gick upp i rök – 1966)
On the first day of a well deserved vacation, Beck gets a call that he is needed back at HQ. Alf Matsson, a famous journalist, has gone missing. Beck learns that the journalist wasn’t well liked and had planned a trip to Hungary, but not much else, so he follows the reporter’s trail. In Budapest, he wanders around the Eastern Bloc city looking for clues and pondering his failing marriage. He is tailed by the police, tempted by a local woman, and almost murdered for his troubles. After slinking back home in defeat, a tiny detail in the investigation finally delivers a truth nobody could ever have suspected. An interesting historical note, Derek Jacobi portrayed Beck in a 1980 Hungarian film adaption of this book (Der Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste).
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The Man on the Balcony
(Mannen på balkongen – 1967)
During a hot summer in Stockholm, Beck’s Murder Squad is desperately trying to catch a paedophile serial killer before he strikes again. As internal and public pressure mounts, the only clues they have are a three-year-old witness, an old subway ticket and a local thug’s description. The gargantuan grouch Gunvald Larsson is introduced. We also meet the sad sack Einar Rönn, the only known friend of the thunderously abrasive Larsson. Thanks to Melander’s memory, Beck and his team home in on the killer. Two bumbling radio patrolmen from Skane named Kvant and Kristiansson play a pivotal role in the case. A 1993 film adaption of this book starred Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck and Rolf Lassgård as Gunvald Larsson.
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The Laughing Policeman
(Den skrattande polisen – 1968)
In the early dawn hours, a bus full of passengers crashes in a side street. Inept patrolmen Kvant and Kristiansson happen by and they find a bloodbath. There are eight passengers dead, one survivor, all shot execution style by machine gun. Beck and his team learn that one of the victims is their own colleague Detective Åke Stenström. As they wait for the lone survivor to wake up, they learn Stenstrom was conducting a secret investigation unbeknownst to them or even to his widow Åsa Torell, a case which may relate to the massacre. Kollberg learns that Stenström’s grieving widow may join the force herself. As the title indicates, the morose Beck laughs for the first time, but we’ll let you discover why. The famous film adaptation, starring Walter Matthau was wholly unfaithful to the book but is still an enjoyable example of a 1970s American police drama.
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The Fire Engine That Disappeared
(Brandbilen som försvann – 1969)
On a cold winter night Gunvald Larsson assigns the useless Bo Zachrisson one simple task: stake out a doorway. When Zachrisson drops the ball, the whole building explodes into flames. Larsson arrives in time to save many of the inhabitants, but the fire engine called never arrives. Forensics point to suicide by gas by a small-time crook, but a high-tech incendiary device found under his bed raises the flag of terrorism. Coincidentally, another suicide victim across town leaves a simple note: ‘Martin Beck’. Are the cases connected? Meanwhile, at home, Beck’s daughter leaves the nest and advises Beck do the same. Beck’s investigation becomes a hunt for a professional killer, aided by the squad’s young newcomer Benny Skacke.
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Murder at the Savoy
(Polis, polis, potatismos! – 1970)
A nondescript man calmly walks up to a dinner party in a hotel in Malmö and shoots the guest of honor, successful businessman Viktor Palmgren, point blank in the head. He then slips out of a nearby window. Beck’s team has their pick of Palmgren’s many enemies, and uncover a ring of corrupt officials involved in housing and arms dealing – some quite close to home. Larsson sends the bumbling cops Kvant and Kristiansson to cut off the perpetrator’s exit, but in an epic failure involving a hot dog, the murderer slips away. In Murder at the Savoy, the wry irony of the previous books gives way to a more poignant tone as Beck begins to sympathise with the everyman, even the hapless perpetrators of crimes.
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The Abominable Man
(Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle – 1971)
A sadistic police officer is himself brutally murdered while recuperating in the hospital. While the Murder Squad interviews a long list of his abuse victims, rumour has it that Martin Beck is being considered for police commissioner, which is the last thing on his mind. By the time the Murder Squad tracks down the the killer, the man has already positioned himself with an automatic rifle reminiscent of the infamous tower sniper at the University of Austin, and he’s aiming for cops. Beck feels somehow responsible, and makes a daring attempt to capture the killer. In the extremely taut and suspenseful denouement, it is clear that there are no winners, even when the perpetrator is finally taken down.
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The Locked Room
(Det slutna rummet – 1972)
Martin Beck, now divorced and convalescing from a near-death encounter with a sniper, works on an unsolved locked-room case. A man has been found shot dead in his own flat, but no weapon is found and the door is locked from the inside. Beck meets his new love Rhea, who comes to his aid in unexpected ways. Kollberg decides to quit but has one more robbery to solve. The very colourful character Sten ‘Steamroller’ Olsson takes command with one disastrous strike after the next, as the untouchable mastermind Werner Roos eludes capture. Olsson reacts to defeat by convicting the wrong guy. As the Robbery Squad groans in despair at the police’s quasi-military tactics, the true identities of robber and patsy are some of the many it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-so-sad ironies of the book.
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Cop Killer
(Polismördaren – 1974)
When a woman disappears in the sleepy coastal town of Anderslöv, suspicion turns to Folke Bengtsson, the convicted killer of Roseanna from the first book. A decade has passed and now he leads a quiet life in the town. Beck is sent and finds a friend in rural police chief Herrgot Allwright, and they attempt to get to Bengtsson before local vigilante justice can. Lacking evidence, Bengstsson is arrested anyway by the gun-ho commissioner. Meanwhile in Malmö, a troubled youth in the wrong place at the wrong time becomes the subject of a manhunt when a cop dies during a scuffle with his gang. As the public clamors for the young man’s blood, Gunvald Larsson and the Murder Squad must rescue the delinquent before an armed police task force takes him out.
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The Terrorists
(Terroristerna – 1975)
In this final instalment of the Story of a Crime, finished by Maj Sjöwall upon Per Wahlöö’s death, irony abounds as do fast-paced suspense and dark humour. With echoes of the cop killer theme in the previous book, an ordinary girl named Rebecka Lund is wrongly accused of robbing a bank and becomes a victim of the system (note the statement made by the original book cover, left). Although he must solve the case of a murdered pornographer, Beck’s activities are mainly occupied with foiling a terrorist plot to kill a visiting American senator. Rebecka Lund’s fate leaves Beck with the bitter after taste of justice system doled out according to social class. He goes home to play Scrabble with his friends, and on the board at least, Kollberg gets the last word of the series.
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Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1926-1975) Swedish author, best known for his ten-volume Martin Beck crime novel series, all written with his partner Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020). His Near-Future sf thrillers, all of which interrogate the form they use, include Mord på 31:a våningen (1964; trans Joan Tate as Murder on the 31st Floor 1966; vt The Thirty-First Floor 1967), in which intrusive detective work and the intrusions of a totalitarian state are seen as nearly indistinguishable, and which was filmed as Kamikaze 1989 (1982); Generalerna (1965; trans Joan Tate as The Generals 1974), set around the court-martial on an isolated Island of a soldier who has apparently "blasphemed" against the military Dystopia that society has become; and Stälspranget (1968; trans Joan Tate as The Steel Spring 1970), in which an exile from a despotic Sweden returns to find the land decimated by a deadly Pandemic. [JC]
Per Wahlöö
born Gothenburg, Sweden: 5 August 1926
died Malmoe, Sweden: 22 June 1975
works
Mord på 31:a våningen (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1964) [hb/]
Murder on the 31st Floor (London: Michael Joseph, 1966) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/D Mohan]
The Thirty-First Floor (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1967) [vt of the above: trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/George Salter]
Generalerna (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1965) [hb/]
The Generals (New York: Pantheon, 1974) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/Gary Tong]
Stålsprånget (Stockholm, Sweden: P A Norstedt & Soners, 1968) [hb/]
The Steel Spring (London: Michael Joseph, 1970) [trans by Joan Tate of the above: hb/]
links
Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry
Internet Archive | |||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 80 | https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/sweden/ | en | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist | [
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] | null | Posts about Sweden written by louisproyect | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist | https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/sweden/ | In September 2014, I wrote a review for CounterPunch titled “Sweden and the Renaissance of Marxist Crime Stories” that referred to the writing team of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. Today I read an obituary for her in the NY Times that I reproduce below to get past the paywall. While my review covered a range of Swedish Marxist crime novelists, I will quote the passage that dealt with Wahloo and Sjowall who were not only great writers but smart enough to see through the notion of the “Swedish model”:
In 1965 the husband and wife writing team of Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall published their first novel “Roseanna” that introduced Stockholm Chief Inspector Martin Beck to the world. Both were committed Marxists and hoped, in Wahlöö’s words, to “rip open the belly of an ideologically impoverished society”.
Like the “Wallander” series reviewed below, the Swedish television series titled “Beck” should probably be described as “inspired” by the novels rather than a direct treatment that was faithful to the authors’ radical vision of Swedish society. That being said, “Beck” retains the noirish sensibility of the original and can be relied upon to hold the dark side of Swedish society to scrutiny as well as being first-rate television drama.
In the premiere episode of season one that aired in 1997, two teen-age immigrant male prostitutes have turned up dead. The first reaction of Beck and his fellow cops is to wonder if another “laser killer” was on the loose again, a reference that would be obscure to most non-Swedish viewers but key to understanding the preoccupations of the writers.
From August 1991 to January 1992 John Ausonius shot 11 people in Sweden, most of whom were immigrants, using a rifle equipped with a laser sight—hence his nickname. The shootings occurred when the New Democracy was on the rise in Sweden, a party that had much in common with Golden Dawn and other fascist parties throughout Europe.
Not long into the investigation, Martin Beck refocuses it on a search for a homicidal pederast. Like Bjurman, the social worker who preys on Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, the killer is a respectable member of Swedish society. This is the most common element of all the television series reviewed here: the moral rot of the people at the top.
As Beck and his team make their rounds interrogating suspects in the dark of night, Stockholm is recast as a noir landscape under dark clouds and rain. This is not a city of strapping male and female blondes preparing for a weekend skiing trip but of junkies and prostitutes who belong in William S. Burroughs’s “Naked Lunch”.
Nobody could ever confuse Beck with the Aryan ideal. With his thinning hair, homely face and flabby body, the fifty-something cop played by Peter Haber, who resembles Karl Malden, looks more like an accountant or a middle manager than someone heading up a homicide investigation—or at least what American television would put forward for such a role. Nor is Beck particularly assertive in his relations with people outside his department. After he refuses to co-sign a loan his daughter needs to move into an apartment obtained illegally (likely violating Sweden’s strict housing codes), she bawls him out in a crowded restaurant as if he were an errant child.
In the first episode, we meet two of the characters with major roles in “Beck”, his subordinate Gunvald Larsson who is constantly bending or breaking rules in Dirty Harry fashion and Lena Klingström, a cyber-cop who spends her working day on the Internet looking for clues rather than going out and busting heads like Larsson. In this first episode, bending rules and trawling the Internet both produce results.
Comic relief occurs in every episode when the divorcee Beck returns home each night to his lonely apartment. Like clockwork, he runs into his unnamed sixtyish neighbor who has hennaed hair and a neck-brace that is never explained. Played by veteran actor Ingvar Hirdwall, he is always musing on the decline and fall of everything, a perfect Greek chorus of one to accompany some classic crime stories.
“Beck”, seasons one through three, can be seen on Amazon streaming.
Maj Sjowall, Godmother of Nordic Noir, Dies at 84
With her companion, Per Wahloo, Ms. Sjowall wrote 10 books starring Martin Beck, a laconic, flawed Swedish detective.
Maj Sjowall, a Swedish novelist who collaborated with her companion on a series of celebrated police procedurals that heralded the crime-fiction genre of Nordic Noir (including the wildly successful books of Stieg Larsson), died on Wednesday in a hospital in Landskrona, Sweden. She was 84.
The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Ann-Marie Skarp, chief executive of Piratforlaget, the books’ Swedish publisher. In recent years Ms. Sjowall lived on Ven, a small island off the southwestern coast of Sweden.
With their first novel, “Roseanna” (1965), about the strangling death of a young tourist, Ms. Sjowall and Per Wahloo, her writing and domestic partner, introduced Martin Beck, an indefatigable, taciturn homicide detective in Stockholm.
“He is not a heroic person,” Ms. Sjowall (pronounced SHO-vall) told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2015. “He is like James Stewart in some American films, just a nice guy trying to do his job.”
In terse, fast-moving prose, the couple wrote nine more Beck books, including “The Laughing Policeman,” which won the Edgar Award in 1971 for best mystery novel and was made into a film in 1973 starring Walter Matthau, with its setting moved from Stockholm to San Francisco. Several Swedish movies and a TV series, “Beck,” have been made based on the novels.
Mr. Wahloo died shortly before their 10th Beck mystery, “The Terrorists,” was published in 1975, and Ms. Sjowall never revisited the detective again.
As a team, they helped redefine crime fiction with Beck’s flawed, laconic and empathetic character — an acclaimed addition to the pantheon of literary gumshoes like Georges Simenon’s Maigret and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade.
Wendy Lesser, the author of “Scandinavian Noir: In Search of a Mystery” (2020), said in an email that Ms. Sjowall and Mr. Wahloo’s novels “had a direct or indirect influence on every subsequent mystery writer in Scandinavia,” among them Henning Mankel and Jo Nesbo, as well as on American crime writers like Michael Connelly.
Mr. Larsson’s posthumously-published trilogy of Millennium novels — including “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” — “are highly derivative of all previous-to-him Scandinavian thriller writers,” Ms. Lesser added.
Mr. Nesbo, in the introduction to a 2009 English-language reissue of his third Blake mystery, “The Man on the Balcony,” wrote: “Sjowall and Wahloo have shoulders that can accommodate all of today’s crime writers. And we are all there.”
Maj Sjowall was born on Sept. 25, 1935, in Stockholm, where she grew up on the top floor of one of the hotels her father managed. She recalled an unhappy, unloved childhood.
She was a single mother at 21 — her boyfriend had left her before her daughter, Lena Sjowall, was born — then married and divorced two older men by the time she met Mr. Wahloo, a left-wing journalist and novelist, in about 1962.
Ms. Sjowall was a magazine art director, and the two worked for different publications owned by the same publisher. They fell in love discussing a crime series that would focus on a single detective. They also wanted their books to reflect their Marxist views.
“We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer,” Ms. Sjowall said in an interview with The Guardian in 2009.
From the beginning, they planned 10 books, which they wrote at night while her daughter and their sons, Jens and Tetz Sjowall Wahloo, slept. Facing each other across a table, they wrote alternate chapters in longhand. The next night, they edited and typed the other’s work, mindful of finding a style that appealed to a broad audience.
“We never talked about the story when we were writing it,” she said to The Telegraph. “The only things we said were, ‘Pass me the cigarettes,’ or, ‘It’s your turn to make some more tea.’”
They got the idea behind “Roseanna” as they watched an American woman standing alone on a ferry trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. “I caught Per looking at her,” she told The Guardian, and she asked, “Why don’t we start the book by killing this woman?”
In their description of the fictionalized woman’s body being dredged out of a canal, they wrote: “A group of amazed people gathered around and stared at her. Some of them were children and shouldn’t have been there but not one thought to send them away. But all of them had one thing in common: they would never forget how she looked.”
After Mr. Wahloo’s death (the two never married), her literary output slowed. She collaborated with Tomas Ross, a Dutch writer, on the crime novel “The Woman Who Resembled Greta Garbo” (1990) and translated some of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser detective novels into Swedish.
Ms. Sjowall is survived by her three children and five grandchildren.
The last Martin Beck book was published 45 years ago, and Ms. Sjowall remained surprised that the stories continued to resonate with readers and fans of the Swedish TV series.
“This is a part of my life that I didn’t expect,” she told The Guardian. “I never thought the books would last all my life, or that I’d still be thinking about them after all this time.”
A man with a plan for implementing socialism piecemeal
While far apart in age and ideology, Bhaskar Sunkara and John Bellamy Foster share the distinction of being the helmsmen of two flagships of American Marxism: Jacobin and Monthly Review. They also have in common authorship of recent op-ed pieces in the Washington Post in praise of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Oddly enough, despite the perception some might have of MR occupying a space to the left of Jacobin, a publication loosely affiliated to the DSA, Foster’s piece is more flattering to Sanders. Titled “Is democratic socialism the American Dream?”, it embraces the Scandinavian model of socialism that forms the core of Sanders’s political program:
In advocating democratic socialism, Sanders has promoted a pragmatic politics of the left. His proposals include a sharp increase in taxes on the billionaire class, free college tuition and single-payer health insurance, guaranteeing health insurance to the entire population regardless of jobs and income. He advocates job programs in the tradition of the New Deal. All of these proposals represent things that have been accomplished in other countries, particularly the Scandinavian social democracies, where the populations are better off according to every social indicator. By portraying them as possible here, Sanders has brought the idea of socialism — even a moderate kind — from the margins into the center of U.S. political culture.
In Sunkara’s article, “The ‘Sanders Democrat’ is paving the way for the radical left”, the good name of the Scandinavian model is invoked again:
Many of the young people now trumpeting socialism aren’t clear about what they mean by the word. It’s safe to guess that they’re referring broadly to the tattered social protections that do exist in the United States or to the more robust Scandinavian welfare states that Sanders often speaks of. Worker ownership of the means of production is not on the agenda for Sanders socialists just yet, nor are other questions about democratic control and social rights, ones key to the traditional socialist worldview.
Leaving aside the question of the value of pro-socialist think pieces in Jeff Bezos’s newspaper that is largely disdained by the very workers whose interests they defend, there is a failure to critically examine the Scandinavian model that even contributors to the two journals view with skepticism or outright hostility. If we can reasonably identify Sweden as the most representative example of the model, there is an obvious disconnect between the op-ed pieces and what can be found in Jacobin and MR.
In a February 2015 interview with Jacobin, Petter Nilsson of Sweden’s Left Party probably spoke for most of his nation’s Marxists when he said:
There’s this joke on the Swedish left that everyone would want the Swedish model, and the Swedes would want it perhaps more than anyone. What’s considered to be the Swedish model peaked in maybe the late ’70s, early ’80s and has since gone through quite the same developments as the rest of Europe with the neoliberal wave.
Meanwhile, Monthly Review dropped all illusions in the Swedish model over twenty years ago, well before John Bellamy Foster became editor. In March 1993 Kenneth Hermele and David Vail wrote “The End of the Middle Road: What Happened to the Swedish Model?”, an article that denounced the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP, Swedish for the Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti or “Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Sweden”) for pursuing a program based on “more social differentiation, higher concentration of economic power in the hands of Swedish transnational firms and their owners, and giving up the attempt to carry out a development model different from those of other developed capitalist countries.” So deep was the disgust with Swedish social democracy in the MR milieu that another article appeared subsequently in the July-August 1994 issue that attacked Hermele and Vail for being too soft on the SAP. In “Sweden: the model that never was”, Peter Cohen makes the case that it never had anything to do with socialism:
The history of the SAP since the First World War is one of class collaboration, not of “a kind of social contract” or negotiated class relationships,” whatever that may mean. Like all other European Social Democratic parties, the SAP not only accepts capitalism but defends it against any attempt at change. The party has always argued that what is good for Swedish corporations is good for the Swedish working class.
When Bob Schieffer of CBS’s “Face the Nation” interviewed Bernie Sanders on May 10, 2015, one of the first questions posed was what it meant to be a socialist nowadays. Did it mean being for nationalizing the railroads and “things like that”, clearly trying to get the candidate to defend Soviet-style socialism rather than the welfare state. Sanders replied that he was for “democratic socialism”, or what they’ve had in countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland for many years. Upon hearing this, I resolved to begin writing about Sweden and socialism to develop a class analysis of Sanders’s program. The other countries he listed would have to be overlooked because of time constraints and also because Sweden is an exemplar of the Scandinavian model. I was also familiar with the failures of Swedish social democracy having written fairly extensively about the country’s Marxist authors who got across their ideas about its dark side in detective novels such as the Wallander series and the Dragon Tattoo.
A series of eight articles about the Swedish model have appeared on my blog and this will be the conclusion. I am posting it on the North Star website since the issues posed by the Sanders campaign overlap with questions facing the left in the USA and Western Europe as many Marxists like Sunkara and Foster appear to be giving social democracy a new lease on life. Oddly enough, for all of the self-flagellation (deservedly so) by the Leninist left, there is a remarkable willingness today to treat social democracy as a brand new shiny toy and not the movement that had the blood of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on its hands.
In many respects, the new found interest in social democracy is the result of a vacuum created by the collapse of a revolutionary left that had adopted sectarian and dogmatic methods based on a misunderstanding of what the Bolsheviks represented. In the USA today, there are only two groups of any significance that carry the “Leninist” banner and one of them—Kshama Sawant’s Socialist Alternative—is embedded in the Sanders campaign just as the CPUSA is embedded in Hillary Clinton’s. To its credit, the ISO continues to reject supporting Democratic Party candidates even though it recognizes the significance of having a candidate for President calling himself a socialist, even if mistakenly so.
If there’s anything to be gained from the massive amount of analysis devoted to the Sanders campaign, it is in deepening our understanding of social democracy and electoral politics. From its very beginnings, the socialist movement has considered the possibility that capitalism could be abolished through the ballot but in opting for electoral politics, there were always dangers that it might slowly and inexorably become wedded to capitalist reform.
This was the subject of an Adam Przeworski article titled “Social Democracy as a Historical Phenomenon” that appeared in the July-August 1980 New Left Review. If our notions of workers taking power is informed by what Marx wrote about the barricades of the Paris Commune, we should never forget that Engels was entirely open to the possibility of an electoral road to socialism. In 1881, he wrote about the excellent prospects for a socialist party in England: “Let, then, that working class prepare itself for the task in store for it, — the ruling of this great empire; let them understand the responsibilities which inevitably will fall to their share. And the best way to do this is to use the power already in their hands, the actual majority they possess in every large town in the kingdom, to send to Parliament men of their own order.”
As a result of the long expansion of the capitalist economy in Europe through the late 1800s, the result to a large extent of colonialism, the major socialist and working-class parties in Germany, Sweden, France, Italy and England turned Engels’s off-the-cuff observation into a principle. With the massive support of the German working class, Kautsky’s party was a symbol of what was possible under conditions of legality. In Czarist Russia where socialists were forced to operate underground, Lenin considered Kautsky’s party a model even if Rosa Luxemburg saw the dry rot in its foundations.
Slowly and molecularly, such parties began to adapt to electoralist methods that put the rather atomized election day choices of voters above the kind of mass actions that could lead to a socialist victory. Przeworski described the conundrum that workers faced. Despite the fact that they received millions of votes, their chances of winning an election was diminished by being outnumbered by members of other classes whose commitment to socialism was weakened by their social status as farmers, professionals or small proprietors. In order to become the ruling party, social democrats had to think in terms of making alliances with non-proletarian parties. In doing so, the leaders of the Swedish social democracy went further than other parties and long before it took power in the 1930s, it had become accustomed to forming blocs with middle-class parties that wrested concessions from the SAP that were not in the interest of its working class base.
Even as the SAP evolved into a multi-class, reform-oriented electoral machine, it never abandoned its socialist principles—at least on paper. After WWII, it offered lip-service to the idea that Sweden could become socialist no matter that its economic policies were barely distinguishable from FDR’s New Deal.
In 1971, perhaps as a result of the most profound radicalization since the 1930s, the SAP’s top economists Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner proposed a plan that would supposedly lead to capitalism being abolished through elections. The so-called Meidner Plan stipulated that 20 percent of profits of all large companies like Volvo would pay for workers’ shares that over a certain number of years would result in them being owned by employees after the fashion of Mondragon. Of course, whether worker ownership has something to do with the original vision of Marx and Engels is open to question. Despite being owned by its workforce, Mondragon competes in the marketplace like all other corporations and is not above layoffs and other forms of labor discipline.
That being said, the idea of a Meidner type plan succeeding in the USA would be unprecedented in American history. Whatever the drawbacks of a Mondragon might be, who would not welcome the thought of the Koch brothers being forced to relinquish control of their vast empire to ordinary workers?
On November 10, 2015, Bhaskar Sunkara was interviewed by Vox Magazine editor Dylan Matthews, a Harvard graduate dubbed by Huffington Post as one of five “rising stars” under the age of 25. Despite his association with a magazine that is staffed mostly by other Washington Post reporters who jumped ship with Vox founder Ezra Klein, Matthews has a soft spot for Jacobin, calling it “perhaps the most relevant and important publication of the American political left today.”
The interview sought Sunkara’s opinion on a speech that Sanders had given a few days earlier. In keeping with his general approach to the Sanders campaign, Sunkara gave critical support to the speech even if he made clear it was not really the kind of socialism he favored.
Addressing the problem alluded to in the Przeworski article, Matthews wondered how despite having 70 percent of their workforce in unions, there was still very few signs of inroads being made on capitalist ownership in places like Sweden. He asked Sunkara, “What’s the path to worker ownership and control in a democratic society?”
His reply:
Provisionally, I would look at the Meidner Plan — the wage-earner scheme pushed by a massive mobilization on the part of the trade union federation in Sweden, which would have gradually socialized most firms in Sweden — as one model.
Matthews returned to the Jacobin beat only this month. In a fairly gushing article titled “Inside Jacobin: how a socialist magazine is winning the left’s war of ideas”, the Meidner Plan came up again:
What we really need, Sunkara insists, is democratic worker control of the means of production. He cites approvingly the Meidner plan, a Swedish initiative in the 1970s that would have seen “wage earner funds” controlled by unions slowly assume ownership over every company with more than 50 employees, by forcing corporations to issue stock and give it to the funds. It was still “far too tepid,” Sunkara told me, but it was a start.
In the 1993 Socialist Register, none other than Rudolf Meidner took stock of his famous plan and the entire edifice of Swedish social democracy erected over a century in an article titled “Why did the Swedish Model fail?” While obviously loath to engage in the sort of blistering attack on his party such as the kind found in Monthly Review, it took a lot of courage and honesty to look at things without illusions. The article is must reading for those who pin their hopes on a transformation of the Democratic Party based on a Sanders “turn” made possible by changing demographics that favor the young and the disenfranchised.
“Socialist” Volvos now built in “Communist” China
(This is the ninth in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”. Part four took up the Myrdal enthusiasm for eugenics. Part five deals with Sweden’s economic partnership with Hitler. Part six covers the social pact that labor and capital agreed upon in 1938. Part seven addressed the question of “Who Rules Sweden” Part eight looked into the Stockholm School of economics that served as as the foundation for Social Democratic policies..)
In 1938 the Swedish trade unions (Landsorganisationen) and the SAF, the Swedish equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce (Svenska arbetsgivareföreningen), signed an accord at Saltsjöbaden that would define the parameters of class peace for the next forty years. Under successive Social Democratic (SAP) governments, the system became known as “socialism” even though it was really a welfare state and nothing more. One of the more unfortunate aspects of the Bernie Sanders campaign is that it keeps this myth alive even though measured by the standards of the 1938 agreement Sweden has not been “socialist” for more than 25 years.
In the historic split between the reformists of the Second International and the Comintern, there was never any difference over the goal. Both Lenin and Eduard Bernstein claimed that they were in favor of a classless society. They only differed on the means. Until the 1930s, the Swedish social democrats could at least be described as orthodox Bernsteinites. But in the years leading up to 1938, they transformed themselves into something entirely different. They became socialists in name only. Independently of John Maynard Keynes, they developed policies that are largely associated with the term “Keynesianism” such as:
Deficit spending as an anti-recessionary measure
A highly progressive income tax
State subsidized housing, medical care and education.
Generous unemployment and welfare payments
Partnership between labor and capital over industry-wide and plant-specific policies (in Michael Moore’s latest documentary, tribute is paid to the inclusion of trade union representatives on the board of directors of Mercedes-Benz.)
A specifically Swedish enhancement to the welfare state and one viewed as in line with classically “evolutionary” socialism was called “wage-earner funds”. (They were also called Meidner funds after the economist who first conceived of them.) Supposedly a percentage of pre-tax profits plus a part of wages would be allocated to an pool that would buy shares in the companies, gradually taking them over.
When Bernie Sanders talks about socialism, he is talking about such policies. I too would like to see them adopted in the USA. Unfortunately, they have disappeared for the most part from Sweden as it speeds rapidly toward adopting the Anglo-American Reagan/Thatcher/Clinton/Obama neoliberal model.
The economists who formulated a Keynesian model were graduates of the Stockholm School of Economics, an institution I wrote about in an earlier installment in this series. This business school was launched in 1909 with Knut Wallenberg’s funding. As you probably know, if you have been reading these series of articles, the Wallenbergs were the Rockefellers of Sweden but with a decidedly more liberal outlook—at least until economic growth in the advanced industrial countries slowed down to a crawl in the early 70s.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to explain why the post-WWII boom came to an end (I would refer you to Harry Shutt’s The Trouble with Capitalism for information), suffice it to say that the Wallenbergs switched gears in the early 1970s just as most major donors to the Democratic Party would.)
In 1978 a Wallenberg favorite named Curt Nicolin became head of the SAF and embarked on a path to tame the Swedish trade unions and to force the social democrats to adopt neoliberal economics. If you’ll recall what was happening in the USA at the time, a climate of “lean and mean” had begun to set in. Even before Reagan had taken office, President Carter had lectured the American people on the need to tighten their belts. Think tanks on both the liberal left and the right had come to the conclusion that in order to have an expanding economy, it was necessary to become more competitive. This meant working longer hours and accepting the need to cut “wasteful spending” on welfare.
In Sweden the SAF funded a massive propaganda attack on the “wage-earner funds” meant partly to put the kibosh on the program and also to put the entire Swedish model on the defensive.
On a national popular level in advertisements ‘Meidner Funds’ were connotatively linked with central planning and totalitarianism, presented in black and white images, and were juxtaposed with free enterprise, connotatively linked with freedom of choice, decentralised ownership, initiative and democracy, which were presented in colour. The material was also often targeted so as to interpellate certain groups or towns (‘free enterprise good for Vaxjii’; ‘wage-earner funds concern us barbers too, whether we like it or not’; ‘us gas-station owners too, whether we like it or not’). On an intellectual level, the publishing house Timbro published 22 books between 1978 and 1982, half of which were on free markets and wage-earner funds. The publishing house Ratio was oriented towards theoretical and philosophical debate, and also arranged seminars in philosophy and the social sciences on topics pertaining to freedom, democracy and the market. (In the process, some prominent figures of the Swedish New Left, such as Lennart Berntsson, were converted.) In addition to this, SAF and SI continued their support of the more technical think-tanks, SNS and IUI. This elaborate apparatus provided support for the bourgeois parties in the elections of 1979 and 1982, and thus the prerogatives of capital could be defended.
In many respects the partnership between labor and capital in Sweden was like the one that existed in the USA under FDR, Truman and LBJ until the realities of market competition forced a breach. The big difference between other countries and Sweden was the role of the left. Unlike France, Italy or even the USA to some extent, heavy industry was the arena over which the bosses and the Communist Party fought for control. There was never anything like the Flint sit-down strikes in Sweden, at least in the 1930s. (The Adalen General Strike took place in the early 20s when the CP was a much bigger factor.) For Swedish social democracy, the idea was to foster the development of big manufacturers like Volvo that could provide the tax revenues to fund a welfare state. In exchange for class peace, the bosses got a stable workplace and government subsidies.
As the crown jewel of Swedish “socialism”, the trajectory of the Volvo Corporation deserves some close scrutiny. Volvo (and Saab) had a reputation among many liberals and even many on the left as being superior to other car manufacturers for its attention to safety, its refusal to adopt new styles every year or two, and finally for its supposed humane treatment of its workforce. On June 23, 1987 the NY Times reported on how Volvo was abandoning Fordist assembly lines and converting to a work team approach that were being pioneered in its Kalmar plant. The Times reported:
The cars being assembled here are ferried around the plant by separate computer-controlled carriers. Work teams of about 20 people are responsible for putting together entire units of the car, such as the electrical system and the engine. In this batch-work system, each worker typically does a series of tasks.
Equally unusual is where Volvo found Kalmar’s managers. Virtually all of the plant’s 104 white-collar employees came off the shop floor. Moreover, all major decisions at the plant, whose work force totals 920, must be approved by a joint committee representing both labor and management.
Volvo has discovered that workers are much happier under the Kalmar approach. And that has resulted in sharply improved productivity and improvement in quality, as well as profits that are the envy of the world auto industry.
By November 1992, the two work-team plants had been shut down. Furthermore, Volvo announced that all new assembly would take place outside of Sweden. (Saab, which had already been sold to General Motors, also was headed down the same road—finally going belly up in 2012.)
After being sold to Ford in 2000, Volvo finally ended being made in China with Swedish financing. You can understand why. Workers at Geely in China making Volvos on an assembly line (you can be sure) make $5000-7000 per year. That’s much better for the bottom line, after all. Apparently Volvos will soon be made in South Carolina, another bastion of free enterprise.
Winding down the manufacturing base in Sweden did not mean an end to capital accumulation. Like Great Britain that had liquidated its coalmines and steel mills, Swedish capital would find other profitable outlets. As Thomas Murphy, a former CEO of General Motors, once put it: “General Motors is not in the business of making cars. It is in the business of making money.” This could apply as well to the Swedish bourgeoisie.
In a March 1993 Monthly Review article titled “The End of the Middle Road: what happened to the Swedish model?”, Kenneth Hermele and David Vail describe where Swedish capital flowed:
There was no special need to invest those profits in domestic productive ventures, since business was going so well anyway. Instead, the growing profits bred speculation and inflated the prices of real estate, art, stamps, and the like. In order to find an outlet for all this speculative capital, the Social Democratic government thought it necessary to eliminate the little control over international capital flows that it had previously exerted. Within a year or two, Swedish capital had spilled over into Europe and helped push real estate prices in London and Brussels to record highs.
During the latter half of the 1980s, total direct investments virtually exploded, reaching 84 billion SEK (14 billion U.S. dollars) in 1990. The outflow of capital amounted to as much as 7 percent of Sweden’s GNP, or 60 percent of its domestic investment in 1989 and 1990. Approximately 35 percent of those investments were for speculative purposes (real estate and portfolio investments) and centered on London and Brussels. Swedish capital in fact became one of the most active investors in the EC at the end of the 1980s.
This outflow of capital constituted a drain on Sweden’s financial resources, and it also meant that productive investments at home were kept low by the giant and quick profits that could be made on speculation both at home and abroad. As we know now, the bubble burst sooner rather than later, and the losses turned out to be enormous. In Sweden, the banking system lost an estimated 90 billion SEK (18 billion U.S. dollars) on the collapse of the real estate market. Here, private and public commercial banks and the normally-conservative savings and loan institutions had all participated in the scramble. Their enormous losses are now covered by the Swedish state, i.e., by the taxpayers. Thus, wage earners have paid twice for the policy of the Third Road: first, when their wages were sacrificed in favor of profits, and then again when the banks’ losses are covered by the state.
Even as the economic basis for a “Swedish model” was unraveling, the social democrats in office appeared to have little interest in swimming against the stream. In fact, they seemed eager to embrace “new thinking” with relish.
In 1993 Finance Minister Goran Persson began dismantling the Swedish public education system and fostering the establishment of private schools in the same fashion as Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
At the same time the SAP joined hands with the right-wing Swedish Conservative Party (Moderatasamlingspartiet) to make workers responsible for making pension contributions, not the boss. This mean that the longer you are unemployed, the smaller the pension. Socialism? Really?
In a July-August 1994 Monthly Review article titled “Sweden: the model that never was”, Robert Cohen writes:
[Prime Minister] Ingvar Carlsson recently visited Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden and a disaster area in terms of unemployment, cutbacks in social benefits, and privatization of health care and other vital services. For example, the public bus service was recently sold to private owners. This led to immediate personnel reductions, wage cuts, and price increases. The cost of a monthly ticket for a pensioner rose from 100 to 390 kronor overnight, which effectively prevents many pensioned workers from using the bus service. Carlsson’s comment on privatization in Malmo was: “I’m not familiar with the details, but in principle we are not in disagreement with our political opponents,” which amounts to an endorsement of the attack on Malmo’s working class.
In September 2014, the Social Democrats were elected in Sweden in what many considered to be a rejection of 8 years of center-right austerity. In keeping with earlier partnerships with the right, they show signs that they remain committed to neoliberalism. Just three months after being elected, the new prime minister named Stefan Löfven caved in to rightist pressure and adopted an economic program that was more of the same. Even if it finds the votes necessary to reinstitute a “Swedish model”, it is unlikely that it will be able to sustain through unrelenting pressure from the right. It takes a lot more guts to push through a modest Keynesian economics in 2015 as the sad outcome in Greece demonstrates. In fact, it might even take Molotov cocktails to bring about the most tepid of reforms.
In the final analysis, it was inevitable that Sweden became virtually indistinguishable from Britain or the USA since blind economic forces trump policy. If we are interested in true socialism rather than something that rests very much on a partnership with capital, a marriage made in hell to say the least, it probably makes sense to revisit the question of how to get there. That will be the final installment in this series of articles.
Knut Wicksell: the father of Swedish social democratic economic policies and an influence on Mises and Hayek as well.
(This is the eighth in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”. Part four took up the Myrdal enthusiasm for eugenics. Part five deals with Sweden’s economic partnership with Hitler. Part six covers the social pact that labor and capital agreed upon in 1938. Part seven addressed the question of “Who Rules Sweden”.)
Trying to understand the evolution of the economic theories underlying Swedish social democracy is no easy task. There is not only a dearth of English-language material but in Swedish as well. In “Seven Figures in the History of Swedish Economic Thought”, a specialized text on some of the leading economists associated with the “Swedish model”, author Mats Lundahl refers to their output as “unknown” or “forgotten”.
If the “Chicago School” summons up images of Milton Friedman consulting with Pinochet, what does the “Stockholm School of Economics” evoke? Founded in 1909 as a business school largely from donations by Knut Wallenberg, it was intended to churn out experts who could help Sweden modernize its economy and develop international trade. The Wallenbergs were the Rockefellers of Sweden and well equipped to shape the doctrines that would govern the nation’s future. As it turns out, the Rockefeller Foundation had considerable interest in Sweden’s politics as well, donating large sums to set up a Social Science think-tank under the jurisdiction of the University of Stockholm that would study the impact of wage levels in the labor market among other things. Among the earliest benefactors of Rockefeller funding was Gunnar Myrdal, a Stockholm School graduate who would later on be referred to the Carnegie Foundation for the funding he needed to write “American Dilemma”, widely considered a seminal work on civil rights.
So how did Sweden’s social democracy get hooked up with a business school funded by Sweden’s most powerful capitalist dynasty?
In a way this was inevitable given the social democracy’s ideological drift that began in the 1880s and deepened over the decades. It can best be described as the Swedish version of Eduard Bernstein but unconstrained by any kind of left opposition in the party such as existed in Germany.
One of the key departures from classical Marxism was rejection of the labor theory of value. Party theoreticians became seduced by the theories of Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, who was arguably the first economist to challenge the core beliefs of Marxism on the nature of capitalist exploitation.
As it turns out, the economist who is considered the ideological progenitor of the Stockholm School was one Knut Wicksell, who like Böhm-Bawerk took aim at the labor theory of value. It is of some note that Bohm-Bawerk is considered the father of the Austrian school of economics that includes Mises and Hayek. If Wicksell was an acolyte of Bohm-Bawerk, how did he end up influencing the likes of Gunnar Myrdal who is one of the 20th century’s iconic liberal figures? Furthermore, if the Stockholm School was indeed a pioneer of the kind of economic policies associated with John Maynard Keynes, even to the point of beating him to the punch, how do you explain the odd admixture of neoclassical economics and 20th century liberalism?
Wicksell was as much of an influence on the Austrians as Bohm-Bawerk. If you go to the Mises wiki, you will find a page that pays tribute to Wicksell as a major contributor to their business cycle theories. Since much of Wicksell’s writings involve very technical analysis of interest rates and credit allocation, it is not that hard to understand why he would be of use to reactionaries like Mises.
But the more interesting question is to what degree Wicksell’s neo-Malthusian views that were put forward largely in non-academic writings had an influence on subsequent social democratic policies, especially forced sterilization.
In his chapters on Wicksell, Lundahl finds those writings to be more important than the technical price, interest rate and credit analysis. In lectures to his students at Uppsala University, Wicksell dwelled at length on the vices of the lower class such as alcoholism and prostitution. He was also concerned about overpopulation, thinking that technological breakthroughs could never keep pace with population growth. Much of his writing is focused on determining an “optimum population”. While there is no particular recommendation on the need for forced sterilization, you have to wonder to what extent his fixation on such matters figured in the state policies that would leave many Roma women sterile.
If Wicksell’s emphasis on the need for market relations to guarantee efficient provision of capital, labor and resources seems at odds with Swedish values, keep in mind that his influence can be felt in the writings of Gunnar Myrdal who on first blush would appear to be the anti-Austrian par excellence.
If a $15 (or better) minimum wage is a demand that resonates with civil rights activists today, it is rather shocking to discover that Myrdal’s take in “American Dilemma” had more in common with Bill O’Reilly’s:
During the ’thirties the danger of being a marginal worker became increased by social legislation intended to improve conditions on the labor market. The dilemma, as viewed from the Negro angle is this: on the one hand, Negroes constitute a disproportionately large number of the workers in the nation who work under imperfect safety rules, in unclean and unhealthy shops, for long hours, and for sweatshop wages; on the other hand, it has largely been the availability of such jobs which has given Negroes any employment at all. As exploitative working conditions are gradually being abolished, this, of course, must benefit Negro workers most, as they have been exploited most—but only if they are allowed to keep their employment. But it has mainly been their willingness to accept low labor standards which has been their protection. When government steps in to regulate labor conditions and to enforce minimum standards, it takes away nearly all that is left of the old labor monopoly in the “Negro jobs.” (emphasis added)
As low wages and sub-standard labor conditions are most prevalent in the South, this danger is mainly restricted to Negro labor in that region. When the jobs are made better, the employer becomes less eager to hire Negroes, and white workers become more eager to take the jobs from the Negroes. (p. 397)
Perhaps the only thing that can be said here is that Myrdal remained committed to neoclassical economics despite his reputation of being some kind of socialist. If supply and demand dictate what Black labor gets, then how can a civil rights movement be built?
You can read a large part of Herbert Aptheker’s critique of Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma” on Google Books. It is a reminder of how good Communists could be when they were ready to go for the jugular:
The bourgeois values of Myrdal are also given quite explicitly. He states that to him the terms good and bad are “defined according to our value premise of placing the general American culture ‘higher.” The same bias is apparent in Myrdal’s choice of the “friends” of the Negro. To him, “the Negro’s friend—or the one who is least unfriendly—is still rather the upper class of white people, the people with economic and social security.” And in another place Myrdal names one of these upper class people, Edgar G. Murphy, “who is distinguished as one of the most sincere friends of the Negro among the conservative-minded old Southerners.” This individual, a leader in the Alabama movement to overthrow Reconstruction government and constitution, felt that so far as the Negro is concerned, “the spirit of the South has been the spirit of kindliness and helpfulness…. The South gives to him the best gift of a civilization to an individual, the opportunity to live industriously and honestly. . . The South, must, of course, secure the supremacy of intelligence and property.” Such, to Myrdal, is “one of the most sincere friends of the Negro.”
To a large extent, Swedish social democratic economic policies rest on the notion of a “third way” in which labor and capital can cooperate with each other and avoid the mutual destruction revolutionary confrontations produce—at least according to theoreticians such as Knut Wicksell, Gunnar Myrdal, et al. But to what extent did the bourgeoisie really agree to a compromise that left both major classes in society on an equal footing? Were the Wallenbergs et al swayed by reason or were there other factors that accounted for the class peace that had dominated in Sweden for so many decades?
Unlike the USA, where the Communists were the largest party on the left, Sweden was social democratic territory. The social democrats were a known quantity to the big bourgeoisie in Sweden who regarded them as pushovers. In 1931 there was a general strike over the killings of strikers and their supporters in Adalen, a struggle led by the CP. It was that general strike that ironically led to the election of the SAP (the social democrats). In the 1920s, the SAP had demonstrated its willingness to avoid “extremism”. In an article titled “Forestalling the Business Veto: Investment Confidence and the Rise of Swedish Social Democracy” that was co-authored by Karen Anderson and Steven Snow that appeared in the March 2003 Social Science Quarterly, they document how willing the SAP was to bow to the bosses’ demands:
 The Social Democrats were historically linked to the unions, from which they derived much political support, but as a party often in government, it felt obliged to reduce the economic losses from labor conflicts. In the 1920s the SAP “repeatedly advocated general interests over and above the struggle of individual groups of workers for better working conditions”. Throughout this period, in fact, the SAP often stood with employers on the issue of wage rates. When the employers said that a wage reduction was unavoidable, the Social Democratic representatives in the unions often supported them. In 1920, for example, in response to a recession and in the face of unions’ appeals, the Social Democratic Minister of Finance declared “The demand for increased wages must cease”. The party was also willing to criticize outbreaks of violence in clashes between workers and police. In several labor disputes, even though the police apparently used excessive force, the SAP proved willing to denounce the tactics of striking workers. “Offenses against existing law must always be condemned,” the SAP Prime Minister argued.
In the 1930s, there was a rising tide of labor strikes in the USA but in Sweden, there was an opposite tendency thanks to the class collaborationism of the SAP as this chart from the Anderson-Snow article indicates:
In exchange for a housebroken trade union movement, the SAP was able to provide sizable material benefits to the working class until global competition in the 1980s forced Sweden to rip up the accords it had made with the workers and throw them in the garbage can. That will be the topic of my final article in this series.
Who rules Sweden? They do.
(This is the seventh in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”. Part four took up the Myrdal enthusiasm for eugenics. Part five deals with Sweden’s economic partnership with Hitler. Part six covers the social pact that labor and capital agreed upon in 1938.)
For most people, Sweden has an egalitarian mystique that is best sustained by knowing as little as possible about the nation’s economy. Furthermore, using the term “socialism” to describe Sweden is an exercise that works best when you know as little about the political economy of capitalism, especially as explained in the writings of Karl Marx.
To start with, there is a ruling class in Sweden. As Lennart Bernston pointed out in a chapter titled “The State and Parliamentarianism in Sweden” in a 1979 collection edited by John Fry and titled “Limits of the Welfare State: Critical Views on post-WWII Sweden”, about 100 large companies account for more than a half of industrial production and sixty of those are owned by 15 families, which in turn are clustered around 3 banks—at the top of which sits the Wallenberg’s Stockholms Enskilda Bank referenced below. It is a sad commentary on radical analysis of Sweden, at least in English-language volumes and articles, that no other book except Fry’s could be located in the Columbia University library.
When you study the history of American capitalism, family fortunes come to mind generally associated with a quote misattributed to Balzac’s “Pere Goriot”: “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.” This is what comes to mind when you think of the Robber Barons whose as a group constituted the big bourgeoisie of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Who are the Swedish Rockefellers and did they accumulate wealth based on criminal behavior? As it turns out, it is the Wallenberg family that is the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Duponts rolled into one. Despite the aura that surrounds the name due to Raul Wallenberg’s efforts on behalf of Hungarian Jews during WWII, the family bank—the Stockholms Enskilda Bank—aided Nazi Germany during the same time through money-laundering and other criminal activities as I indicated in the first installment in this series.
The Wallenbergs took control of this bank in 1886 and used it as its primary tool of intervention in the Swedish economy until the formation of Investor AB in 1916. The array of companies that are within the Wallenberg bailiwick is staggering. It includes some of the biggest names in the Swedish economy (from Wikipedia):
AstraZeneca – pharmaceuticals (4.1% stake, 4.1% voting rights)
Electrolux – consumer appliances (15.5% stake, 30.0% voting rights)
Ericsson – telecommunications (5.3% stake, 21.5% voting rights)
Husqvarna – outdoor power tools, chainsaws, lawnmowers and robotic mowers (15.7% stake, 30.8% voting rights)
NASDAQ – stock and securities exchange (11.5% stake, 11.5% voting rights)
Saab – aviation and military technology (30.0% stake, 39.5% voting rights)
By the late 1990s, the Wallenbergs owned forty percent of the shares traded in the Swedish stock market and two cousins –Jacob and Marcus– sit on the board of virtually every large company in Sweden.
Around the time that neoliberalism was on the rise in the USA and Britain, crowned by the election of Reagan and Thatcher respectively, the Wallenbergs were instrumental in setting Sweden’s path down the same road. While the “third way” was never really anything except welfare state capitalism, it was certainly a concession to working class interests wrested partly from the power of Swedish labor in the 1930s. In a book by Magnus Ryner titled “Capitalist Restructuring, Globalization and the Third Way: Lessons from the Swedish Model”, you can find the details:
On a national popular level in advertisements ‘Meidner Funds’ [trade union shares in a corporation] were connotatively linked with central planning and totalitarianism, presented in black and white images, and were juxtaposed with free enterprise, connotatively linked with freedom of choice, decentralised ownership, initiative and democracy, which were presented in colour. The material was also often targeted so as to interpellate certain groups or towns (‘free enterprise —good for Vaxjo’; `wage-earner funds concern us barbers too, whether we like it or not’; ‘us gas-station owners too, whether we like it or not’). On an intellectual level, the publishing house Timbro published 22 books between 1978 and 1982, half of which were on free markets and wage-earner funds. The publishing house Ratio was oriented towards theoretical and philosophical debate, and also arranged seminars in philosophy and the social sciences on topics pertaining to freedom, democracy and the market. (In the process, some prominent figures of the Swedish New Left, such as Lennart Berntsson, were converted.) In addition to this, SAF and SI continued their support of the more technical think-tanks, SNS and IUI. This elaborate apparatus provided support for the bourgeois parties in the elections of 1979 and 1982, and thus the prerogatives of capital could be defended.
In other words, just as the time the Kochs were providing seed money for the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and universities all over the USA to promote the free market, the Wallenbergs were up to the same shenanigans in Sweden.
What accounts for the Wallenbergs suddenly discovering that Swedish industry had to become “lean and mean”? Like the USA and Britain, it was confronted by the rise of Japan and Germany as major competitors. Despite the advantage enjoyed by Sweden over a half-century of peace and steady increases in productivity, global competition was catching up with it in the 1960s. In 1959, a great year for capitalism in the major industrialized countries, the operating profit for Swedish industry as a whole was 8.1 percent. In 1967 it had fallen to 4.3 percent. In Fry’s collection, you can find another article by Lennart Berntson titled “Postwar Swedish Capitalism” that summarizes these developments:
Many current problems confronting the working class arise from the new phase which Swedish capitalism has entered since the mid-sixties. Among other things, this new phase is characterised by the fact that Sweden can no longer exploit the exceptionally advantageous conditions it previously enjoyed in comparison with the rest of Europe — the avoidance of domestic industrial and civilian destruction in two wars and a comparatively milder political and economic crisis during the thirties. The positive impact of these factors however declined at about the same time that the domestic market became increasingly unable to absorb monopoly capital’s growing capabilities for investment and commodity production. Parallel to this was the emergence of the special problem of the tariff protected European Common Market and the rise of increasingly keen international competition since the mid-sixties. These new conditions, which to a certain degree Swedish capitalism had in common with many other advanced capitalist countries, have given rise to a situation where the bourgeoisie’s rate of profit has begun to decline.
It is quite mystifying why Bernie Sanders can embrace a Swedish (or Scandinavian) model that disappeared decades ago. It is one thing for an aging politician to be living in the past. It is another for young people who occupied Wall Street and who seek fundamental social change in the USA to do so. Unless the new generation of leftists comes to terms with what “socialism” means and what that term has or has not to do with Sweden, it will be led hopelessly astray.
The Saltsjöbaden Agreement of 1938, a deal that ensured class peace. Trade union leader August Lindberg is at the left while corporate chief Sigfrid Edström is at the right
(This is the sixth in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”. Part four took up the Myrdal enthusiasm for eugenics. Part five deals with Sweden’s economic partnership with Hitler.)
Feeling duty-bound to understand the origins and development of Swedish social democracy, I slogged through 342 pages of Herbert Tingsten’s “The Swedish Social Democrats: the Ideological Development” that was written in 1941. The emphasis is on ideological since the book pays scant attention to what is happening on the ground. It reads more or less as a chronicle of debates in a party from its founding in 1899. I got what I needed from it by the time Tingsten worked his way up to 1932 or so when party leaders were trying to figure out what relevance their ideology had to the Great Depression. As a reflection of the book’s somewhat limited value, it fails to mention the General Strike of 1931 that was sparked by the shooting of papermill strikers and their supporters in Adalen.
Born in 1896, Tingsten was a political science professor and newspaperman who edited Dagens Nyheter from 1946 to 1959, a paper roughly equivalent to the NY Times. Wikipedia described his ideological history this way:
Tingsten changed his political views several times during his life. In his early youth he was a conservative and later a radical left-wing liberal. During the 1920s he joined the Swedish Social Democratic Party and was on the left-wing faction of the party. In 1941 he wrote Den svenska socialdemokratiens idéutveckling (“The Ideological Development of the Swedish Social Democrats”), where he criticized the party for not fulfilling the marxist goals of nationalizations of the private industry. However, after reading Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom in 1944, Tingsten became a convinced believer in a free market economy and in 1945 he left the Social Democratic Party. He was one of the original participators of the Mont Pelerin Society, founded in 1947.
I certainly got the impression that the 1941 book was critical of the Swedish social democrats from the left even though Tingsten was careful to strike a neutral tone. But page after page is devoted to pointing out how willing the party was to dump the Marxist ideas that were present at its founding even if they were tainted by Lassalle’s state socialism as I pointed out in a previous post.
In the late 1800s the Swedish party (SAP, or Social Democratic Workers Party) was a virtual hotbed of “revisionism”, almost always adopting views that were antithetical to Marxism, such as the rejection of the labor theory of value. As I worked my way through Tingsten’s text, which read more often than not as a stenographer’s notes from various SAP meetings, I was struck by how committed the SAP was to remaining within a liberal capitalist framework even as it paid lip service to socialism.
In examining some of the earliest programmatic statements by Hjalmar Branting, Tingsten points out that he had a rather “inclusive” understanding of the term proletariat. There was an industrial proletariat but there was also a proletariat based on receiving a salary. This would exclude poor farmers and small craftsmen but it would include bankers, cabinet ministers and professors.
Before long, Branting and other party leaders began to think in terms of “the people” rather than the proletariat, seeing social democracy as a force that could unite everybody in opposition to the big bourgeoisie. While Tingsten says very little about this, there is little doubt that the populism of the early days of Swedish social democracy lent itself to the peculiar notion of folkhemmet, or “the people’s home”, that party leader and Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson developed in the 1920s. If you’ll recall, Hansson was in power during WWII when Swedish industrialists were helping to keep the Nazi war machine going.
Folkhemmet was also key to the eugenics program that the Myrdals espoused, which blurred the lines between the family unit, the state and the seemingly progressive character of the welfare state that the social democrats promoted.
Under folkhemmet, the goal was basically not to overturn property relations but to reduce the differences in income between those at the top of society and those at the bottom. In essence, this is what attracts people like Bernie Sanders to Swedish “socialism” even though it has little to do with Karl Marx’s call for revolutionary change.
Wikipedia states that a Swedish political scientist named Rudolf Kjellén developed the idea of folkhemmet in a 1900 book titled “Swedish Geography”. Apparently, he was inspired by Otto Von Bismarck’s state socialism so it is no surprise that the Swedish social democrats who appropriated Lassalle would embrace Kjellén’s ideas of a politics based on:
Reich: a territorial concept consisting of Raum (Lebensraum), and strategic military shape
Volk: a racial conception of the state
Doesn’t this ring a bell? It should. Hitler implemented this approach even though he never specifically referred to Kjellén.
Ironically, Folkhemmet became a symbol of the “decent” Sweden that was being transformed in the post-1970s into a state indistinguishable from other neoliberal projects in Western Europe. While it is understandable why leftwing social democrats would feel nostalgia for the good old days—mirroring in some ways that of some older people in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc—it also found expression in the writings of Henning Mankel, the Marxist author of detective novels in the Wallander series that I wrote about for CounterPunch. In a fascinating article titled “Folkhemmet” by Göran Rosenberg that appeared in OpenDemocracy in 2013, we learn that the detective would like to turn back the clock:
There is no doubt in my mind that Henning Mankell, a self-confessed supporter of the radical left, is having his protagonist, Kurt Wallander, represent his own disillusionment with the retreat from the ideals of folkhemmet [the people’s home] and his own yearning for its political restoration.
The rhetoric of nostalgia remains in fact a potent factor in Swedish politics. This is most explicit in the party that still claims political ownership of the Swedish model, the Social Democrats. Although the party, while in government, has been instrumental in many of the changes signifying a retreat from the model, and while in opposition, has largely acquiesced to liberal-conservative proposals to the same effect, it has skilfully managed to retain most of its traditional rhetoric, depicting itself as the true custodian of folkhemmet.
The final paragraph of Tingsten’s chapter pretty much sums up what would guide Swedish social democracy for a century at least and one that demonstrates his leftist distaste for the party’s subsequent evolution:
In a speech delivered in 1900 Branting emphasized that new viewpoints had become decisive with the party’s growth: “As long as the party is composed of only a few persons who lack the opportunity to exercise any real political influence, it is in the nature of things that their principles will be abstract in form and that the main emphasis will be on future goals. On the other hand, should the working class begin to take a hand in the machinery of society, certain immediate goals to improve its position will appear so attractive and occupy so much time and interest that the more distant ones will, relatively speaking, be shunted aside.” In an article published in 1897, Danielsson recalled that Social Democrats had abandoned a series of dogmas that they had previously defended with fanatic zeal. This was proof of the movement’s viability. In terms reminiscent of the anti-intellectual vitalism of today, Danielsson extolled the capacity of Social Democratic theory to change and adjust. The theory “is distinguished by great elasticity and demonstrates its truth and practical fecundity in that it does not exhaust its forces in vain attempts to do violence to reality but allies itself naturally and voluntarily with all fluid popular movements in various countries for the purpose of leading the working classes on to a higher cultural level and a freer social position along navigable roads that have been opened by history.”
What is also of interest given the stated goal of Bernie Sanders to turn the USA into something like Sweden (at least like it used to be) is whether rich people like the Koch brothers will go along with it. Maybe we could import a new bourgeoisie while we are in the process of importing a new ideology.
But what could have made Sweden’s one percent so amenable to a tax structure that had a leveling effect? Was it something in the water? To start with, it is important to understand that the Swedish social democracy never appeared as a threat to moneyed interests as should be obvious by both their ideology and their willingness to collaborate with bourgeois parties. Given the relatively crisis-free nature of Swedish capitalism (it fared better than most European countries during the Great Depression) and the nation’s neutralism that protected it from the ravages of war, there were fewer irritants at work on the working class at least as compared to France and Germany for instance.
All this led to the trade union movement and the bosses hammering out a partnership based on class peace in 1938 at Saltsjöbaden, a town with salt bath spas as the name indicates. While sacrificing the big profits that a more greedy capitalist class sought, there was at least a guarantee that strikes like the ones that roiled Sweden in 1931 would be kept to a minimum. You can be sure that people like Walter Reuther studied this agreement carefully. Indeed, the Saltsjöbaden agreement and the New Deal represented welfare state capitalism at its pinnacle. When Obama was elected in 2008, people at the Nation Magazine held out hope that he would be a new FDR. There was about as much chance of that happening as the USA adopting a “Swedish model” even in the most unlikely event that Sanders got elected. The reason for this is easy to understand. The American bourgeoisie long ago gave up on New Deal type partnerships between labor and capital. It was much easier to close plants and relocate capital to China, Bangladesh and elsewhere. In fact even the Swedish bourgeoisie has little interest in turning back the clock to 1938, something that will be the topic of a future post.
Prime Minister Per-Albin Hansson: architect of the “Swedish model” and Hitler’s enabler
(This is the fifth in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”. Part four took up the Myrdal enthusiasm for eugenics.)
For most people of Bernie Sander’s age, Sweden’s long-standing neutrality gave it an aura of progressivism during the Vietnam War when it lent itself to peace activism at the highest level of government. However, during WWII that policy had a much more malevolent effect insofar as it meant that the government would tilt toward Nazi Germany economically and militarily—this despite the fact that the Prime Minister Per-Albin Hansson was a Social Democrat.
In December 1939 Hansson called for a government of national unity that would include parties from all parts of the political spectrum except for the CP. He named a non-party career diplomat Christian Guenther as Foreign Minister to replace the Socialist Rickard Sandler, a move calculated to advance Sweden’s pragmatic view of neutrality.
To avoid war with Germany, a nation that had already conquered Denmark and Norway, Sweden took a very flexible attitude toward Nazi troop movements on its soil. On July 8, 1940 the two nations hammered out a deal that would prove useful to Nazi war plans. Around 30,000 Nazi soldiers would board Swedish trains each month as the same railway transported 1500 trainloads of Nazi armaments. Although the rank-and-file Socialist objected to this, the king and Christian Guenther pushed strongly for acceding to German demands. As will be noted in the film clip below, Per-Albin Hansson was much more persuaded by these two men than he was by the ordinary Swede.
On June 26, 1941, the day that Finland entered the war against the USSR, Sweden gave the green light to a trainload of 15,000 Nazi soldiers to head East on behalf of Operation Barbarossa. Between June 22nd and November 1 of the same year Swedish trains carried 75,000 tons of German war material to head in the same direction. As the trains came back from the front, they carried wounded Nazi soldiers to occupied Norway where they were treated in Oslo hospitals until they were ready to return to the killing fields. Swedish authorities also set up base camps for the Wehrmacht fully supplied with food, oil and other necessities. And all the while German warplanes flew over Swedish air space en route to Russia. Sweden was also nice enough to sell or lease more than a thousand trucks to Germany just to make sure that the invasion of Russia would not go haywire.
It was only when Germany began to suffer a serious setback in Russia and when the allies escalated their pressure on Hansson that Sweden finally began to deny German requests to transport men and material on its railway system. One can easily imagine that if Germany had accomplished its goals in Russia, the government of national unity led by a politician who was considered the architect of the “Swedish model” might have kept up its de facto support of Nazi Germany’s genocidal war.
A large part of Sweden’s implicit support for Nazi war aims can be explained as old-fashioned profiteering after the fashion of Swiss banks, another bastion of WWII neutrality. It was fairly incontrovertible that Swedish iron ore was crucial for the German war industry, as this table would indicate:
Year Millon Tons 1933 2.3 1937 9.1 1942 9.0 1943 10.1
In November 1934 Hitler admitted that without Swedish iron ore, Germany would not be able to make war. Meanwhile, a balance of trade was maintained to some extent by Sweden’s willingness to buy German coke and coal, as well as German weapons that by all accounts were very cost-efficient. Just ask the people of Leningrad. It should be added that a large part of Germany’s payments for Swedish iron ore and ball-bearings (another important component of the war machine) was made with gold that by all accounts consisted to a large degree of loot stolen from Belgium, the Netherlands and Jewish families and then melted down to avoid detection. But then again, if the gold was being used to pay for socialized medicine in Stockholm, who could complain?
Christian Leitz, the author of “Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe During WWII from which the data in this article derives had this to say about Per-Albin Hansson:
In view of continued Swedish supplies to the Third Reich it is not surprising that relations between Sweden and the Allies ‘remained characterized for the rest of the war by suspicion and anger on the part of the Allies and nervousness over post-war trade prospects among the Swedes’. Although, by 1944, Germany was evidently losing the war, Sweden continued to make a vital contribution to the German war effort. In September 1944 Churchill brought the attitude of the Swedes to a point when he accused them of ‘calculated selfishness, which has distinguished them in both wars against Germany’. Why did the Swedish government not respond more readily to the growing Allied pressure?
One important reason was that, even during the second half of the war, the Swedish government and an overwhelmingly pro-Allied Swedish public accepted trade with Germany as a national right under international law.”‘ During the course of 1944, this line of argument rang increasingly hollow in the light of growing evidence about the horrifying nature of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. Leading members of the Swedish government continued to believe, however, in the need to retain normal relations with the Nazi regime. Historians have highlighted particularly the attitude of the leader of Sweden’s government, Per Albin Hansson. According to Alf Johansson, a leading Swedish authority on wartime Sweden, Hansson continued to believe in the threat of a German invasion long after it had ceased to be a realistic possibility. Moreover, Johansson argues, ‘Hansson’s role during the last years of the war was to act as a brake on all attempts towards an activism of Swedish policy in one direction or the other.’ Essentially, Hansson seems to have wanted to sit out the war without having to make any radical changes in the course of Sweden’s policy of neutrality. In this undertaking Hansson was very willingly supported by his foreign minister, Gunther. On the basis of observations made by various of Giinther’s fellow officials, Levine has concluded that Gunther’s policies were quite pro-German even in the later stages of the war.
* * * *
Last October I reviewed a film called “The Last Sentence” for CounterPunch that was a biopic of the later years of Torgny Segerstedt, a Swedish newspaper editor who blasted Hitler repeatedly much to the chagrin of Per-Albin Hansson, his foreign minister Christian Guenther, and King Gustav.
https://vimeo.com/135503085
I watched it again yesterday (available on Vimeo or Amazon streaming) and got much more out of it this go-round. Using the ability of the latest version of Quicktime on my spanking new Macbook, I have used its screen capturing abilities to excerpt four key moments of the film (I am still trying to get the audio kinks worked out as will be obvious):
Over drinks, Albin warns Segerstedt to quiet down his anti-Nazi editorials.
King Gustav reads Segerstedt the riot act.
Segerstedt confronts Marcus Wallenberg, a member of the banking dynasty best known for the efforts of his nephew Raul Wallenberg to save the lives of Hungarian Jews.
Segerstedt confronts Christian Guenther in the men’s room of Swedish government offices.
Gunnar and Alva Myrdal
(This is the fourth in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one is here. It is an introduction that relates Swedish socialism to Bismarck’s reforms. Part two is here. It is about the persecution of the Samis. Part three is here. It deals with Sweden and the “scramble for Africa”.)
In 1997 the world was shocked to learn that between 1935 and 1976 Social Democratic governments forced 63,000 women into being sterilized. As part of a eugenics program meant to weed out the genetically or racially ”inferior,” the women were told that they would lose benefits and be separated from their living children if they refused. Typically the women were poor, learning disabled or people with non-Nordic or mixed ethnic backgrounds.
The Roma were prime targets of this persecution. In January 2011, Swedish government official Erik Ullenhag admitted, “Throughout history the Roma have been victims of unacceptable abuse, such as forced sterilisation and being deprived of the right to educate their children.” Long after forced sterilization came to an end, the Roma were still being singled out in a Nordic version of racial profiling as CounterPuncher Ritt Goldstein reported on secret files maintained by the cops on Romas, a so-called “gypsy registry”. One entry reported a woman as being as “black as night”.
For the longest time, Sweden social democracy has had a thing about the underclass. Beneath the velvet glove of social benefits, there is the mailed fist of laws intended to rid society of those elements that could not be molded into proper members of “the people’s home”—the term coined by the social democrats to describe their ideal.
Even before eugenics became government policy, you could see a strain of hostility toward the poor in the Stockholm School of economics—their version of Keynesian theory—where Gunnar Myrdal and Dag Hammarskjold were trained.
Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell, a leading light of the business school of the University of Stockholm that had a profound impact on social democratic policy, was a diehard Malthusian and as such a firm believer in birth control not so much from the standpoint of women’s liberation but as a way to keep Sweden from being “overpopulated”, particularly by the riffraff who are alcoholics or prostitutes as he was fond of pointing out in his lectures.
As leading lights of the Swedish social democracy, Gunnar and Alva Myrdal played a major role in developing the policies that would lead to the monstrous punishment of the weak and the poor. Their theories were hardly the stuff of the Third Reich. You will not find anything about defending Nordic purity, etc. Instead it would be described as “pronatalism”, a belief that the government had a duty to promote family growth in a society that was experiencing falling birthrates despite Wicksell’s neo-Malthusianism. For the Myrdals, poverty was not a breeder of large families, which is often thought to be the case. Instead Sweden faced a problem of demographic decline since the Victorian era, one that the Myrdals interpreted as the outcome of inadequate means. So the answer was to shore up the nuclear family through public housing, income supplements, subsidized medical care—all the things we associate with the modern welfare state. They were also strong supporters of birth control but much more from the standpoint of women’s liberation than neo-Malthusianism.
In “The Swedish Experiment in Family Politics: The Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis”, Allan Carlson describes a set of policies that were not only carried out but became the “Swedish model” for Bernie Sanders and countless other American leftists who when the word socialism was mentioned thought of Sweden rather than Cuba. Their recommendations on health care would most certainly endear them to readers of the Nation Magazine:
Turning to health care, the Myrdals praised Sweden’s medical system for already embodying certain principles of social responsibility. From a population policy perspective, cost-free child health care was the most urgently needed reform. The costs of maintaining children’s health, the Myrdals asserted, must be freed from every competing aspect of a family budget. Furthermore, public health service doctors should concentrate primarily on children, particularly preschool children, “which is completely natural, since preventive health care essentially is child care:’ In light of these needs, the complete reform of the medical profession became urgent. There was “little likelihood” that the private efforts of individual doctors would produce any significant change. Abuses and problems among doctors would be solved only through a “great social political program” that brought them all under state regulation.”
If you keep in mind that such a program was intended to “breed” a superior sort of human being that could take his or her place as a productive member in the “people’s home”, you can understand why they would as well look askance at the sort of human beings rolling off the assembly line that were designated as rejects.
Carlson described the Mr. Hyde to their Dr. Jekyll:
Under the rubric of “quality-oriented” policy, the Myrdals described forced sterilization as a necessary option. While affirming, from a “race-biological viewpoint,” the equality of genetic material among all Swedish population groups, they added that a genetically inferior (mindervardighet) substrata existed within the population: the insane, the mentally ill, the genetically defective, and persons of bad or criminal character. With the German nazi program again as foil, the Myrdals stressed that their category of targeted individuals was drawn from all population and social groups. The reproduction of this inferior stock was undesirable, since offspring ran a strong risk of hereditary damage to health and intelligence. Because the government would be called upon to support genetically damaged children, the Myrdals concluded that the state had the right in limited cases to force sterilization on individuals. The guiding assumption should be to resort to the process only in recognized serious cases of illness and defect and only among those incapable of “rational decisions.” Where individuals were capable of reason, voluntary sterilization should be actively urged. Failing this, free contraceptives and eugenic abortion should be made available.
For the most thorough discussion of Swedish social democracy and eugenics, I recommend the article “Eugenics and the Welfare State in Sweden: The Politics of Social Margins and the Idea of a Productive Society” (Journal of Contemporary History July 2004) by Alberto Spektorowski and Elisabet Mizrachi who ironically were faculty members of Tel Aviv University, a pillar of the state that has carried out its own form of cleansing. In another article Spektorowski recommends that Israel become part of a regional framework based on the European Union in order to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I hope that this folly does not prejudice you against his scholarship on Sweden that is first-rate.
The Myrdals came of age when eugenics was all the rage in Europe. Francis Galton coined the term in 1883 as a way of applying social Darwinism to family planning. It became a staple of the Fabian Socialists who were gung-ho for weeding out undesirables. For George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and the Webbs, it was key to social betterment through gradual reform.
Oddly enough, Russian Marxists also embraced it, including Leon Trotsky who referred to it in “If America Should Go Communist”:
While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men – the first worthy of the name of Man.
Indeed, the Swedes and the Russians would have disavowed the use of eugenics on a racial basis. Unlike the Nazis, they would limit it strictly to those who were mentally deficient, mentally ill, or had epilepsy. Alfred Petren, the head inspector of Sweden’s mental institutions and a member of parliament, submitted the first sterilization bill in 1927. He argued that it was necessary to avoid costly life-long institutionalization. Well, that makes sense when you think of how that would have drained precious resources for raising those better qualified from a social Darwinist perspective.
Not every leftist went along with this proposal. Carl Lindhagen, a member of parliament, stated:
When one thus has tread the path of correcting a social evil by means of force, violating the inviolability of life . . . many will say: this is only the first step. Why should we stop here? … Why only deprive these individuals useless to society and to themselves of their ability to procreate? Is it not more charitable to take their life as well?
As the years sped by, Lindhagen’s warnings would become prophetic. By 1941, it was no longer a question of congenital failings. It now became social failings as well. Spektorowski and Mizrachi write:
In 1941, the reforms advocated to expand the sterilization bill were more far- reaching than eugenic argumentation would allow, and originated in part in the frustration of legislators over the limited extent to which sterilization was performed under the existing legislation. The primary reason for expanding the law was to regulate the sterilization of those considered fit to give their consent to the operation. The new law would regulate the voluntary steriliza- tion of persons of ‘legal capacity’. The proposed law added a social indicator to the existing reasons for sterilization, implicating persons who ‘due to an asocial way of life are . . . obviously unfit to have custody of children’. Asociality in this instance meant vagabondry, alcoholism, etc.
The central claim from the social point of view was that children, due to one or both parents’ ‘inferiority’, would grow up in an unfavourable environment and not receive the care and upbringing necessary to develop into capable members of society. In those cases it would be better if children were not born. This was considered a humanitarian approach.
Finally, although it does not relate to the question of eugenics, a brief word should be added about the Myrdals’ most famous book, “The American Dilemma”, that dealt with racism. At the time it was considered a breakthrough since it regarded the “pathologies” of the slum as a product of a race-divided society.
Not long after the book was published in 1944, Herbert Aptheker charged it with failing to put the blame on capitalism in a short book titled “The Negro People in America: A Critique of Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma”. This was followed by other critiques by African-Americans as Thomas Sugrue pointed out in a Nation Magazine article:
Oliver Cromwell Cox, the West Indian-born sociologist whose brilliant but mostly neglected book Caste, Class, and Race was published just a few years after An American Dilemma, took Myrdal to task for downplaying the connection between race and economic exploitation. Cox singled out Myrdal’s “mystical” belief that changing individual attitudes would end the “exploitation” at the heart of racial inequality. “In the end,” wrote Cox, “the social system is exculpated.” Myrdal’s critics grew more numerous in the 1960s. In their 1968 manifesto Black Power, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton offered their own challenge to individualistic understandings of race relations and coined the term “institutional racism” to account for the ways that racial inequality was not solely or even primarily a matter of beliefs or attitudes. They pinpointed “conditions of poverty and discrimination” rooted in unequal relationships of power and privilege, like the healthcare system that failed urban blacks and that “destroyed and maimed” lives every bit as effectively as the actions of the most brutal individual racists.
As I will point out in a subsequent article, Myrdal’s failings had to do with the very nature of Swedish “socialism”—its abandonment of Marxism in favor of a liberalism that would be the envy of the world until capitalist crisis rendered it just as obsolete as Soviet era “socialism”.
But in my next post, I will describe how Swedish neutrality during WWII coincided with a lucrative trade relationship with Nazi German. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 23 | https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-steel-spring-by-per-wahloo-trs-by-sarah-death-6296086.html | en | The Steel Spring, By Per Wahlöö (Trs by Sarah Death) | [
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] | 2012-01-28T20:07:52+00:00 | Godfather ofthe Nordic crime wave | en | /img/shortcut-icons/favicon.ico | The Independent | https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-steel-spring-by-per-wahloo-trs-by-sarah-death-6296086.html | Best known for the popular Martin Beck detective series, which he co-wrote with his wife Maj Sjöwall, the late Per Wahlöö was a progenitor of modern Scandinavian crime fiction.
The Steel Spring (1968), reissued this month by Vintage, is one of his lesser-known works, a dystopian thriller in which a grizzled gumshoe investigates a coup d'etat in an unnamed European state. The premise is intriguing, although there is rather too much exposition, and the novel ultimately lacks drama. Still, the themes are topical: the coup in question turns out to have been the result of a government attempt to privatise the state health service, a move that led to riots, epidemics and genocide. Food for thought, eh Mr Cameron? | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 38 | https://tapthelinemag.com/post/top-5-nordic-noir-reference-books | en | Top-5 Nordic Noir Reference Books | [
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] | null | [] | 2020-01-13T06:13:00-08:00 | In the past few years, the term Nordic noir has attracted the interest of both international audiences and academic scholars. Since its beginning, the new… | en | /apple-touch-icon.png | Tap the line | https://tapthelinemag.com/post/top-5-nordic-noir-reference-books | In the past few years, the term Nordic noir has attracted the interest of both international audiences and academic scholars. Since its beginning, the new genre has gradually won the critics' appraisal and it is considered today to be at the forefront of European cinema and television productions as well as crime fiction literature. The concept of the term Noir transfers us back to the decades of the 1940s and 1950s, the period during which the legendary Film-Noir flourished mainly through the American film productions Audun Engelstad attempts to examine Nordic noir in the general context of film noir scholarship and stresses that "the emergence of the term Nordic noir parallels the history of film noir" while he also believes that we should consider it as a -more or less- autonomous genre, especially if the term genre "is treated as a discursive concept". Generally, the genre is defined as a literary/artistic movement that adopts a particular mood and style, introduces alternative ways of storytelling while evoking certain emotions from the audience.
There should be a distinction between the Scandinavian Crime Fiction, also known as Scandi-Crime, and Nordic noir. If we set 2009 as the Nordic noir starting point in time, the year that the three novels written by the late Swedish journalist and author, Stieg Larsson, were released as feature films winning cinephiles around the world, then Scandi-Crime should refer to 10-15 years earlier when authors such as Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, Peter Høeg, Karin Fossum and Anne Holt were made well-known to the international readers, through their intriguing and exciting crime novels. As for pinpointing the exact date of birth for Nordic noir, there is some controversy between the subject's scholars. A. Engelstad writes that the period between 2009 and 2011, when the Millenium trilogy was adapted to the cinema screens and the Danish legendary series, Forbryderlsen, was aired on BBC (U.K.), should be considered as Nordic noir's starting point. On the other hand, Kerstin Bergman sets 2000 as N.N.'s birthday year, when S.Larsson began writing the first Millenium novel which had been published in Sweden in 2005 by Knopf Publications.
Nordic noir features some common, trademark characteristics that made it stand out from similar genres. The five main characteristics of Nordic noir are: 1)the criticism on the famous Welfare State (in Swedish: Folkhemet) of the Nordic countries, 2) a particular representation of gender and the introduction of strong female protagonists, 3)a certain use of the gloomy Nordic landscape as the most appropriate setting for a crime story to unfold, 4) severe social criticism, which historically began with Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Martin Beck Series, and the contemplation of crime as social construction rather than the result of an individual's pathology or mental illness and, 5) innovate ways of storytelling, introducing fresh narrative tropes.
Lisbeth Salander was the first solid female character that made the audiences identify with a troubled young woman, a skilled computer hacker who is determined to survive and take revenge from all those who did her wrong, while at the same time fighting her problems, her antisocial demeanor, the lack of meaningful interpersonal relationships and loneliness. Even before Noomi Rapace embodied Salander and turned her into a popular cult-icon whose name became known even to those audiences who prefer other genres, the character has gained the attraction of many readers who enjoyed the labyrinthine plot and excellent characterization of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. So, S. Larsson's protagonist set the example for several Nordic female heroines, the most popular being Saga Noren, played by the Swedish star, Sofia Helin, and Inspector Sarah Lund from the Danish crime series Forbrydelsen which made Nordic noir the first-rate export to the U.K. when aired by BBC in 2011. All the above characters are skilled and extremely dedicated to their job, which more than often has to do with law enforcement, and they also exhibit some character traits that are common: the difficulty in connecting with other people, the problem of expressing their emotions to others, the lack of important romantic relations in their life, and their stubbornness even when everything points to the fact that they are wrong. In an article written by S. Eichner and L. Mikos, the authors state: "the focus on strong, ambivalent women as lead character offer new ways with dealing with problems and establish new forms of conflict that would not arise if the character would be a male".The female perspective is embedded in many Nordic noir books/movies/TV series and it establishes a distancing from the classical, male, hard-boiled stereotypes of the Noir tradition.
Social critique and realism were themes that concerned Scandinavian crime writers from the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, when the duo of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, a married Swedish couple of crime authors, wrote the Story of a Crime book series with Inspector Martin Beck as the protagonist in ten, in total, police procedural novels. Both Sjöwall and Wahlöö were Marxists and their ideological positions are evident in their body of work. Through their novels, they attempted to point out major misperceptions that we, as outsiders, have regarding Nordic societies and dismantle the idea of the omnipresent and omnipotent Scandinavian Welfare State that was established in Sweden, in particular. Overall, they challenged the common perception of Nordic countries as prosperous, egalitarian, just societies where the citizens enjoyed a carefree existence without having to confront any large-scale social problems. In many Nordic noir works, the State policies are treated with suspicion while major subjects like the immigration wave and subsequent racism, the treatment of socially vulnerable minorities -either national or otherwise- by the authorities, the corruption and abuse of power, the domestic violence and abuse of women are all brought into the limelight. Andrew Nestingen writes: "by critically representing the Welfare State as a dystopia, Swedish crime fiction has fallen back on a twofold narrative response. In the first, the vigilante hero fights back against the dystopian elements. In the second, a good cop nostalgically stands for community, leading his followers out of dystopia and back to social integration". An example of the first kind of character would be the aforementioned Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander, while the second would be represented by Henning Mankell's Inspector Kurt Wallander.
The most distinctive characteristic of Nordic noir though is its overall mood and atmosphere as it is expressed through the sublime use of images and landscapes in the genre's works. A. M. Waade claims that Nordic noir is stigmatized by its melancholy either in literature or cinema and television productions. There is a kind of tradition for "Nordic Melancholy" which can be traced in the iconic texts written by August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen, or the paintings by Edvard Munch. Waade writes that: "there are some interesting perspectives on Nordic Melancholy that bring new insights to the analyses of Nordic noir (...) the melancholic ambiguity involves being simultaneously part of something, and yet outside it as well: out of place (displacement) and out of time (nostalgia)". This melancholy is often expressed through Nordic noir's detectives-protagonists such as Harry Hole (Jo Nesbø ), Carl Mørck (J. Adler-Olsen), Konrad Sejer (K. Fossum), Inspector Erlendur (A. Indridason), Ewert Grens (A. Roslund/B. Hellström) and many others. As far as the setting is concerned, we perceive the overall imagery of Nordic noir in dark colors (blue, grey, green, etc.), in alignment with the Nordic over-encompassing cold climate and grey skies. Waade explains that "in Nordic crime series, landscape imageries, panorama views, and opening shots can be used to indicate emotional conditions and melancholic atmosphere". If we drag from our memory certain images of some of the most popular Nordic noir television series such as Bron/Broen, Forbrydelsen, Trapped, and Bedrag, we can comprehend A. M. Waade's above argument, as it seems that the setting is a character in itself and "speaking" in its particular manner.
Some new, innovative ways of storytelling were introduced by many talented Nordic crime authors/producers. for example, te double storytelling, used mainly the Danish public broadcaster, DR, in its television series has replaced certain well-known and -perhaps- overused narrative tropes of the crime fiction genre. Redvall writes that double storytelling "refers to always telling stories that are not only entertaining but which also contain larger ethical and social connotations". Another typical Nordic noir narrative trope is the multiple timeline narrative that we encounter in several novels written by the most acclaimed crime writers such as Jo Nesbø, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Arnaldur Indridason, J. Theorin, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, and others.
Below, I'm citing a shortlist with the five most detailed and illuminating Nordic noir reference books that will help you broaden your knowledge on the subject and help you expand your horizons. Keep in mind that there is a vast number of relevant articles and essays that can be found online or in specific journals. You can find samples in the limited bibliography of this article. If you want to learn more about each book, click on the titles for a more detailed review.
K. Bergman: "Swedish Crime Fiction: The Making of Nordic Noir"
J. Stougaard-Nielsen: "Scandinavian Crime Fiction"
M. Brunsdale: "Encyclopedia of Nordic Crime Fiction"
B. Forshaw: "Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film & TV"
K. Toft Hansen/ A. M. Waade: "Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agger, G., Waade, A. M., "Media and Crime: Fiction and Journalism", Northern Lights (Vol. 9), 2011.
Eichner, S, Mikos, L (2016) "The Export of Nordic stories: the international success of Scandinavian TV drama series", Nordicom-Information 38(2): 17–21.
Nestingen, A., "Killer Research: Scandinavian Crime Fiction Scholarship Since 2008", Journal of Scandinavian Cinema (Vol. 2), 2012.
Toft Hansen, K., European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, 2018.
Toft Hansen K., Waade, A.M., Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, 2017.
Waade, A. M., "Melancholy in Nordic Noir: Characters, Landscapes, Light and Music", The International Journal of Television Studies (Vol. 12), 2017.
Redvall, E.N., "Dogmas for Television Drama: The Ideas of One Vision, Double Storytelling, Crossover and Producer's Choice in Drama Series from the Danish Public Service Broadcaster DR", Journal of Popular Television (Vol.1), 2013. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 8 | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/22/crime-thriller-maj-sjowall-sweden | en | The queen of crime | [
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] | 2009-11-22T00:00:00 | When Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö started writing the Martin Beck detective series in Sweden in the 60s, they little realised that it would change the way we think about policemen for ever | en | the Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/22/crime-thriller-maj-sjowall-sweden | It might count as one of the most remarkable writing collaborations in the history of publishing. A man and a woman, a couple, sit down every evening to write. Dinner is over, their children are in bed. She’s never written a book before. He’s a published author, but not with anything like this. They write in long hand, through the night if necessary. One chapter each. The following evening they swap chapters and type them up, editing each other as they go along. They don’t argue, at least not about the words. These seem to flow naturally.
Ten years, 10 books. Each book 30 chapters, 300 chapters in all. Every one centred on the same group of middle-aged, mostly unprepossessing policemen in Stockholm’s National Homicide Department. Often, very little happens. Sometimes for pages on end. What is more, each book is a Marxist critique of society. Their mission – or “the project” as the authors call it – is to hold up a mirror to social problems in 1960s Sweden.
Unlikely as it may sound, the books have become international bestsellers, over 10m copies sold and counting. Classics of the thriller genre, they’ve been made into films and adapted for television. Subsequent generations of crime writers are fans. There’s no doubt that the latest left-leaning Swedish author to hit the bestseller lists, Stieg Larsson, would have read them. Some say the couple wrote the finest crime series ever; that without them we would not have Ian Rankin’s John Rebus or Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander.
Yet if Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö had not met, the books would not have existed; and if they hadn’t fallen in love, the books would be nowhere near as good as they are.
More than 40 years have passed since they wrote together every night, filling in each other’s sentences. Today, Maj Sjöwall walks barefoot through her studio in a suburb in the south of Stockholm. Her hair is long and grey, and she’s wearing a loose-fitting linen smock. The room is light-filled and simply furnished: carefully chosen pictures, notebooks, pens, everything placed just so. One might describe it as monkish, but Sjöwall’s life has not been monkish, as I will find out. This is where she still works, aged 74, as a writer and a translator. There’s a single bed, a fridge, a hob, for when the small apartment that she rents nearby is too stuffy during the long Swedish summer. She lives modestly. She can not afford a car. Unlike Rankin or Mankell the books she wrote with Wahlöö have not made her very rich. There has been a modest income recently from foreign sales, but the royalties she receives from her Swedish publisher are based on old contracts. She does not sound bitter about this. “Rather free than rich,” she says.
Her lover and writing companion died 44 years ago, at the age of 49, just as their 10th book was going to press. She’s lived now far longer than they were ever together, but she’s still asked to talk about those years in the 60s. She finds this a trifle baffling. She is mystified by the insatiable appetite for crime fiction. “This is a new part of my life that I didn’t expect,” she says. We sit at a small square table, nursing cups of instant coffee. Like the books, she is direct, no nonsense, plain-speaking, although her voice is sometimes frail. “I never thought the books would last all my life, or that I’d still be thinking about them after all this time.”
I discovered “the Martin Beck series” by accident three years ago when the collection was re-issued in handsome new editions in English. Pick up one book, preferably beginning with the first, Roseanna, because they are best read in chronological order, and you become unhinged. You want to block out a week of your life, lie to your boss, and stay in bed, gorging on one after another, as though eating packet upon packet of extra strong mints. I began to worry that I was in love with Martin Beck, the main policeman. This was strange, because not only is he not a real person, he also isn’t my type. He may be empathetic and dogged but mostly he’s dour, humourless, dyspeptic, antisocial. When Sjöwall and Wahlöö invented him, the idea that a crime novel should feature a credible detective, flaws and all, was new. We’ve grown so used to our curmudgeonly fictional coppers, whether in books or on screen, that it’s easy to forget that Beck is the prototype for practically every portrayal of a policeman ever since, in this country, or America, or continental Europe.
Beck – did I mention that I’m in love with him? – shares the limelight with a group of colleagues, all equally believable, all male. There is no one hero. The policemen irritate one another in the same way that anyone who has ever worked in an office will recognise. Mannerisms grate. Tempers flare. Yet they spend more time with one another than they do with their wives – those who can hold down a marriage, that is.
The books are set in an era when everyone smoked; there were no mobile phones, or DNA samples, or the internet. They’re full of Swedish addresses which are as alien as they are unpronounceable, and as unpronounceable as they are long. Yet they don’t feel outdated or off-putting. The action is often slow yet they’re still hugely entertaining (and often very funny). Occasionally, towards the end of the series, the message becomes a little bit hectoring – you sense Wahlöö knew he was going to die, that time was running out – but by this point you’re well and truly hooked and you can forgive the lecture.
So what makes the books so compelling? There’s something inherently honourable about them, something to do with the meticulous research that went into each one before it was written, and the frail humanity of the characters. They display, say critics, a relevance and timelessness that is the mark of all good fiction. The deceptively simple style is both sparse and dramatic – an accomplishment all the more remarkable when you think that the books were written by two people. “We worked a lot with the style,” explains Sjöwall. “We wanted to find a style which was not personally his, or not personally mine, but a style that was good for the books. We wanted the books to be read by everyone, whether you were educated or not.” People tell her that the Martin Beck series marked the beginning of a lifetime of reading. “They picked them up off their parents’ shelves when they were teenagers and discovered a love of books.” Perhaps it goes back to those Marxist roots – there’s a sense that it is this, and not the volume of sales, that gives her most pleasure.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö met in the summer of 1962, and the attraction was instant. It all sounds very bohemian and Swedish. Wahlöö was nine years older than Sjöwall, married with a daughter. In pictures he looks a bit like Jethro Tull, big hair, big nose, big eyes, big grin. He was a member of the Communist Party. A former crime reporter, he’d been deported from Spain by Franco. By the time he came across Sjöwall he was a well-regarded political journalist. Sjöwall, both a journalist and an art director, looked younger than her 27 years. She was pretty in a fresh-faced boyish way. One of those people who look cool without trying.
She’d also lived a little, which, I imagine, Wahlöö might have liked. Her background, like his, was middle class – oppressive and chilly. Her parents were unhappily married. Her father was the manager of a chain of hotels and she grew up on the top floor of one of them, in the centre of Stockholm. Early on, she decided that society was much like an upmarket hotel, from the wealthy guests in the penthouse to the kitchen staff peeling potatoes in the basement, and that this was inherently wrong. “When I was 11, I realised that I did not have to live the life my mother had: school, marriage, children, apartment, summer house.”
How would she have described herself? “I think I was rather tough,” she replies. “You get tough when you grow up unloved. People described me as a boyish girl – rather shy, but I didn’t show it. I had an attitude. I was rather wild. I lied a lot because I knew the alternative was to be punished. As I got older I realised I didn’t have to lie any more and it was a nice feeling. I could be myself.”
As a teenager she went to pubs and restaurants on her own at a time when young women did not do that kind of thing. She fell in with a group of artists and musicians. At the age of 21 she was just starting out as a journalist when she discovered she was pregnant by a man who had already left her. Her father tried to force her to have an abortion. A friend at work, 20 years her senior, took pity on her predicament and suggested they marry. “He was nice. I wasn’t very much in love with him but I admired him.” After the relationship ended she married again, this time to another older man who wanted her to live in the suburbs and have more children. This second marriage didn’t last either. She was a single mother, with a six-year-old daughter, by the time she met Wahlöö.
“We met through work first. There was a place in town much like Fleet Street where all the journalists used to meet,” she recalls. “We all went to the same pubs. Then Per and I started to like each other very much, so we started going to other pubs to avoid our friends and be on our own.” It was complicated. “I didn’t like this cheating on his wife, and he had a child. So…” she pauses, leaving the messy details in the air.
Wahlöö was commissioned to write a book which he’d work on every night in a hotel room near the bar where they drank. Each day he would drop off an envelope with the work-in-progress inside, and a note. He’d deliberately leave gaps. Why don’t you fill in this bit, he’d suggest in a letter. He’d give her a female character to invent.
It sounds incredibly intimate and clandestine. They were falling in love. They could not easily meet. So they did what came naturally – they wrote for one another. It was a love affair in words on a page, a courtship of sentences. Within a year Per had left his wife, packed a meagre pile of shirts into a suitcase, and moved in with Sjöwall and her daughter Lena. Their first son, Tetz, was born nine months later. “His wife hated me of course,” she says. “Now we are very good friends.” They would never marry. “We said, well, obviously marriage is not the thing for us,” she laughs. “We just knew we really loved each other and loved not having the papers to prove it.”
They’d discussed the idea of writing a series of crime books. They talked about the crime literature that they both liked to read, progressive writers like Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett, who took crime writing out of the drawing room and on to the street. Their aim was something more subversive than what had gone before. “We wanted to describe society from our left point of view. Per had written political books, but they’d only sold 300 copies. We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society, where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer.” They planned 10 books and 10 books only. The subtitle would be “The story of a crime” – the crime being society’s abandonment of the working classes. The first plot came to them on a canal trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. “There was an American woman on the boat, beautiful, with dark hair, always standing alone. I caught Per looking at her. ‘Why don’t we start the book by killing this woman?’ I said.”
Seven months of painstaking research followed, working out the exact geography of the crime, how everything would fit together, down to the distances Beck and his team would have to travel, how much time it would take. Each chapter was plotted beforehand like a storyboard. Then they wrote every night until the manuscript was finished. Wahlöö took it to his publisher. “Per told them: ‘This is by a friend of mine and I just want to hear what you think.’” The publisher liked what he read and guessed that his author was involved in some way. Wahlöö explained he’d written it with Sjöwall and a deal was struck for the 10 books. Roseanna sold moderately well, there were even one or two good reviews. “Little old ladies took the books back to the shop, complaining that they were awful, too realistic. Crime stories in those days would not describe a naked dead woman as we did. Or describe a policeman going to bed with his wife. But on the other hand, students loved them.”
Roseanna was followed by The Man Who Went Up in Smoke and then The Man on the Balcony, each one written to the same 12-month timetable. Their themes often followed the news agenda: paedophilia, serial killers, the sex industry, suicide. Eventually they were able to give up their day jobs, but they were never able to survive off the books alone. “Back then no one had an agent. These days crime writers get millions and millions, they can afford to live abroad,” she recalls, thinking perhaps of the phenomenal success of Henning Mankell, whose central character Kurt Wallander owes so much to Martin Beck. “We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent.” There is unforeseen income now from foreign deals, but because the books have never fallen out of print the deal with her Swedish publisher is still the same as it was when they originally signed. She says she does not care. “I have enough. I stay afloat.”
Wahlöö fell ill four years before he died. First he complained of a swelling. Then the doctors said his lungs were full of water. Eventually they realised that his pancreas had burst. “Initially we thought this could be cured. We went to all kinds of doctors, but we didn’t trust any of them. Some said go on a special diet, others wanted to cut him open. In and out of hospital and all the time he was getting thinner and thinner.” By the final book, The Terrorists, he was very sick. “He knew he was going to die because he had sneaked into the professor’s room and looked at his notes.” They rented a bungalow in Màlaga and, for once, Wahlöö did most of the writing. Sjöwall took on the role of editor. “Sometimes he would just fall off the chair because he couldn’t write any more. In the morning the words would be illegible.”
I ask her how she coped. It’s hard to imagine: a relatively young woman, a dying soulmate, three children (a second son, Jens, had been born) and the pressure of a book, the final piece of “the project”, to finish. She answers with typical honesty. “Not very good, I think. I am not Florence Nightingale. I was desperate. It made me so isolated. Yet I wanted to be with him and he wanted to be with me. So we hid. There was just Per, the children and the books.”
They came home from Spain in March 1975, the book was sent to the printers and Wahlöö died in June. “He took very strong morphine tablets. Either on purpose or because, you know, if it didn’t work he took one more, if that didn’t work he’d take another one. He fell into a coma and never came round,” she says. She pauses. “His brain was not there any more. It was terrible. I was kind of praying he would die. After three weeks he did.” The relationship had lasted 13 years.
She was, she says, with a sigh, “kind of wild for a while. With guys, with pubs.” With very little money, and three children to bring up, it sounds as though life was horribly chaotic. Over time there were other long-term relationships, but now she prefers to live on her own. “I know many guys. Some of them I have been together with for a while, some are just good friends. That is enough for me. I think I have a good life.”
There have also been writing collaborations since, one a book called The Woman Who Resembled Greta Garbo with the Dutch writer Tomas Ross, which was well received. Her publishers would like her to write a memoir, “but everyone’s life story is fascinating, isn’t it?” she says, dismissing the idea. She still writes fiction when she isn’t being asked to go abroad to speak about Wahlöö, and Martin Beck, and the 10 books she co-wrote in her 30s. She’s never been persuaded to write an 11th book in the series, although she does act as a consultant on a very popular Swedish television drama based on Martin Beck. She has only one regret and that is that Wahlöö never adopted her daughter, which has meant that she’s never received any money from the books, however small. “At the time we had no idea that the series would become well known.” The idea that they’d be sold all over the world would have seemed outlandish.
I wonder if the society they feared has come to pass. “Yes, all of it,” she replies. “Everything we feared happened, faster. People think of themselves not as human beings but consumers. The market rules and it was not that obvious in the 1960s, but you could see it coming.”
So “the project” failed then?
“Yes!” she laughs. She laughs a great deal, I realise. “It failed. Of course it did. The problem was that the people who read our books already thought the same as us. Nothing changed – we changed our lives, that’s all.”
What would Wahlöö think now if he could see her, if he knew how admired their collaboration had become? There is a sharp intake of breath. “I think he would be amazed. I always think of him when we get a prize, or when I have to talk in public. I always think,” and her voice drops to a whisper, “Per would have loved this.”★ | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 43 | https://www.coursehero.com/file/208917859/Introduction-Contemporary-Scandinavian-Crime-Fictionpdf/ | en | [] | [] | [] | [
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7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 16 | https://jiescribano.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/maj-sjwall-and-per-wahl-1935-2020-1926-1975/ | en | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1935 – 2020 / 1926 – 1975) | [
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] | null | [] | 2020-04-30T00:00:00 | If any crime novels deserve to be called modern classics, it is the ten police procedurals about Martin Beck and his colleagues. With them, the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975), virtually created the modern detective novel. Written in the 60s and 70s, the decalogue is nothing short of a national… | en | A Crime is Afoot | https://jiescribano.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/maj-sjwall-and-per-wahl-1935-2020-1926-1975/ | If any crime novels deserve to be called modern classics, it is the ten police procedurals about Martin Beck and his colleagues. With them, the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975), virtually created the modern detective novel. Written in the 60s and 70s, the decalogue is nothing short of a national literary treasure, with countless contemporary imitators across the world. Together, the ten books chronicle the painful creation of modern society. (Salomonsson Agency)
Maj Sjöwall (25 September 1935 – 29 April 2020) was a Swedish author and translator. She is best known for her books about inspector Martin Beck. She wrote the books in collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö on a series of ten novels collectively titled The Story of a Crime, published between 1965 and 1975. After the death of Per Wahlöö, she continued working amongst other things as a translator, small work in writing columns for magazines and her work as an author. Sjöwall had a 13-year relationship with Wahlöö which lasted until his death in 1975. Sjöwall died on 29 April 2020 at the age of 84 after a prolonged illness.
Per Fredrik Wahlöö (5 August 1926 – 22 June 1975) was a Swedish author. He is perhaps best known for the collaborative work with his partner Maj Sjöwall on a series of ten novels collectively titled The Story of a Crime, published between 1965 and 1975. Following school, he worked as a crime reporter from 1946 onwards. After long trips around the world he returned to Sweden and started working as a journalist again. He had a thirteen-year relationship with his colleague Maj Sjöwall but never married her, as he already was married. Per Wahlöö died in Malmö in 1975, after an unsuccessful operation on the pancreas (necessitated by cancer).
During the 1960s and 1970s Sjöwall and Wahlöö conceived and wrote a series of ten police procedural novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the Swedish national police; in these the character of Martin Beck was the protagonist. Both authors also wrote novels separately. For the Martin Beck series, they plotted and researched each book together, and then wrote alternate chapters simultaneously. The books cover ten years and are renowned for extensive character and setting development throughout the series. This is in part due to careful planning by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. In 1971, the fourth of the Beck books, The Laughing Policeman (a translation of Den skrattande polisen, originally published in 1968) won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel, the book was also adapted into the film The Laughing Policeman starring Walter Matthau. All of the novels have been adapted into films between 1967 and 1994, six of which featured Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck. Between 1997 and 2018 there have also been 38 films (some only broadcast on television) based on the characters, with Peter Haber as Martin Beck.
The Story of a Crime series: Roseanna (Roseanna, 1965); The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966); The Man on the Balcony (Mannen på balkongen, 1967); The Laughing Policeman (Den skrattande polisen, 1968) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1971); The Fire Engine That Disappeared (Brandbilen som försvann, 1969); Murder at the Savoy (Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970); The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971); The Locked Room (Det slutna rummet, 1972); Cop Killer (Polismördaren, 1974); and The Terrorists (Terroristerna, 1975).
‘Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were truly innovative writers of detective fiction. Their books are lean and compelling crime novels but at the same time they function as unforgiving left-wing critique of Swedish society. The authors wanted to show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. Their mission and way of writing received a great deal of attention and they are often regarded as the founders of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. Their concept was updated in the 1990s with Henning Mankell´s detective character Kurt Wallander and in the 2000s with Stieg Larsson´s Millennium trilogy featuring Lisbeth Salander. According to Henning Mankell, the couple were pioneers of realism and political engagement in the detective story: “I think that anyone who writes about crime as a reflection of society has been inspired to some extent by what they wrote,” Mankell has said.’ (Source: Nordic Noir)
‘The Story of a Crime, the collective title for ten perfectly formed books by Sjöwall & Wahlöö, hardly seems dated at all when read in the twenty-first century. The duo allowed their detective Martin Beck to investigate a variety of crimes (in their range) cast a spotlight on many aspects of Scandinavian society. And the plot potentialities afforded the duo were considerable.’ (Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film & TV, by Barry Forshaw, Pocket Essentials an imprint of Oldcastle Books, 2013).
A Guide to the Martin Beck Series
CrimeFest 2015: legendary crime writer Maj Sjöwall in interview with Lee Child
Maj Sjowall at ‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’
(Facsimile Dust Jacket, V. G. Gollancz (UK), 1968)
From Wikipedia: Roseanna is a mystery novel by Swedish writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, first published in 1965. It is the first novel in their detective series revolving around Martin Beck and his team.
Book Description: The first book in the classic Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s – the novels that shaped the future of Scandinavian crime writing. Hugely acclaimed, the Martin Beck series were the original Scandinavian crime novels and have inspired the writings of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. Written in the 1960s, 10 books completed in 10 years, they are the work of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – a husband and wife team from Sweden. They follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction; without his creation Ian Rankin’s John Rebus or Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander may never have been conceived. The novels can be read separately, but are best read in chronological order, so the reader can follow the characters’ development and get drawn into the series as a whole. ‘Roseanna’ begins on a July afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from Sweden’s beautiful Lake Vattern. Three months later, all that Police Inspector Martin Beck knows is that her name is Roseanna, that she came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people. With its authentically rendered settings and vividly realized characters, and its command over the intricately woven details of police detection, ‘Roseanna’ is a masterpiece of suspense and sadness. (Source: HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd)
Salomonsson Agency page
From the Introduction by Henning Mankell: Now I’m rereading the novel Roseanna on a December day forty years after its first publication. I’ve forgotten a great deal, of course, but the novel still stands strong. It’s well thought-out, well structured. It’s evident that Sjöwall and Wahlöö had carefully laid the groundwork for their plan to write ten books about the National Homicide Bureau – in fictional form but based on reality. (2006)
Roseanna has been reviewed, among others, at The Complete Review, The View from the Blue House, Crimepieces, Reviewing the Evidence, Reactions to Reading, Detectives Beyond Borders, Ms. Wordopolis Reads, Mysteries in Paradise, and DJ´s Krimiblog.
Back in 2009 my review in Spanish come and say as follows: Roseanna begins one afternoon in July when, accidentally, the body of a young woman shows up during the dredging works in one of the locks on Lake Vattern in Sweden. Her naked body makes the identification difficult. The police in Motala, the nearest town, does not manage to find anything. Deputy Inspector Martin Beck and his colleagues Kollberg and Melander are dispatched from Stockholm to investigate the case. The process is slow but with determination Beck and his colleagues try to find the missing pieces. Who that young woman was? How she ended up there? Who killed her? The book’s pace follows the investigation tempo. The case proceeds very slowly at first, allowing the reader to become familiar with the different characters, their characteristics and their personality. Then the pace begins to increase and it grows as the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together.
Roseanna, perhaps, is not the best novel in the series, but it is sufficiently attractive as to read it in one sitting, besides being the first in the series. This is important since the authors originally planned the series as a sequence of novels under a common title and, reading them in its chronological order will allow us to better appreciate the evolution of every character. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 41 | http://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2015/05/maj-sjowall-in-conversation-with-lee.html | en | SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: Maj Sjöwall in conversation with Lee Child at Crimefest 2015 | [
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] | null | [] | 2009-11-10T00:00:00 | A team of Swedish police detectives are trying to solve a murder. It takes months. They start with no clues. They wait for a break in the case. They stare out the window at the rain. They play endless games of chess. They walk the streets of Stockholm after dark, looking up at people in… | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | Blogging for a Good Book | https://bfgb.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/ | A team of Swedish police detectives are trying to solve a murder. It takes months. They start with no clues. They wait for a break in the case. They stare out the window at the rain. They play endless games of chess. They walk the streets of Stockholm after dark, looking up at people in lit windows. They drink coffee.
Dull reading? Not for a second. The story moves swiftly along, especially in the many long passages of dialogue. The economy of the prose is a wonder. Instead of breakneck action, the novel offers the great pleasure of watching professionals at work, really at work, in their offices, on the phone, in the interview room.
Roseanna is the first in a series of 10 crime novels by the husband-and-wife team of Sjöwall and Wahlöö. Originally published between 1965 and 1975 (the year of Wahlöö’s death), they have now been reissued by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. The fact that they are back in print has everything to do with the current craze for Nordic crime fiction, sometimes dubbed “Scandinavian Noir.” Sjöwall and Wahlöö invented this genre, and they are its master artists. In April 2008, the Times of London ranked them 15th on their list of the top 50 crime writers (though if there were a competition for Most Umlauts in an Author’s Name, they would surely take first place).
The central character in the series is Martin Beck, First Detective Inspector with the National Police. He is an ordinary man with one exceptional quality: his skill in questioning witnesses and suspects and knowing when they are lying. But Beck is no lone sleuth. He and his colleagues form an ensemble cast whose daily routines and minor idiosyncrasies are detailed with dry humor. Here, they are searching for the killer of an unidentified woman whose body was dredged from a lake. What they gradually learn about her and how she lived her life makes them ever more determined to arrest her murderer, no matter how long it takes.
The novel is strongly grounded in its Swedish settings, so much so that I recommend using Google Earth as a companion to your reading. Follow the detectives as they stake out a house on Runeberg Street or tail a suspect down Småland Street, keeping in mind that Sweden, and the world, have changed since the book was written some 45 years ago. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 19 | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13131578-a-necessary-action | en | A Necessary Action | [
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for readers. From Per Wahlöö—co-author with his wife, Maj Sjöwall, of the internationally bestselling Ma… | en | /favicon.ico | Goodreads | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13131578-a-necessary-action | February 15, 2020
1950 yıllarının başlarında ispanya'ya gidip orda serbest gazetecilik yaparken 1956 yılında bazı faaliyeleri yüzünden sınırdışı edilmiş yazar , yazdığı bu eserinde de yine İspanya'ya dışardan gelmiş bir alman karakterin gözünden anlatıyor franco diktatörlüğünde yönetilen ülkeyi.
Başka bir oteldeki bir şişe suyun fiyatı kadar para kazanıp onun da yarısını ailesine gönderen basklı okuma yazma bilmeyen bar sahibinin, okuma yazma öğrenmiş oğlunun yazı yazılmış defteri ile övünüp onu müşterilerine gösterdiğini anlatan pasaj ve benzer olaylarla da sayfalarda karşılaşmak kitabın okunmaya değer olduğunu hissettiriyor.
Oldukça yavaş ilerleyen roman, başlarda bazen kitabı yarıda bırakıp okumama isteği uyandırsa son sayfayı bitirip kitabın kapağını kapattığında okuyucuda pişmanlık duygusu oluşturmuyor.
June 19, 2024
I liked this. It was like watching an early Goddard or like reading Alberto Moravia. Very much of its time (publ. 1962). But it went on too long, and the scenes were dragged out far longer than was necessary. So I can’t quite give it that 4th star, enjoyable though it was.
January 27, 2013
per wahlöö'nün martin beck serisindeki performansından sonra franco ispanyası'nda yaşadıklarından kararak ortaya çıkarttığı bu kitaptan çok umutluydum. sağolsun hiç hayal kırıklığına uğratmadı. iktidarın yatay ve dikey olarak toplumu sarışını ağır ağır o kadar güzel resmediyor ki -neredeyse- en baştan beri bildiğiniz uçuruma adım adım gidiyorsunuz. marquez'in "kırmızı pazartesi"sinde olduğu gibi apaçık bir sona doğru gidişin yarattığı gerilim inanılmaz. farklı kişiler, kurumlar arasında ortaya çıkan çeşitli düzeylerdeki iktidar, şiddet ve arzu ilişkilerinin ortaya çıkarttığı yumak akıl almaz. çok iyi bir kitap.
February 23, 2017
Bardzo smutna i bardzo dobra zapomniana powieść.
March 29, 2007
I picked this one up because in later years, Per Wahloo (with his wife Maj Sjowall) went on to write what have been considered classics of Scandinavian detective fiction--or detective fiction in general, even. The Lorry is a really enjoyable novel--and a quick read--albeit not in the manner that you might expect. The book starts with the interogation (fantastic, quick dialog) of a German tourist living in a poor spanish village sometime during the Franco era. We don't know what he's being interrogated for (niether does he), but during the conversation, we figure out that two of his friends (a Norwegian couple also vacationing in the village) are probably dead, and a resident of the village has disappered. The book then cuts backwards--explaining how all of these people met, and what actually happened to them--before returning back to the present.
Narratively clever jumps in time aside, the novel very responsibly (and empathetically) stages its murder mystery against the backdrop of larger social and economical dramas happening behind it. As we discover how events played out and what their resulting consequences have been (these turn out to be far greater than expected), the actions of no one party are wholly condemned or forgiven. At it's end, everyone has been incriminated in some way, and everyone has blood on their hands.
January 29, 2021
Kitabın arka kapağında ve buradaki tanıtım yazısında görüleceği üzere; yazar, İspanya'nın bir balıkçı köyünde gerçekleşen, cinsel saldırı ve sonrasında evli bir çiftin ölümüyle sonuçlanan olaylar silsilesi çerçevesinde siyasal bunalımlar ve cinsel şiddet arasındaki ilişkiyi, bireyler ve diktatörlük arasındaki gerilimi anlatmak istemiş. İstemiş diyorum; çünkü bu konuda başarılı olduğunu düşünmüyorum.
Arka kapakta işleneceği bildirilen suçlar, 354 sayfalık kitabın 137. sayfasında gerçekleşiyor. Bu kısma gelene kadar cinayetin kimler tarafından ne şekilde işleneceğini çok kolay bir şekilde tahmin edebiliyorsunuz. Böylelikle, yazarın asıl derdinin diktatörlük ve bu yönetim altında yaşayanlarla ilgili yorumlarını aktarmak olduğu açıkça anlaşılıyor. Bunu da ağırlıklı olarak eski bir Nazi askeri ve etrafına epeyce yabancılaşmış baş karakter Willi Mohr aracılığı ile gerçekleştirmeye çalışıyor.
Yazarın; İkinci Dünya Savaşının Avrupa siyasi hayatına etkilerine, savaşın insanları ve sosyal yaşamı nasıl şekillendirdiğine, kilisenin ve dini inanışların insanlar üzerindeki etkilerine ilişkin yorumları yüzeysel kalıyor ve tabiri caizse bölük pörçük duruyor. Ayrıca hikayeye hizmet etmeyen ve sürekli tekrarlanan doğa ve mekan betimlemeleri de kitabı çok sıkıcı hale getiriyor. Yazar, bu konular hakkında bir deneme yazsaydı daha başarılı olabilirdi bence.
Arka kapakta yazdığının aksine; Per Wahlöö bu romanıyla Kafka, Orwell ve Dürrenmatt gibi yazarların yanından bile geçemez. Karşılaştırılmaları gerçekten manasız olmuş.
Kitabı okumak istememin sebebi; yazarın partneri Maj Sjöwall ile beraber yazdıkları Martin Beck polisiye serisini geçmişte okuyup çok sevmiş olmamdı. Bu kitap ise benim için sadece hayal kırıklığı oldu.
July 9, 2018
"As no one had bothered to search him, at least he could smoke. And he had his belt too, so he could hang himself if he wanted to. 'If there'd been something to fasten the noose to,' he said to himself, with a slight smile. This talking to himself was a habit he had taken to lately. Sometimes he caught himself talking to the cat and the dog too. Mostly the cat, as it seemed more intelligent and more thoughtful."
February 2, 2022
Kitabı okunmamış eski kitap yığınlarımın arasında buldum. Önce “Acaba vakit harcamaya değer mi?” diye düşündüm. Kitabın arkasındaki kısa tanıtıma baktım. Per Wahlöö’yü Martin Beck serisinden biliyordum. Kitabı okumaya başladım, bana son derece sürükleyici, çok iyi yazılmış bir psikolojik gerilim romanı olarak göründü…
March 9, 2021
Spain, Franco era, excellent character development, reminded me Hemingway.
August 28, 2013
Scandinavian crime fiction set in Franco's Spain. When I discovered this book was a thing, I made a very high-pitched noise and lunged immediately for Amazon. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be reading Per Wahloo's entire back catalogue before long? And, more importantly, why has nobody who is not a massive crime fiction nerd ever heard of him? You should all hear of him, he's great. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 81 | https://www.crimetime.co.uk/swedish-marxist-noir-by-per-hellgren/ | en | Swedish Marxist Noir by Per Hellgren | [
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] | null | [] | null | en | https://www.crimetime.co.uk/swedish-marxist-noir-by-per-hellgren/ | Even before I started writing my various books on Scandinavian crime fiction, I realised that I would have to deal with the notably left-wing perspective of most of the genre, and I trust that I’ve done my duty in this regard. However, Per Hellgren — in his detailed and informed study — has gone much further in identifying the political perspectives of the genre, invoking the great American hard-boiled writer Raymond Chandler — an approach that is certainly new to me.
Two writers from the left – a crime-writing team with a markedly Marxist perspective – might (without too much argument) be said to have started it all in terms of important Scandinavian crime fiction: the spectacularly talented Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Their continuing influence (since the death of Per Wahlöö) remains prodigious.
It was something of scandal that for some considerable time the complete oeuvre this most influential team of crime writers was not available in translation (certain books – such as The Laughing Policeman (1968) – haunted various publishers’ lists, and then would inexorably melt away). This relative invisibility (until recent – and welcome – reissue programmes remedied this egregious blot on the reputation of publishing) was particularly odd, as the almost viral penetration of the duo’s literary reach was total, with many crime fiction writers citing them as the ne plus ultra of the socially committed crime novel., What’s more, the team has been – in many cases – a source of personal inspiration for the work of contemporary crime writers. The sequence of books featuring their tenacious policeman Martin Beck are shot through with the ideological rigour of his creators; that’s to say: as well as being lean and compelling crime novels, they simultaneously function as an unforgiving leftwing critique of Swedish society (and, inter alia, of Western society in general). But this shouldn’t put off those readers conscious of Marxism’s fall from favour since it first inspired Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö in a very different era; like the elements of Catholicism in Graham Greene’s work (which does not interfere with an appreciation of his peerless skills as novelist), the Marxist underpinnings of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck books may be considered to be less important than the edgy, pared-down prose in which these finely-honed police procedurals trade. By introducing genuinely radical elements into what was at the time an unthreatening form (with, they felt, distinctly bourgeois values), the duo were able to both enrich and re-energise what had become something of a moribund field, with the realism of their work married to its political attitudes. To this end, the characterising of certain elements in the police force as corrupt or totalitarian was part and parcel of the radical political agenda underlying the books, themes that Hellgren examines here. But at no point in any of the Martin Beck novels (thankfully) are such notions allowed to be transformed into simple agitprop.
Marxist theories have influenced the crime field in various ways since the Thirties, and Hellgren (a journalist) cogently analyses the work of relevant Swedish novelists (not just Sjöwall and Wahlöö) and that of the seminal American writer Raymond Chandler, dealing with direct influence and more subtle strains of political philosophy. It’s a provocative study.
Swedish Marxist Noir by Per Hellgren is published by McFarland | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 77 | http://authorscalendar.info/sjowall.htm | en | Maj Sjöwall | [
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] | null | [] | null | null | Swedish writer and journalist, "the grandmother of Scandinavian crime writing", who published with her husband Per Wahlöö ten novels about the detective character Martin Beck and his colleagues at the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm. According to Maj Sjöwall, the series, a dissection of capitalist society, was more popular in the United States and France than in Sweden. The critic and awarded mystery writer H.R.F. Keating selected the first volume, Roseanna (1965), in 1987 for his list of the one hundred best crime & mystery novels. All of the Martin Beck books have been filmed. The novels prepared the ground for authors such as Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Liza Marklund.
"I still recall the first time I read Cop Killer. Like Maj and Per's other detective novels, it has been with me for as long as I can remember. The Martin Beck series is part of my childhood, my adolescence, the way I relate to Sweden and to reality." ('Introduction' by Liza Marklund, in Cop Killer: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, 2010, p. ix)
Maj Sjöwall was born in Stockholm, the daughter of Will Sjöwall, the manager of a chain of hotels, and the former Margit Trobäck. The family lived in an apartment at the Hotel Gillet. When Sjöwall was ten, they movend to Kungholmen. From early on, she was a book worm, reading Selma Lagerlöf, Elin Wägner, Maxim Gorky, Maria Lang, and Stieg Trenter. She also began writing poetry and short stories, one of which appeared anonymously in the magazine Fick Journalen.
"I was rather wild," Sjöwall once described her youth. ('The Queen of Crime' by Louise France, The Guardian, 22 November, 2009) At the age of 21 she had an abortion. Sjöwall studied journalism and graphics before finding employment as a reporter and art director at a series of newspapers and magazines. From 1959 to 1961 she was an editor with the publishing house Wahlström and Widstrad.
Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö met in 1961 while working for magazines published by the same company; Maj Sjöwall for Idun and Per Wahlöö for Folket i bild. Wahlöö was a political journalist, who had been deported from General Franco's Spain in 1957. Both Sjöwall and Wahlöö were members of the Communist Party. Wahlöö was married, Sjöwall was a single parent of a six-year-old daughter, Lena, and already twice divorced. They became lovers but never officially married. Their carefully planned crime series was created in the evenings, after their two sons, Tetz and Jens, had been put to bed.
At the time, there were no Swedish police procedurals, just amateur detectives. The literary venture was aimed to reveal "how the social democrats were pushing the country in a more and more bourgeois and rightwing direction." ('Sweden's Crime Writers Too Interested in Love, Says Maj Sjöwall' by Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 14 August, 2013) Starting in 1965 from Roseanna, Sjöwall and Wahlöö ended ten years and ten books later with Terroristerna (1975).
Until 1969, the couple lived in Stockholm, but they kept contact with the KRW (Kronkvist-Rooke-Wahlöö) group from Malmö, where they lived and worked from 1969. From the beginning, the collaboration was seamless, based on the journalistic experience and style that demanded brevity, concision, and attention to detail. Both writers were Marxists and admired the work of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The first plot was invented on a canal trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. "There was an American woman on the boat, beautiful, with dark hair, always standing alone. I caught Per looking at her. 'Why don't we start the book by killing this woman?'" Sjöwall suggested. ('The Queen of Crime' by Louise France, The Guardian, 22 November, 2009)
According to Wahlöö, their intention was to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of the ideological pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois type." ('Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, inTwentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly, 1985, p. 947)
Of course, even in the 1960s, this kind of radicalism did not boost the sales of the books. "Fortunately none of this has any bearing on the quality of the Martin Beck series itself, which is not only unique in presenting a detailed and evolving vision of police work from a definable political perspective but consistently transcends the level of the average police procedural thanks to a prevailing sense of unease which in the end seems as much existential as ideological." (The Picador Book of Cime Writing by Michael Dibdin, 1993, p. 102) The general plan of Sjöwall and Wahlöö was that based on meticulous research and authentic details, the series would mirror the Swedish society. Martin Beck, his career in the National Homicide Squad, would act as the barometer of the times, reflecting changes in the political, economic, social climate.
The narrative model came from Ed McBain's internationally acclaimed Eighty-seventh Precinct series. Some of them the couple even translated into Swedish for PAN/Norstedts series in the late 1960s.
The first three novels,Roseanna, a story of rape-murder of an American girl, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966), which takes place mostly in the cold war Budapest, andThe Man on the Balcony(1967), were straightforward police procedural novels, written in reportal, spare style: "On the table were three empty vermouth bottles, a soft-drink bottle and two coffee cups, among other things. The ash tray had been turned upside down and among the cigarette butts, bottle tops and dead matches lay a few dirty sugar lumps, a small penknife with its blades open, and a piece of sausage. A third coffee cup had fallen to the floor and had broken. Face down on the word linoleum, between the table and the bed, lay a dead body. (The Man Who Went Up in a Smoke, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2006, pp. 3-4)
These first novels introduced the central characters – the solid, methodical detective Martin Beck with failing marriage, ex-paratrooper Lennart Kollberg, a gourmet, who hates violence and refuses to carry a gun, Gunvald Larsson, wildman and a drop-out from high society, Einar Rönn from the rural north of Sweden – he was Wahlöö's favorite figure – and patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvant, whose activities usually lead to some kind of fiasco. Beck suffers from insomnia, and he has troubles with his stomach; the pains go away when he leaves his wife and her cooking. He had joined the police force in the mid-1940s. Beck met Inga, his future wife on a canoe tour in 1951. After marriage they moved to Kungsholmen. They have two children, but during the story their marriage dissolves.
Roseanna was not an immediate success. Some reviewers felt that the novel was too dark and brutal, but its publication in English translation in 1967 sparked the interest of a worldwide audience. In the story the body of a girl is discovered, but nothing is know of her. Eventually she is linked to Roseanna McGraw, an American, who never returned from her tour of Europe. Martin Beck and his colleagues find a photograph in which Roseanna is accompanied by an unknown man. Beck is convinced he is the killer. "Chance, too, is allowed to play a bigger role than most storytellers, those shapers of events to their own ends, would allow. This, once more, introduces an element of outside reality. So, as one puts the book down, one is apt to think: a good story, and interesting, but also, in the words of the newspaper advertisement, 'all human life is there'."('Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö:Roseanna,' inCrime & Mystery: The 100 Best Booksby H.R.F. Keating, 1987, p. 138)
Until The Story of a Crime series Swedish detective novels had been apolitical, conservative or liberal, but Sjöwall and Wahlöö managed to revive interest in a genre generally overlooked by leftist intellectuals. Readers were ready to accept their new approach, the introduction of political issues (glimpses of gentle humour) as part of crime fiction. In Cop Killer (1974) Lennart Kollberg, a man with strong views, writes his resignation: he is a socialist, and refuses to support the oppressive system any longer. The suspected cop killer of the title, a teenager in a stolen car, is chased across Sweden.
At the end of the series, Beck plays a game called "crosswords" with Kollberg, who says: "The trouble with you, Martin, is just that you've got the wrong job. At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system." (The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2010, p. 280)
The Laughing Policeman (1968), filmed by Stuart Rosenberg in 1973, and The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969), brought in the development of the series more social themes and weak points of the Western society. "I found little or nothing in the novel that could be called tub-thumping propaganda. Instead, I came across a few rather muted and humane reflections on those laudable intentions which somehow had failed to materialize." ('Introduction' by Colin Dexter, in The Fire Engine that Disappeared, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2007, p. viii)
Rosenberg's film was set in San Francisco instead of Stockholm and Malmö. Walter Matthau played a laconic detective named Jake Martin, who is solving a case in which all passengers in a bus are massacred by an unseen killer. "It's almost the kind of movie, indeed, to blast loose a detective-novel fan from Ross Macdonald," said Roger Ebert in his review. ('The Laughing Policeman' by Roger Ebert, December 24, 1973, RogerEbert.com) Swedish reviewers were unanimous in that the film had very little to do with the novel and there was little left of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's social analysis.
Bo Widerberg's screen adaptation of Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle (1971, The Abominable Man) from 1976, entitled Mannen på taket, was a great success. One of its highlights was a helicopter crash on the Odenplan metro station. Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, who was best known as a comedian, was cast in the role of Martin Beck. Sjöwall herself had imagined him to be lean, looking like Gunnar Björnstrand or the young Henry Fonda, but Lindstedt was stockily built. In this film, Lindstedt realized his potential as a serious actor. Widerberg, who was not a Raymond Chandler fan, planned to continue with the third book in the series, The Man on the Balcony, but this production never went ahead. Widerberg accused Jörn Donner, the director of the Swedish Film Institute, of putting him on a blacklist. However, he actually supported the idea: "Det är värt att notera att Jörn Donner gjorde sig mödan att själv kontakta Olle Hellbom, och Donner blev överraskad över att SF var så avvisande. Donner ansträngde sig ganske inte på något uppseendeväckande sätt men det var ändå ett försök att se om det kunde bli en Mannen på balkongen-film." (Höggradigt jävla excentrisk: En biografi över Bo Widerberg by Mårten Blomkvist, 2011)
Noteworthy, the authors did not give full attention to theme of class conflict right from the beginning, but its weight grew step-by-step, in the context of social ills and problems the novel exposed. In the final volume, The Terrorists, the murder of the prime minister signals the decline of the social democratic welfare state. Sjöwall and Wahlöö openly side with Rebecka Lind, "the novel's holy fool and sacrifical lamb, cast adrift by a society that proclaims to care for her then preys upon her as soon as her isolation leads to financial need." ('Introduction' by Denis Lehane,The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2012, p. vii) Rebecka is the killer of the book's Swedish prime minister. Later she commits suicide. The whole series is finished with the name "Marx".
The Terrorists was published after Wahlöö's death in 1975, at the age of 48. Though a joint venture, this volume was mostly written by Wahlöö, who was already very ill. After the murder of Olof Palme in the winter of 1986, Sjöwall was frequently asked did she had any regrets for killing the prime minister in the story. She felt no need to apologize, emphasizing the difference between fiction and real life. Many far-right people in Sweden hated Palme.
Following Wahlöö's death, Sjöwall found it difficult to write novels. With Åke Sjöwall she translated Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels into Swedish. Sjöwall received the Lenin Award in 2013 (the name was changed to the Jan Myrdal Library's big prize in 2016). Following a long illness, Maj Sjöwall died on April 29, 2020.
Sjöwall and Wahlöö's successors have adopted their critical approach of the abuses of state power, including Olov Svedelind, Kenneth Ahl (pseudonym of Lasse Strömstedt och Christer Dahl), Leif G.W. Persson, K. Arne Blom, Henning Mankell, and Stieg Larsson, and others. Also the Chinese mystery writer Qiu Xiaolong, who has lived in the United States since the 1980s, has acknowledged his admiration of Martin Beck police mysteries.
For further reading: 'Roman om en forbrydelse' - Sjöwall/Wahlöö's verk og virkelighed by Ejgil Søholm (1976); Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, edited by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler (1976); 'The Police in Society: The Novels of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Frank Occhiogrosso, in The Armchair Detective, no. 2 (1979); The Police Procedural by George Dove (1982); Lystmord, edited by Jørgen Holmgaard and Bo Tao Michaëlis (1984); Polemical Pulps by J. Kenneth Van Dover (1993); 'Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly (1985); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: Roseanna,' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating (1987); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Nancy C. Mellerski and Robert P. Winston, in Mystery and Suspense Writers, edited by Robin W. Winks (1998); 'Sjöwall, Maj (b. 1935) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975' by J.K. Van Dover, in Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert (2003); 'Introduction' by Colin Dexter, in The Fire Engine that Disappeared: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2007); 'Introduction' by Liza Marklund, in Cop Killer: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'Introduction' by Dennis Lehane, The Terrorists: A Martin Beck Novel by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'From National Authority to Urban Underbelly: Negotiations of Power in Stockholm Crime Fiction' by Kerstin Bergman, in Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes, edited by Lucy Andrew and Catherine Phelps (2013); Swedish Cops: From Sjöwall & Wahlöö to Stieg Larsson by Michael Tapper (2014); Swedish Marxist Noir: The Dark Wave of Crime Writers and the Influence of Raymond Chandler by Per Hellgren (2019); Boken om Beck: och Sjöwall Wahlöö och tiden som for by Johan Erlandsson (2020); Dictionnaire Sjöwall et Wahlöö: les pionniers du polar nordique by Yann Liotard (2020); Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser (2020) - Note: The Laughing Policeman won the best novel Edgar Award in 1971 from the Mystery Writers of America. See also: Lawrence Treat, the creator of modern police procedural novels.
Selected works with Per Wahlöö:
Roseanna, 1965
- Roseanna (translated by Lois Roth, 1967)
- Roseanna: romaani rikoksesta (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1969)
- film adaptations: 1967, prod. Independent film, dir. Hans Abramson, starring Keve Hjelm (as Martin Beck), Hans Ernback, Tor Isedal, Gio Petré, Hans Bendrik; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Anna Helena Bergendal
Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966
- The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (translated by Joan Tate, 1969)
- Mies joka hävisi savuna ilmaan (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1967)
- film adaptation:Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste, 1980, prod. Andre Libik, Europa Film, Mafilm 'Dialog' Studio, dir. Péter Bacsó, starring Derek Jacobi (as Martin Beck), Judy Winter, Tomas Bolme, Lasse Strömstedt, Sándor Szabó
Mannen på balkongen, 1967
- The Man on the Balcony (translated by Alan Blair, 1968)
- Mies parvekkeella (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Mannen på balkongen, 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. by Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Bernt Ström
Den skrattande polisen, 1968
- The Laughing Policeman (translated by Alan Blair, 1970)
- Bussimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1972)
- film adaptation in 1973, prod. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, dir. by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Louis Gossett Jr., Albert Paulsen. Note: the locale was shifted from Sweden to San Francisco when it was filmed.
Brandbilen som försvann, 1969
- The Fire Engine That Disappeared (translated by Joan Tate, 1970)
- Kadonnut paloauto (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation:1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, RTL, Rialto Film, dir. by Hajo Gies, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Holger Kunkel
Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970
- Murder at the Savoy (translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel, 1971)
- Missä viipyy poliisi (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- films: Nezakonchennyy uzhin, 1980, dir. Janis Streics, starring Romualds Ancans (as Martin Beck), Ingrid Andrina, Lilita Berzina, Ivars Kalnis; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF) dir. Per Berglund, starring Gösta Ekman, Kjell Bergqvist and Rolf Lassgård
Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971
- The Abominable Man (translated by Thomas Teal, 1972)
- Komisario Beck tähtäimessä (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- film adaptation: Mannen på taket, 1976, prod. Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), dir. by Bo Widerberg, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg, Håkan Serner, Ingvar Hirdwall
Det slutna rummet, 1972
- The Locked Room (translated by Paul Britten Austin, 1973)
- Suljettu huone (suom. Kari Jalonen)
- film adaptation: De gesloten kamer, 1993, prod. Filmcase, Prime Time, dir. by Jacob Bijl, starring Jan Decleir (as Martin Beck), Els Dottermans, Warre Borgmans, Jakob Beks
Polismördaren, 1974
- Cop Killer (translated by Thomas Teal, 1975; introduction by Liza Marklund, 2010)
- Poliisimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1978)
- film adaptation in 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Tomas Norström, Johan Widerberg
Terroristerna, 1975
- The Terrorists (translated by Joan Tate, 1976)
- Terroristit (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Stockholm Marathon, 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Corinna Harfouch
Sista resan och andra berättelser, 2007
Roseanna, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 1; translated from the Swedish by Lois Roth; with a new introduction by Henning Mankell)
The Man Who Went up in Smoke, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 2; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Val McDermid)
The Man on the Balcony, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 3; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; with an introduction by Jo Nesbø)
The Laughing Policeman, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 4; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; introduction by Jonathan Franzen)
The Fire Engine That Disappeared, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 5; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Colin Dexter)
Murder at the Savoy, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 6; translated from the Swedish by Amy Knoespel; introduction by Arne Dahl)
The Abominable Man, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 7; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; with an introduction by Jens Lapidus)
The Locked Room, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 8; translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin; with an introduction by Michael Connelly)
Cop Killer, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 9; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; introduction by Liza Marklund)
The Terrorists, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 10; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; introduction by Dennis Lehane)
Other works:
Kvinnan som liknade Greta Garbo (with Tomas Ross), 1990
- Nainen joka muistutti Greta Garboa (suom. Tarmo Haarala, 1991)
Sista resan och andra berättelser, 2007
Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. 2008-2024. | ||||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 39 | https://bfgb.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/ | en | Roseanna, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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] | null | [] | 2009-11-10T00:00:00 | A team of Swedish police detectives are trying to solve a murder. It takes months. They start with no clues. They wait for a break in the case. They stare out the window at the rain. They play endless games of chess. They walk the streets of Stockholm after dark, looking up at people in… | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | Blogging for a Good Book | https://bfgb.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/ | A team of Swedish police detectives are trying to solve a murder. It takes months. They start with no clues. They wait for a break in the case. They stare out the window at the rain. They play endless games of chess. They walk the streets of Stockholm after dark, looking up at people in lit windows. They drink coffee.
Dull reading? Not for a second. The story moves swiftly along, especially in the many long passages of dialogue. The economy of the prose is a wonder. Instead of breakneck action, the novel offers the great pleasure of watching professionals at work, really at work, in their offices, on the phone, in the interview room.
Roseanna is the first in a series of 10 crime novels by the husband-and-wife team of Sjöwall and Wahlöö. Originally published between 1965 and 1975 (the year of Wahlöö’s death), they have now been reissued by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. The fact that they are back in print has everything to do with the current craze for Nordic crime fiction, sometimes dubbed “Scandinavian Noir.” Sjöwall and Wahlöö invented this genre, and they are its master artists. In April 2008, the Times of London ranked them 15th on their list of the top 50 crime writers (though if there were a competition for Most Umlauts in an Author’s Name, they would surely take first place).
The central character in the series is Martin Beck, First Detective Inspector with the National Police. He is an ordinary man with one exceptional quality: his skill in questioning witnesses and suspects and knowing when they are lying. But Beck is no lone sleuth. He and his colleagues form an ensemble cast whose daily routines and minor idiosyncrasies are detailed with dry humor. Here, they are searching for the killer of an unidentified woman whose body was dredged from a lake. What they gradually learn about her and how she lived her life makes them ever more determined to arrest her murderer, no matter how long it takes.
The novel is strongly grounded in its Swedish settings, so much so that I recommend using Google Earth as a companion to your reading. Follow the detectives as they stake out a house on Runeberg Street or tail a suspect down Småland Street, keeping in mind that Sweden, and the world, have changed since the book was written some 45 years ago. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 83 | https://www.skbl.se/en/article/MajSjowall0 | en | Maj Sjöwall | [
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] | null | [] | null | Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö jointly authored ten detective novels under the series title Roman om ett brott , published between 1965 and 1975. These books completely altered the genre of Sw | en | /static/images/skbl/favicon.png | http://skbl.se/en/article/MajSjowall0 | Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö jointly authored ten detective novels under the series title Roman om ett brott, published between 1965 and 1975. These books completely altered the genre of Swedish detective novels.
Maj Sjöwall was born in Stockholm in 1935. She was the daughter of Will Sjöwall, managing director of Hotell Gillet on Brunkebergstorg in Stockholm, and his wife Margit Trobäck. As a child Maj Sjöwall used to go sledging on Hamngatsbacken (which at that time was steep) and she played all over the Klara area of the city. After completing her education at a girls’ school she began to work for various publishers, starting with Åhlén & Åkerlund from 1954–1959, then at Wahlström & Widstrand from 1959–1961, and subsequently at Esselte from 1961–1963. Maj Sjöwall married Gunnar Isaksson, an editor, and they had a daughter during their time together from 1955–1958.
Maj Sjöwall met Per Wahlöö, an established author, in 1962 and just one year later they moved in together and began writing books together, at his suggestion. “We were looking for a genre which would give us a wide readership”, as Maj Sjöwall has recounted, and they settled on detective novels. On the death of Maj Sjöwall in April 2020 the publisher Ann-Marie Skarp described the couple’s written work: “They portrayed the sixties, that great decade of political events, and strayed into the seventies, and they were skilled at generating an exciting frame around these periods within which they included political messages”.
The detective series called Roman om ett brott (translated as The Story of a Crime) began with Roseanna, released in 1965. Up till that point these types of novels had remained fairly true to the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The detectives in British crime thrillers tended to be brilliant individuals who dealt with murders that were usually not very bloody affairs but instead intellectual mysteries which often unfolded within well-polished milieus, whilst the more hardboiled American variants tended to depict whisky-drinking private detectives who met lightly-clad women and unscrupulous shadowy types in downbeat city-centre milieus.
Roseanna was something entirely new. The lead character is chief detective Martin Beck who has worked for the police for half his life and lives in an apartment in the Stockholm suburb of Bagarmossen. He has a boring wife and two children, travells to work on the subway, and spends his free time in the evenings constructing model ships (just as Per Wahlöö did in real life). Martin Beck is a capable individual who leads an ordinary Swedish everyday life, and this aspect of the characterisation continues, many years later, to be adopted by subsequent thriller-writers who award a lot of attention to the personal life of the detective portrayed in their own work.
The police work depicted in Roseanna is just as realistic, portraying the slow and careful assembly of evidence and long gaps arising in enquiries whilst awaiting answers from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The murder victim, Roseanna McGraw, was an American citizen. Martin Beck has a poor command of the English language and fumbles his way through exchanges with the American police in an unhelpful manner, resulting in the Americans’ confusion to the extent that they believe that Martin Beck shot the murderer to death. This causes Martin Beck’s colleagues no end of amusement given that guns were not normally provided to the Swedish police force.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö not only focused on realism but they also significantly raised the literary level of the detective novel genre. Their style was concise and restrained, resembling that of Raymond Chandler but with the addition of a fairly constant dry undertone of humour. Martin Beck works with a group of fellow officers, just as depicted in the American writer Ed McBain’s thrillers based in the 87th precinct in the fictitious city of Isola, but his colleagues are undeniably Swedish men. These include Martin Beck’s best friend Lennart Kollberg, a lover of life who eventually resigns from his police job due to political reasons. There is also the slightly misplaced upper-class Gunvald Larsson who became a favourite with the public through the film and TV adaptations of the stories. Martin Beck’s closest colleague is Einar Rönn, whose middle name is unbelievably Valentino. Fredrik Melander, meanwhile, is “the living index card catalogue”, who never forgets anyhting (which meant that time-wasting trips to the archives are avoided and the narrative retains its pace).
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were subject to – and remain so to this day – accusations of often displaying an overt political agenda in their books. However, the early books in the series were actually more obsessed with describing Sweden and primarily what Sweden was like during the sixties. The rundown suburb areas and wild youth are portrayed, along with minor criminals, shabby stairwells, and forgotten backstreets. As time went on the authors increasingly criticised Social Democracy and in their final work, Terroristerna released in 1975, they had a young female character shoot the prime minister to death in a manner that was uncomfortably similar to the events surrounding the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme.
The Roman om ett brott series became well-known far beyond Sweden and the books were translated into twenty-five languages (including Esperanto). In 1971 Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö received what – at that time – was one of the world’s rare detective novel prizes, namely the Edgar prize, for Den skrattande polisen. The couple remain the only Swedes to ever have been awarded an Edgar.
The first film adaptation of one of their books dates from 1967, when Keve Hjelm played the role of Martin Beck in Roseanna. The best-known film version is Mannen på taket, from 1976, which is based on Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, published in 1971, and this time Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt played the part of Martin Beck. An American film adaptation called The Laughing Policeman was released in 1973, starring Walter Matthau as Martin Beck, and it was based on Den skrattande polisen from 1968. Since these three films a significant number of films and TV-series have been produced based on the characters rather than the published books and they have been placed into specially-written scenarios.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were the “perfect writing couple”, as Maj Sjöwall herself said in an interview in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper in 1993. At that time the book Mannen på balkongen was being serialised in the paper. The couple’s handwritten manuscripts have been preserved and one can see how the handwriting style sometimes changes in the middle of a sentence. The couple genuinely wrote together and if one of them needed to step away to deal with one of their two sons or attend to some other matter they would hand over to the other. They were extremely meticulous in their work and sometimes jumped onto their bikes in the middle of the night in order to check that they had the correct address. Indeed, they often wrote at night whilst their sons were asleep.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö also translated a large number of books together, including ten of Ed McBain’s books.
The couple lived together until Per Wahlöö’s death in 1975, following a period of illness. In the chapter entitled “Slagen” (beaten) of Johan Erlandsson’s Boken om Beck och Sjöwall Wahlöö och tiden som for, 2020, Maj Sjöwall reveals how she was repeatedly abused by Per Wahlöö, and often had to cover up black eyes with makeup or sunglasses. According to both her and their children, there was no shortage of booze, in addition to the uppers consumed by the couple in order to keep writing by night.
Maj Sjöwall carried on working after Per Wahlöö’s death, primarily as a translator, although she also wrote short stories and articles. She only wrote one further novel, a thriller which she authored in conjunction with the German author Tomas Ross, entitled Kvinnan som liknade Greta Garbo, published in 1990. She described herself as “rather lazy” and preferred to go out for wanders and people-watching rather than to work. Although writing romantic intrigues with Per Wahlöö may have been fun she found it dull on her own.
Following Per Wahlöö’s death Maj Sjöwall and her sons moved to Malmö. Once her children had grown up Maj Sjöwall spent a period of time living in Copenhagen, before finally returning to Stockholm.
When Swedish detective novels became really trendy following the release of Stieg Larsson’s Män som hatar kvinnor in 2005 this gave Maj Sjöwall’s and Per Wahlöö’s series a new lease of life, particularly given that they were clearly forerunners of the modern trend. Maj Sjöwall was invited to attend detective novel festivales and bookfairs throughout the world and very much enjoyed the attention.
In 2015 Maj Sjöwall moved to Ven where her daughter lived and she spent her time driving around the island in a small electric golf cart. Towards the end of her life she spent a brief period of time living in Landskrona.
Maj Sjöwall died in 2020. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 75 | http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2021/01/ | en | The Rap Sheet | http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | [
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] | null | [] | null | http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2021/01/ | Send Us News: The Rap Sheet is always on the lookout for information about new and soon-forthcoming books, special author projects, and distinctive crime-fiction-related Web sites. Shoot us an e-mail note here.
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7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 36 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Beck | en | Martin Beck | [
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] | 2004-05-21T00:52:50+00:00 | en | /static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Beck | Fictional Swedish police detective
For other uses, see Martin Beck (disambiguation).
Martin BeckRoseanna
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
The Man on the Balcony
The Laughing Policeman
The Fire Engine That Disappeared
Murder at the Savoy
The Abominable Man
The Locked Room
Cop Killer
The TerroristsAuthorMaj Sjöwall and Per WahlööTranslatorLois Roth (1), Joan Tate (2, 5, 6, 10), Alain Blair (3, 4), Amy and Ken Knoespel (6), Thomas Teal (7, 9) and Paul Britten Austin (8).CountrySwedenLanguageSwedish, translated into EnglishDisciplinePolice proceduralPublished1965-1975No. of books10
Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in a series of ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö,[1] collectively titled The Story of a Crime. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been adapted into films between 1967 and 1994. Six were adapted for the series featuring Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck.
Between 1997 and 2018 there have also been 38 films (some released direct for video and broadcast on television) based on the characters, with Peter Haber as Martin Beck. Apart from the core duo of Beck and his right-hand man Gunvald Larsson, the latter adaptations bear little resemblance to the plots of the original series. They feature a widely different and evolving cast of characters, though roughly similar themes and settings around Stockholm.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Sjöwall and Wahlöö conceived and wrote a series of ten police procedural novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the Swedish national police; in these the character of Martin Beck was the protagonist.[2] (Both authors also wrote novels separately.) For the Martin Beck series, they plotted and researched each book together, and then wrote alternate chapters simultaneously.[3] The books cover ten years and are renowned for extensive character and setting development throughout the series. This is in part due to careful planning by Sjöwall and Wahlöö.[4]
Roseanna (Roseanna, 1965)
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966)
The Man on the Balcony (Mannen på balkongen, 1967)
The Laughing Policeman (Den skrattande polisen, 1968) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1971)
The Fire Engine That Disappeared (Brandbilen som försvann, 1969)
Murder at the Savoy (Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970)
The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971)
The Locked Room (Det slutna rummet, 1972)
Cop Killer (Polismördaren, 1974)
The Terrorists (Terroristerna, 1975)
Martin Beck: The protagonist of the series, Martin Beck goes from being an unhappily married man and father of two young teenagers, to a divorced man in a happy unmarried relationship with Rhea Nielsen, a kind and emphatic landlady whom Beck meets while investigating the death of a man who was Nielsen's tenant. Beck is prone to colds and often suffers from ailments and physical discomforts. Beck also gets several promotions, from Detective to Inspector, and Chief of the National Murder Squad by the end of the series. This seems to be to the chagrin of everyone involved, including him, as he hates the vision of being confined to desk work. In Cop Killer, he is happily spared a promotion to a Commissioner. In The Terrorists, he is, however, forced to become Chief of Operations in an important job protecting an American senator, meaning that he is for once, in theory, higher in position than his superior, Malm. He is allowed to assemble his perfect team, consisting of Larsson, Rönn, Skacke, Melander and himself. He does extremely well coordinating the desk work and keeping in communication (through allowing Melander to handle all telephone communications, and diverting all telephone calls, or switching off the telephone altogether whenever he needs time to think), impressing the Commissioner. In The Abominable Man, he is shot and severely wounded. He quits smoking after the incident as his favourite manufacturer discontinues his preferred type of cigarette.
Lennart Kollberg: Beck's most trusted colleague; a sarcastic glutton with a Socialist worldview; served as a paratrooper. After having shot and accidentally killed a person in the line of duty, he refuses to carry a gun. He is newly married in the second book and fathers two children over the course of the series. In The Fire Engine That Disappeared, he refers to Gunvald Larsson as "the stupidest detective in the history of criminal investigation", and in The Abominable Man, Larsson informs him, "I've always thought you were a fucking idiot". Through working with each other on numerous investigations, they later come to understand each other. He resigns from the force at the end of the penultimate book, Cop Killer. He realises he was ashamed of what the police force had become, but still has the last word in the last book.
Gunvald Larsson: A former member of the merchant marine and the black sheep of a rich family, he has a liking for expensive clothes and pulp fiction including the work of Sax Rohmer. He is one of the few people outside East Germany who owns and drives a sports car manufactured by Eisenacher Motorenwerk. He is somewhat lacking in interpersonal skills and is disliked by most of his colleagues. He and Kollberg share a mutual antipathy, but are capable of working together efficiently when the occasion demands it. However, although he often treats Einar Rönn with the same boorishness, Rönn is his only friend. The two are close, often spending time together off the job. His rich, cultured family taught him how to behave correctly in all circumstances, something which the Commissioner notes that he tries to conceal. Larsson has a penchant for expensive clothes, and his tailored suits frequently get ruined during his investigations. He is tall and has china blue eyes, and is in extremely good shape. He is noted as the best in the team at breaking down doors.
Einar Rönn: Larsson's friend from Arjeplog in the rural north of Sweden, he is married to a Lapp woman. He is permanently red-nosed, incapable of writing a coherent report and totally unimaginative, but a hard-working and efficient policeman. He is very calm and peaceful, losing his temper only once (on Larsson's behalf) in all the books. By the end of the series, Beck notes that Rönn had defied all expectations to become a valuable asset to the team, and someone whom he could trust.
Benny Skacke: A young ambitious, overzealous and sometimes hapless detective. He is introduced in the fifth book as a new member of the homicide commission, but later transfers to Malmö for personal reasons. Skacke is still somewhat naïve, seeking to become police commissioner, but he is noted by Beck in the last book as having matured significantly.
Fredrik Melander: Noted for his flawless memory and for always being in the lavatory when anyone wants him. Melander is described as a first-class policeman in The Fire Engine That Disappeared, but also as very boring. He insists on getting ten hours of sleep every night and has illegible handwriting. He is noted for having no temper displays and being immune to flattery. He later transfers to the Burglary and Theft division in an effort to avoid overtime. After, he is featured briefly in the later books in the series (except The Terrorists). In the Terrorists, Beck puts him in charge of telephone communications for his skill in having a long conversation with someone and getting nothing done.
Evald Hammar: Beck's boss until he retires in the end of The Fire Engine That Disappeared. He is mild-mannered, trusts his men's judgment, and dislikes the political infighting which increasingly accompanies his job.
Stig Malm: Beck's boss from Murder at the Savoy onwards. A politician with little understanding of police work who is willing to do anything to get up the career ladder, for whom Beck eventually feels sorry by the end of the book. Malm is often ordered around by the National Police Commissioner. He has an overly high opinion of himself, not hampered by his one case as Chief of Operations ending in disaster.
Kurt Kvant and Karl Kristiansson
Lazy and inept partner patrolmen from Skåne who are shouted at by Larsson. At one point their trampling all over a crime scene resulted in a lengthy investigation, as no footprints or fingerprints could be taken at the scene. After Kvant is killed in The Abominable Man, Kristiansson has a new partner, Kenneth Kvastmo, who is equally inept but far more zealous.
Per Månsson
A leisurely but very competent Malmö detective who becomes involved in several of Beck's cases. He is particularly known for his searching skills.
Åke Stenström
A young detective noted for his shadowing skills. He is killed in The Laughing Policeman.
Åsa Torell
Widow of Åke Stenström, who later decides to become a cop herself. She appears prominently in Murder at the Savoy and The Terrorists.
Aldor Gustavsson
A mediocre policeman, who bungles the initial investigation in The Locked Room.
Backlund
An unimaginative and rigid detective in Malmö.
Inga Beck
Martin Beck's wife, whom he later divorces.
Ingrid Beck
Martin Beck's daughter, often described as mature and independent. She has a good relationship with her father, and they often go out for dinner together. She urges Beck to leave her mother Inga.
Rolf Beck
Martin Beck's lazy son, with whom he has a poor relationship. Beck finally admits to himself in a later book that he dislikes the boy.
Rune Ek
One of the detectives. The character is usually minor, but appears more prominently in The Laughing Policeman.
Emil Elofsson and Gustav Borglund
Two partner patrolmen in Malmö. They appear in The Fire Engine that Disappeared and Cop Killer. In the later book, Borglund is killed by a wasp.
Norman Hansson
A uniformed police sergeant in some of the books.
Oskar Hjelm
A highly skilled but vain and temperamental forensic scientist, who is highly susceptible to flattery. Beck uses this weakness on a daily basis.
Gun Kollberg
Kollberg's young wife and mother of his two children.
Rhea Nielsen
Martin Beck's new girlfriend after he divorces his wife. She is an open socialist, and enjoys cooking. The series ends with Kollberg and his wife Gun, and Beck and Nielson having a happy New Years' party, in a perfect atmosphere with Nielsen's delicious cooking. She is a landlady, having inherited a block of apartments. Unlike many other landlords, she takes good care of the property, and builds a social community around her apartments. She charges less rent than average, and has them well refurbished. She meets Beck in The Locked Room, as the ex-landlady of the deceased man. Intelligent and straight-talking, she is a professional social worker.
Herrgott Nöjd (Herrgott Allwright or Herrgott Content in English translations)
A down-to-earth police officer from the rural district of Anderslöv, who gets on well with just about anybody. Appears in the books Cop Killer and The Terrorists.
Sten Robert "Bulldozer" Olsson
A very busy, energetic and enthusiastic public prosecutor in charge of investigating and prosecuting bank robbers. He has a big part in The Locked Room, where several fiascos occur under his watch when he insists on personally overseeing the investigation. He is known for being so busy, with often 10 cases at once, that he never appeals a case after losing, which he rarely does.
Strömgren
A Stockholm detective with a minor role in some of the books. Little is known about him, but he is disliked by both Beck and Larsson. In The Terrorists he apparently is a spy for Bulldozer Olsson.
Richard Ullholm
A pedantic and nit-picking detective in some of the books. He is constantly making official complaints about his colleagues over usually minor details.
Bo Zachrisson
Another mediocre policeman, who appears in The Fire Engine That Disappeared and later lets the Prime Minister get assassinated in The Terrorists. Eric Möller, the chief of Security Police, mistakes Larsson's "CS" (meaning Clod Squad) list of policemen who should not be used for any important duties, as the "Commando Section".
All ten novels have been adapted to film. Some have been released under different titles and four have been filmed outside Sweden. The first actor to play Martin Beck was Keve Hjelm in 1967. Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt portrayed Beck in 1976.
In 1993 and 1994, Gösta Ekman played the character in six films. American audiences are likely most familiar with Walter Matthau playing the Beck role in the 1973 film called The Laughing Policeman, where his character was called "Jake Martin."
Martin Beck has also been played by Jan Decleir, Derek Jacobi and Romualds Ancāns. Two of the novels, Roseanna and Murder at the Savoy, have each twice been adapted for films. In the later TV series films based more on the named characters than events, Martin Beck is played by Peter Haber.
1967 – Roseanna (Sw) (based on Roseanna, starring Keve Hjelm)
1973 – The Laughing Policeman (US) (based on The Laughing Policeman, starring Walter Matthau; the setting is changed to San Francisco and the characters have different names)
1976 – Mannen på taket ("The man on the roof") (Sw) (based on The Abominable Man, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt)
1979 – Nezakonchennyy uzhin ("The unfinished supper") (USSR) (based on Murder at the Savoy, starring Romualds Ancāns (lv)
1980 – Der Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste ("The man who disappeared into thin air") (Ger) (based on The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, starring British actor Derek Jacobi)
1993 – Beck – De gesloten kamer ("Beck- the closed room") (Neth) (based on The Locked Room, starring Jan Decleir)
1993 – Roseanna (based on Roseanna)
1993 – Brandbilen som försvann (based on The Fire Engine That Disappeared)
1993 – Polis polis potatismos! (based on Murder at the Savoy)
1993 – Mannen på balkongen (based on The Man on the Balcony)
1994 – Polismördaren (based on Cop Killer)
1994 – Stockholm Marathon (loosely based on The Terrorists)
Further information: Beck (Swedish TV series)
The BBC dramatised the ten stories for radio and broadcast began in October 2012 on BBC Radio 4 under the umbrella title of The Martin Beck Killings.
The series stars Steven Mackintosh as Beck, Neil Pearson as Kollberg, Ralph Ineson as Larsson, Russell Boulter as Rönn, and Adrian Scarborough as Melander.[5]
1 – Roseanna (27 October 2012)
2 – The Man who Went Up in Smoke (3 November 2012)
3 – The Man on the Balcony (10 November 2012)
4 – The Laughing Policeman (17 November 2012)
5 – The Fire Engine That Disappeared (24 November 2012)
6 – Murder at the Savoy (6 July 2013)
7 – The Abominable Man (13 July 2013)
8 – The Locked Room (20 July 2013)
9 – Cop Killer (27 July 2013)
10 – The Terrorists (3 August 2013)
Sjöwall and Wahlöö's technique of mixing traditional crime fiction with a focus on the social issues in the Swedish welfare state received a great deal of attention.[6] The concept has been updated in the 1990s with Henning Mankell's detective character Kurt Wallander and in the 2000s with Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy featuring Lisbeth Salander. The basic concept has, by extension, given rise to the entire Scandinavian noir scene. The Mystery Writers of America, in 1995, rated The Laughing Policeman as the 2nd best police procedural, after Tony Hillerman's Dance Hall of the Dead.[7] | ||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 61 | https://markhstevens.wordpress.com/2012/08/ | en | Don't Need A Diagram | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/d7c05b15cfed1c227b0042dd2335746cc6b70ae92b4311624c2725ba7988d99a?s=200&ts=1723901522 | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/d7c05b15cfed1c227b0042dd2335746cc6b70ae92b4311624c2725ba7988d99a?s=200&ts=1723901522 | [
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] | null | [] | null | 1 post published by writermarkstevens during August 2012 | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/d7c05b15cfed1c227b0042dd2335746cc6b70ae92b4311624c2725ba7988d99a?s=32 | Don't Need A Diagram | null | There is no one hero.
Yes, Martin Beck is the driver, the most determined. He does the most brooding. He—mostly—puts the pieces together. But I was struck by the teamwork in The Laughing Policeman and what I suspect is more often the case in real police work—that the puzzle pieces come together through collaboration, not by lone wolves sniffing one trail.
Perhaps it was because Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were also collaborating. Teamwork rules.
Written in 1968, the style here is multiple points of view. The prose swoops down from extreme
omniscience and scene-setting—a dry, matter-of-fact coolness to the tone—before picking up the thoughts and actions of one of the many cops in the ensemble.
“Nobody knew anything for sure, but there were two words that were whispered from person to person and soon spread in concentric circles through the crowd and the surrounding houses and city, finally taking more definite shape and being flung out across the country as a whole. By now the words had reached far beyond the frontiers. Mass murder.”
In the police station:
“Telephones rang incessantly, people came and went, floors were dirtied and the men who dirtied them were irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.”
This is “noir” that doesn’t have to try very hard to be dark: grit and dankness rule the Stockholm setting.
The cops are a warts-and-all bunch. You might want to keep handy the Wikipedia list of cops as they come and go. Their characteristics come to light over time but a cheat sheet comes in handy (particularly if you are picking up a “Beck” in the middle of the series).
The Laughing Policeman climbs a mountain of plot—a plot within a plot. A cold case becomes the key to solving a mass murder. Realizing that the cold case is the key to solving the mass murder takes time and effort. Finding out how the cold case connects to the mass murder takes time and effort. The clues, such as they are, are scant and hard to spot. The typical rising-action arc is not here. All hope is lost—repeatedly. Beck and his team are dead in the water more often than they are making real headway. The climax comes quickly.
The key—correction, one of the keys—is that one of those killed in the mass murder is a cop. But what was he doing there? Who was he with? Why was he there? Why was he riding that bus? Over and over that question drives the action.
The cops divvy up assignments, chase down leads—come up empty and fight for a faint tidbits of information. Action? Not really. The work is procedural, dogged, detailed—and nuanced. One of the most amazing scenes in the book, a scene that gripped me as much as any chase scene, is a 17-page exchange between Kollberg, Beck’s trusted colleague, and the dead cop’s wife. It’s a piece of work—and tension—that all takes place in her apartment.
When the pieces finally come together, the trap is set and even then Sjöwall and Wahlöö play it cool, don’t let the descriptions over-inflate the scene.
I found this passage from a terrific profile of Sjöwall by Louise France in The Observor. (Wahlöö died decades ago.) I think this nails why this series could prove addicting:
“There is no one hero. The policemen irritate one another in the same way that anyone who has ever worked in an office will recognise. Mannerisms grate. Tempers flare. Yet they spend more time with one another than they do with their wives – those who can hold down a marriage, that is.
The books are set in an era when everyone smoked; there were no mobile phones, or DNA samples, or the internet. They’re full of Swedish addresses which are as alien as they are unpronounceable, and as unpronounceable as they are long. Yet they don’t feel outdated or off-putting. The action is often slow yet they’re still hugely entertaining (and often very funny).”
Yes, I stole France’s line: there is no one hero.
Good stuff.
+++
Final thought: A fellow Colorado mystery writer friend suggested this book to me but sent a Bantam Books paperback with the cover taped over. The cover, she said, doesn’t do the story justice. She’s right. (What? Like I couldn’t find the cover online?) I loaded up three other versions of the cover but not sure any of these have got it quite right, either. Tough one to illustrate. | ||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 4 | https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/per-wahloo/ | en | Book Series In Order | [
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Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Publication Order of Inspector Jensen Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Martin Beck Books
with Maj Sjöwall
Publication Order of Anthologies
Per Wahloo is a Swedish author known for his crime fiction novels. Born in 1926 in Kungsbacka Municipality in Halland, he is sometimes known as Peter Wahloo in English. He debuted as a novelist with his first novel, The Lorry, being published in 1962. The book is also known by the title A Necessary Action. He is the son of writer and journalist Waldemar and had one brother.
Per Wahloo’s last novel was The Terrorists, which was released one year after he passed away in 1975 from an unsuccessful pancreatic operation done to try and address his cancer in Malmo, Sweden at the age of 48 (the book was published in 1976). The book was authored with the help of Maj Sjowall, his common-law partner and fellow Marxist for thirteen years. He is buried in the central cemetery’s memorial garden at Malmo Sankt Pauli.
Maj Sjowall wrote the detective/crime fiction Martin Beck series with him and includes a total of ten novels. In 1971, they won the Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America for their book, The Laughing Policeman, which features the police detective working in Stockholm. Many of their Beck books have been filmed. There was a television series that ran in Sweden from 1997 to 2015 that brought the character of Detective Inspector Beck to life starring Peter Haber as Beck. This series was shown in England with English subtitles as well when the BBC purchased it and aired the series in 2015.
Before he was a writer and after finishing school, Per was a crime reporter from 1947 and onwards. Wahloo started in the field and worked in 1949 as a permanent employee of the Evening Post. However, he embraced freelance work in the fifties and was very busy writing film articles and theater reviews for different papers before going to Stockholm to live.
He spent some time traveling all around the world before going back to Sweden and getting back to crime journalism. He was largely done with journalism around 1964, but went on to work for a journal called Tidsignal (Time Signal in English) for five years and served on the editorial board for the journal. His leftist tendency came to influence and define his early novels, which largely focused on power and the right. One example of this is the 1962 novel A Necessary Action and his Dictatorship series.
He is the author of The Chief, The Wind and Rain, A Necessary Action, The Stell Spring, The Assignment, Murder on the Thirty-First Floor, and The Generals. Wahloo is known for being one part of the couple that invented the genre of Nordic noir. He is also credited as an inspiration for the Norweigan writer Jo Nesbo.
The first book in the Martin Beck Series is titled Roseanna. First published in 1965, this is the first book where readers get to meet the Detective Inspector Martin Beck. Part of the Stockholm Homicide Squad, he works diligently to solve cases and catch those who have committed crimes– mainly, murder.
Beck soon is involved in a new case when a young woman turns up dead in Sweden’s Lake Vattern. The detective is assigned to the case, working on it along with the small local police force. However, initially, they have nothing to go on and don’t even know who the woman is, let alone the killer.
Eventually, they find out who the woman is: Roseanna. A free spirit who liked to travel and enjoy life and sex, her life was cut tragically short in a beautiful setting when she was relentlessly strangled to death. Now operating with a cause of death, all that they know is that she was on board a cruise with eighty people.
A little more than three months in, Beck has no idea who the killer is, but the thing that has made him so successful in his career is the fact that Martin Beck obsesses over his cases. It has ruined his marriage– or perhaps his marriage was never destined to last as he married his wife and she slowly became less and less happy. Even though they have two children together, Beck is much more engaged with the cases he covers than his family– that much is certain. Beck creates model ships to pass the time and work through cases.
When the murder turns out to be a rape as well, the case gets personal. Beck aligns with local detective Ahlberg, and they pore over the details of the case together. They communicate frequently, going over the information that they have and trying to figure out how they can get more leads. When they get the help of Detective Kafka from Nebraska, who interviews individuals who were familiar with the victim, the case slowly starts to gain traction.
Beck is a detective that goes with the info he has and his gut too. But as the pieces start to come together, does the killer know that they are on to him– and can they get to him before he finds them first? Read this exciting debut novel in the Martin Beck series to find out!
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke was published in 1996 and is the second book to feature the now-famous Detective Inspector. When Beck is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a prominent Swedish journalist a full two years since his Roseanna case.
Beck’s not on vacation for more than a day and a night before he is rung up and given the case. Alf Matsson disappeared without warning, and the detective inspector must travel to Budapest to try and find the journalist– alive or dead. But Budapest is full of more danger than he may have even realized.
When Beck stumbles into a totally different racket on his journey to find the journalist, he may be risking his life as the dangerous characters of the Hungarian underworld start to be alerted to his presence. The journalist left behind his luggage and key, so it seems like it was a kidnapping of some kind after all.
As the detective tries to retrace the steps of the missing journalist and getting little help from the police, it’s up to Beck to dodge smuggling racket members and find this man once and for all. Read this exciting crime fiction novel to see if Matsson can be found and if Beck can make it out of the country alive! | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 78 | https://anthempress.com/crime-fiction-in-the-age-of-metoo-hb | en | Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo | [
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] | null | [] | null | <p style="text-align: justify;">Informed by fourth-wave feminism, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo presents a compelling and timely reading of crime fiction in the age of #MeToo. The book explores five major fourth-wave feminist topics, #MeToo, rape cul | en | https://anthempress.com/media/favicon/default/favicon_2.ico | AnthemPress | https://anthempress.com/crime-fiction-in-the-age-of-metoo-hb | Informed by fourth-wave feminism, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo presents a compelling and timely reading of crime fiction in the age of #MeToo. The book explores five major fourth-wave feminist topics, #MeToo, rape culture, toxic masculinity, LBGTQ+ perspectives, and transgender. These topics have been the subject of intense feminist scrutiny and campaigning, and the book demonstrates how this attention is reflected in contemporary crime fiction and its generic and thematic preoccupations. The book opens with a chapter presenting an overview of existing critical perspectives and feminist debates, demonstrating how fourth-wave feminist ideas and debates are inspiring innovations in the genre, as well as generating fresh ways of reading past and present crime fictions. Providing an overview and context for both fourth-wave feminism and the #MeToo movement, the chapter establishes the critical and cultural framework for its analysis. The chapter also outlines the book’s methodology and approach, detailing the contents of the chapters. Each of the five subsequent chapters uses critical vocabulary and concepts from feminism and the #MeToo movement to reassess canonical works and present new readings of contemporary crime fiction, producing compelling analyses of gender and genre. Canonical authors whose works are discussed include Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Josephine Tey, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, and Val McDermid. Examining selected contemporary novels and short stories, the chapters in Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo provide fresh readings of both well-known and lesser-known crime authors. The contemporary authors whose work is examined are Lauren Henderson, Susan White, Jennifer Haigh, Allison Leotta, Y.A. Erskine, Heather Fitt, John Harvey, Dorothy Koomson, Pekka Hiltunen, Nekesa Afia, Michael Nava, Stella Duffy, Alex Reeve, V.T. Davy, and Dharma Kelleher.
Through its critical examination of crime fiction, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo offers a powerful feminist analysis of the genre which draws links between literature and ongoing urgent social and cultural debates such as the #Metoo movement and fourth-wave feminism.
Chapter 1: Reading Crime Fiction Through Fourth-Wave Feminism and #MeToo; Chapter 2: #MeToo in Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair, Lauren Henderson’s “MeToo,” Susan White’s Cut, and Jennifer Haigh’s Mercy Street; Chapter 3: Rape Culture in Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Roseanna, Allison Leotta’s The Last Good Girl, Y. A. Erskine’s The Betrayal, and Heather Fitt’s Open Your Eyes; Chapter 4: Toxic Masculinity in Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, John Harvey’s “Yesterdays,” Dorothy Koomson’s The Brighton Mermaid, and Pekka Hiltunen’s “Jenkem”; Chapter 5: LGBTQ+ Representation in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Nekesa Afia’s Dead Dead Girls, Michael Nava’s Lies With Man, and Stella Duffy’s Fresh Flesh; Chapter 6: Transgender in Val McDermid’s The Mermaids Singing, Alex Reeve’s The House on Half Moon Street, V. T. Davy’s Black Art, and Dharma Kelleher’s TERF Wars; Conclusion: #MeToo and Crime Fiction | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 54 | https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/per-wahloo/ | en | Per Wahlöö | [
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149 books added
Per Wahlöö
Sweden (1926 - 1975)
Partner of Maj Sjöwall
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were husband and wife. They were both committed Marxists and, between 1965 and 1975, they collaborated on ten mysteries featuring Martin Beck.
Awards: Edgar (1971)
Genres: Mystery | ||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 18 | http://authorscalendar.info/sjowall.htm | en | Maj Sjöwall | [
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] | null | [] | null | null | Swedish writer and journalist, "the grandmother of Scandinavian crime writing", who published with her husband Per Wahlöö ten novels about the detective character Martin Beck and his colleagues at the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm. According to Maj Sjöwall, the series, a dissection of capitalist society, was more popular in the United States and France than in Sweden. The critic and awarded mystery writer H.R.F. Keating selected the first volume, Roseanna (1965), in 1987 for his list of the one hundred best crime & mystery novels. All of the Martin Beck books have been filmed. The novels prepared the ground for authors such as Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Liza Marklund.
"I still recall the first time I read Cop Killer. Like Maj and Per's other detective novels, it has been with me for as long as I can remember. The Martin Beck series is part of my childhood, my adolescence, the way I relate to Sweden and to reality." ('Introduction' by Liza Marklund, in Cop Killer: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, 2010, p. ix)
Maj Sjöwall was born in Stockholm, the daughter of Will Sjöwall, the manager of a chain of hotels, and the former Margit Trobäck. The family lived in an apartment at the Hotel Gillet. When Sjöwall was ten, they movend to Kungholmen. From early on, she was a book worm, reading Selma Lagerlöf, Elin Wägner, Maxim Gorky, Maria Lang, and Stieg Trenter. She also began writing poetry and short stories, one of which appeared anonymously in the magazine Fick Journalen.
"I was rather wild," Sjöwall once described her youth. ('The Queen of Crime' by Louise France, The Guardian, 22 November, 2009) At the age of 21 she had an abortion. Sjöwall studied journalism and graphics before finding employment as a reporter and art director at a series of newspapers and magazines. From 1959 to 1961 she was an editor with the publishing house Wahlström and Widstrad.
Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö met in 1961 while working for magazines published by the same company; Maj Sjöwall for Idun and Per Wahlöö for Folket i bild. Wahlöö was a political journalist, who had been deported from General Franco's Spain in 1957. Both Sjöwall and Wahlöö were members of the Communist Party. Wahlöö was married, Sjöwall was a single parent of a six-year-old daughter, Lena, and already twice divorced. They became lovers but never officially married. Their carefully planned crime series was created in the evenings, after their two sons, Tetz and Jens, had been put to bed.
At the time, there were no Swedish police procedurals, just amateur detectives. The literary venture was aimed to reveal "how the social democrats were pushing the country in a more and more bourgeois and rightwing direction." ('Sweden's Crime Writers Too Interested in Love, Says Maj Sjöwall' by Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 14 August, 2013) Starting in 1965 from Roseanna, Sjöwall and Wahlöö ended ten years and ten books later with Terroristerna (1975).
Until 1969, the couple lived in Stockholm, but they kept contact with the KRW (Kronkvist-Rooke-Wahlöö) group from Malmö, where they lived and worked from 1969. From the beginning, the collaboration was seamless, based on the journalistic experience and style that demanded brevity, concision, and attention to detail. Both writers were Marxists and admired the work of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The first plot was invented on a canal trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. "There was an American woman on the boat, beautiful, with dark hair, always standing alone. I caught Per looking at her. 'Why don't we start the book by killing this woman?'" Sjöwall suggested. ('The Queen of Crime' by Louise France, The Guardian, 22 November, 2009)
According to Wahlöö, their intention was to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of the ideological pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois type." ('Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, inTwentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly, 1985, p. 947)
Of course, even in the 1960s, this kind of radicalism did not boost the sales of the books. "Fortunately none of this has any bearing on the quality of the Martin Beck series itself, which is not only unique in presenting a detailed and evolving vision of police work from a definable political perspective but consistently transcends the level of the average police procedural thanks to a prevailing sense of unease which in the end seems as much existential as ideological." (The Picador Book of Cime Writing by Michael Dibdin, 1993, p. 102) The general plan of Sjöwall and Wahlöö was that based on meticulous research and authentic details, the series would mirror the Swedish society. Martin Beck, his career in the National Homicide Squad, would act as the barometer of the times, reflecting changes in the political, economic, social climate.
The narrative model came from Ed McBain's internationally acclaimed Eighty-seventh Precinct series. Some of them the couple even translated into Swedish for PAN/Norstedts series in the late 1960s.
The first three novels,Roseanna, a story of rape-murder of an American girl, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966), which takes place mostly in the cold war Budapest, andThe Man on the Balcony(1967), were straightforward police procedural novels, written in reportal, spare style: "On the table were three empty vermouth bottles, a soft-drink bottle and two coffee cups, among other things. The ash tray had been turned upside down and among the cigarette butts, bottle tops and dead matches lay a few dirty sugar lumps, a small penknife with its blades open, and a piece of sausage. A third coffee cup had fallen to the floor and had broken. Face down on the word linoleum, between the table and the bed, lay a dead body. (The Man Who Went Up in a Smoke, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2006, pp. 3-4)
These first novels introduced the central characters – the solid, methodical detective Martin Beck with failing marriage, ex-paratrooper Lennart Kollberg, a gourmet, who hates violence and refuses to carry a gun, Gunvald Larsson, wildman and a drop-out from high society, Einar Rönn from the rural north of Sweden – he was Wahlöö's favorite figure – and patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvant, whose activities usually lead to some kind of fiasco. Beck suffers from insomnia, and he has troubles with his stomach; the pains go away when he leaves his wife and her cooking. He had joined the police force in the mid-1940s. Beck met Inga, his future wife on a canoe tour in 1951. After marriage they moved to Kungsholmen. They have two children, but during the story their marriage dissolves.
Roseanna was not an immediate success. Some reviewers felt that the novel was too dark and brutal, but its publication in English translation in 1967 sparked the interest of a worldwide audience. In the story the body of a girl is discovered, but nothing is know of her. Eventually she is linked to Roseanna McGraw, an American, who never returned from her tour of Europe. Martin Beck and his colleagues find a photograph in which Roseanna is accompanied by an unknown man. Beck is convinced he is the killer. "Chance, too, is allowed to play a bigger role than most storytellers, those shapers of events to their own ends, would allow. This, once more, introduces an element of outside reality. So, as one puts the book down, one is apt to think: a good story, and interesting, but also, in the words of the newspaper advertisement, 'all human life is there'."('Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö:Roseanna,' inCrime & Mystery: The 100 Best Booksby H.R.F. Keating, 1987, p. 138)
Until The Story of a Crime series Swedish detective novels had been apolitical, conservative or liberal, but Sjöwall and Wahlöö managed to revive interest in a genre generally overlooked by leftist intellectuals. Readers were ready to accept their new approach, the introduction of political issues (glimpses of gentle humour) as part of crime fiction. In Cop Killer (1974) Lennart Kollberg, a man with strong views, writes his resignation: he is a socialist, and refuses to support the oppressive system any longer. The suspected cop killer of the title, a teenager in a stolen car, is chased across Sweden.
At the end of the series, Beck plays a game called "crosswords" with Kollberg, who says: "The trouble with you, Martin, is just that you've got the wrong job. At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system." (The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2010, p. 280)
The Laughing Policeman (1968), filmed by Stuart Rosenberg in 1973, and The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969), brought in the development of the series more social themes and weak points of the Western society. "I found little or nothing in the novel that could be called tub-thumping propaganda. Instead, I came across a few rather muted and humane reflections on those laudable intentions which somehow had failed to materialize." ('Introduction' by Colin Dexter, in The Fire Engine that Disappeared, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2007, p. viii)
Rosenberg's film was set in San Francisco instead of Stockholm and Malmö. Walter Matthau played a laconic detective named Jake Martin, who is solving a case in which all passengers in a bus are massacred by an unseen killer. "It's almost the kind of movie, indeed, to blast loose a detective-novel fan from Ross Macdonald," said Roger Ebert in his review. ('The Laughing Policeman' by Roger Ebert, December 24, 1973, RogerEbert.com) Swedish reviewers were unanimous in that the film had very little to do with the novel and there was little left of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's social analysis.
Bo Widerberg's screen adaptation of Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle (1971, The Abominable Man) from 1976, entitled Mannen på taket, was a great success. One of its highlights was a helicopter crash on the Odenplan metro station. Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, who was best known as a comedian, was cast in the role of Martin Beck. Sjöwall herself had imagined him to be lean, looking like Gunnar Björnstrand or the young Henry Fonda, but Lindstedt was stockily built. In this film, Lindstedt realized his potential as a serious actor. Widerberg, who was not a Raymond Chandler fan, planned to continue with the third book in the series, The Man on the Balcony, but this production never went ahead. Widerberg accused Jörn Donner, the director of the Swedish Film Institute, of putting him on a blacklist. However, he actually supported the idea: "Det är värt att notera att Jörn Donner gjorde sig mödan att själv kontakta Olle Hellbom, och Donner blev överraskad över att SF var så avvisande. Donner ansträngde sig ganske inte på något uppseendeväckande sätt men det var ändå ett försök att se om det kunde bli en Mannen på balkongen-film." (Höggradigt jävla excentrisk: En biografi över Bo Widerberg by Mårten Blomkvist, 2011)
Noteworthy, the authors did not give full attention to theme of class conflict right from the beginning, but its weight grew step-by-step, in the context of social ills and problems the novel exposed. In the final volume, The Terrorists, the murder of the prime minister signals the decline of the social democratic welfare state. Sjöwall and Wahlöö openly side with Rebecka Lind, "the novel's holy fool and sacrifical lamb, cast adrift by a society that proclaims to care for her then preys upon her as soon as her isolation leads to financial need." ('Introduction' by Denis Lehane,The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2012, p. vii) Rebecka is the killer of the book's Swedish prime minister. Later she commits suicide. The whole series is finished with the name "Marx".
The Terrorists was published after Wahlöö's death in 1975, at the age of 48. Though a joint venture, this volume was mostly written by Wahlöö, who was already very ill. After the murder of Olof Palme in the winter of 1986, Sjöwall was frequently asked did she had any regrets for killing the prime minister in the story. She felt no need to apologize, emphasizing the difference between fiction and real life. Many far-right people in Sweden hated Palme.
Following Wahlöö's death, Sjöwall found it difficult to write novels. With Åke Sjöwall she translated Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels into Swedish. Sjöwall received the Lenin Award in 2013 (the name was changed to the Jan Myrdal Library's big prize in 2016). Following a long illness, Maj Sjöwall died on April 29, 2020.
Sjöwall and Wahlöö's successors have adopted their critical approach of the abuses of state power, including Olov Svedelind, Kenneth Ahl (pseudonym of Lasse Strömstedt och Christer Dahl), Leif G.W. Persson, K. Arne Blom, Henning Mankell, and Stieg Larsson, and others. Also the Chinese mystery writer Qiu Xiaolong, who has lived in the United States since the 1980s, has acknowledged his admiration of Martin Beck police mysteries.
For further reading: 'Roman om en forbrydelse' - Sjöwall/Wahlöö's verk og virkelighed by Ejgil Søholm (1976); Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, edited by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler (1976); 'The Police in Society: The Novels of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Frank Occhiogrosso, in The Armchair Detective, no. 2 (1979); The Police Procedural by George Dove (1982); Lystmord, edited by Jørgen Holmgaard and Bo Tao Michaëlis (1984); Polemical Pulps by J. Kenneth Van Dover (1993); 'Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly (1985); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: Roseanna,' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating (1987); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Nancy C. Mellerski and Robert P. Winston, in Mystery and Suspense Writers, edited by Robin W. Winks (1998); 'Sjöwall, Maj (b. 1935) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975' by J.K. Van Dover, in Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert (2003); 'Introduction' by Colin Dexter, in The Fire Engine that Disappeared: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2007); 'Introduction' by Liza Marklund, in Cop Killer: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'Introduction' by Dennis Lehane, The Terrorists: A Martin Beck Novel by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'From National Authority to Urban Underbelly: Negotiations of Power in Stockholm Crime Fiction' by Kerstin Bergman, in Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes, edited by Lucy Andrew and Catherine Phelps (2013); Swedish Cops: From Sjöwall & Wahlöö to Stieg Larsson by Michael Tapper (2014); Swedish Marxist Noir: The Dark Wave of Crime Writers and the Influence of Raymond Chandler by Per Hellgren (2019); Boken om Beck: och Sjöwall Wahlöö och tiden som for by Johan Erlandsson (2020); Dictionnaire Sjöwall et Wahlöö: les pionniers du polar nordique by Yann Liotard (2020); Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser (2020) - Note: The Laughing Policeman won the best novel Edgar Award in 1971 from the Mystery Writers of America. See also: Lawrence Treat, the creator of modern police procedural novels.
Selected works with Per Wahlöö:
Roseanna, 1965
- Roseanna (translated by Lois Roth, 1967)
- Roseanna: romaani rikoksesta (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1969)
- film adaptations: 1967, prod. Independent film, dir. Hans Abramson, starring Keve Hjelm (as Martin Beck), Hans Ernback, Tor Isedal, Gio Petré, Hans Bendrik; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Anna Helena Bergendal
Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966
- The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (translated by Joan Tate, 1969)
- Mies joka hävisi savuna ilmaan (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1967)
- film adaptation:Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste, 1980, prod. Andre Libik, Europa Film, Mafilm 'Dialog' Studio, dir. Péter Bacsó, starring Derek Jacobi (as Martin Beck), Judy Winter, Tomas Bolme, Lasse Strömstedt, Sándor Szabó
Mannen på balkongen, 1967
- The Man on the Balcony (translated by Alan Blair, 1968)
- Mies parvekkeella (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Mannen på balkongen, 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. by Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Bernt Ström
Den skrattande polisen, 1968
- The Laughing Policeman (translated by Alan Blair, 1970)
- Bussimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1972)
- film adaptation in 1973, prod. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, dir. by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Louis Gossett Jr., Albert Paulsen. Note: the locale was shifted from Sweden to San Francisco when it was filmed.
Brandbilen som försvann, 1969
- The Fire Engine That Disappeared (translated by Joan Tate, 1970)
- Kadonnut paloauto (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation:1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, RTL, Rialto Film, dir. by Hajo Gies, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Holger Kunkel
Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970
- Murder at the Savoy (translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel, 1971)
- Missä viipyy poliisi (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- films: Nezakonchennyy uzhin, 1980, dir. Janis Streics, starring Romualds Ancans (as Martin Beck), Ingrid Andrina, Lilita Berzina, Ivars Kalnis; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF) dir. Per Berglund, starring Gösta Ekman, Kjell Bergqvist and Rolf Lassgård
Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971
- The Abominable Man (translated by Thomas Teal, 1972)
- Komisario Beck tähtäimessä (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- film adaptation: Mannen på taket, 1976, prod. Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), dir. by Bo Widerberg, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg, Håkan Serner, Ingvar Hirdwall
Det slutna rummet, 1972
- The Locked Room (translated by Paul Britten Austin, 1973)
- Suljettu huone (suom. Kari Jalonen)
- film adaptation: De gesloten kamer, 1993, prod. Filmcase, Prime Time, dir. by Jacob Bijl, starring Jan Decleir (as Martin Beck), Els Dottermans, Warre Borgmans, Jakob Beks
Polismördaren, 1974
- Cop Killer (translated by Thomas Teal, 1975; introduction by Liza Marklund, 2010)
- Poliisimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1978)
- film adaptation in 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Tomas Norström, Johan Widerberg
Terroristerna, 1975
- The Terrorists (translated by Joan Tate, 1976)
- Terroristit (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Stockholm Marathon, 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Corinna Harfouch
Sista resan och andra berättelser, 2007
Roseanna, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 1; translated from the Swedish by Lois Roth; with a new introduction by Henning Mankell)
The Man Who Went up in Smoke, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 2; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Val McDermid)
The Man on the Balcony, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 3; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; with an introduction by Jo Nesbø)
The Laughing Policeman, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 4; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; introduction by Jonathan Franzen)
The Fire Engine That Disappeared, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 5; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Colin Dexter)
Murder at the Savoy, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 6; translated from the Swedish by Amy Knoespel; introduction by Arne Dahl)
The Abominable Man, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 7; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; with an introduction by Jens Lapidus)
The Locked Room, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 8; translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin; with an introduction by Michael Connelly)
Cop Killer, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 9; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; introduction by Liza Marklund)
The Terrorists, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 10; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; introduction by Dennis Lehane)
Other works:
Kvinnan som liknade Greta Garbo (with Tomas Ross), 1990
- Nainen joka muistutti Greta Garboa (suom. Tarmo Haarala, 1991)
Sista resan och andra berättelser, 2007
Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. 2008-2024. | ||||||||
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] | 2011-02-24T00:00:00 | My education in Scandinavian crime fiction continues! After I expressed my doubts about Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers, I received some very helpful advice in the comments thread. In particular, Litlove suggested the Wallander books participate in a peculiarly European mood of melancholia (about which, she rightly inferred, I am largely ignorant) and a literary tradition… | en | Novel Readings | https://rohanmaitzen.com/2011/02/24/maj-sjowall-per-wahloo-the-martin-beck-mysteries/ | My education in Scandinavian crime fiction continues! After I expressed my doubts about Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers, I received some very helpful advice in the comments thread. In particular, Litlove suggested the Wallander books participate in a peculiarly European mood of melancholia (about which, she rightly inferred, I am largely ignorant) and a literary tradition of what she, um, invitingly described as “ugly, grinding prose, empty, bleak, futile.” And Dorian, who added the nice term “effaced personality” to our conversation about how Wallander is characterized, noted that Mankell’s series has an important antecedent in the Martin Beck mysteries by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. If I had been reading Mankell solely for pleasure, I might not have felt obligated to do the extra work of adjusting my reading framework to take these contexts into account, even though in principle I agree that good reading requires situating the book appropriately. I was reading Mankell in part as a professional, though, so I felt I did need to try a little harder to understand what he was up to–and boy, am I glad I did, not just as a teacher/scholar but as a reader. Three books into the Martin Beck series, I am thoroughly enjoying them, and I’m already feeling as if I will read Mankell much better (more aptly, more appreciatively) when I turn to The Fifth Woman, which is waiting here on my desk.
Why am I liking the Sjöwall and Wahlöö books so much better than Faceless Killers? One likely answer is that I’ve already fine-tuned my expectations, so that the features they share with Mankell’s first Wallander novel are more familiar and comfortable. Among these I would include the bleak (grinding, empty, futile) atmosphere–including both the literal atmosphere of cold, wet, miserable winter (as Jonathan Franzen says in his introduction to The Laughing Policeman, the “weather inevitably sucks”) but also the moral and emotional atmosphere, which is grim in a resigned, routine way. There’s also the one-damn-thing-after-another plotting characteristic of a police procedural, where every lead has to be laboriously pursued, every interview methodically conducted. No snazzy locked-room mysteries, these, no death-by-icicle or orangutang, no brilliant ratiocination leading up to a triumphant revelation scene. In these books, crime is a sordid business, no matter which side of the law you are on. No wonder everyone drinks so much–or tries to (in the Beck books at least, the more you are looking forward to your aquavit, the more likely it is the phone will ring and tear you away from it).
To some extent, I would say too that the prose in the Sjöwall and Wahlöö books has the same somewhat clunky quality I objected to Faceless Killers. Those of us who know no Swedish (I’m guessing that covers all readers of this blog!) can’t know how far this is an effect of translation, of trying to capture the cadence of another language in English. There are some tics in the Beck books that do suggest that there’s something deliberate about it, something purposefully exotic, if you like. One small detail that stands out for me is the recurrent reference to ‘Martin Beck’ where I would expect the surname alone, e.g. “Martin Beck looked disbelievingly at Kollberg,” 200 pages in. That’s just the tiniest little bit jarring, as you read along; it lets you know you aren’t quite on your home turf. But more generally, I found Faceless Killers flat, whereas I am finding the Beck books dry–in a good way. They are almost as tersely declarative, but there’s a momentum to the language that I enjoy, and also there’s a wonderful streak of humor, sometimes sardonic, other times more flat-out comical (as with the two beat cops Kvant and Kristiansson–“Ask a policeman,” they helpfully tell a confused woman who asks them for directions).
I haven’t yet seen quite the scope of social criticism attributed to Sjöwall and Wahlöö in the prefaces provided to my editions–one by Mankell himself, another by Val McDermid, another, as I mentioned, by Franzen. Franzen calls the series “a ten-volume portrait of a corrupt modern society; Mankell says “the authors had a radical purpose in mind … to use crime and criminal investigations as a mirror of Swedish society.” I have seen enough, though, to believe that the critique already apparent accumulates over the remaining seven books–and especially in The Laughing Policeman (with its anti-Vietnam rallies and its complacently self-interested corporate villain) I can anticipate how it might proceed. Mankell writes that the authors never intended “to write crime stories as entertainment” and he points to Ed McBain as an inspiration for them, someone who showed how to use “crime novels to form the framework for stories containing social criticism.” McDermid highlights the difference between the Beck books and the “golden age” procedurals of the 1930s, set in a world in which “a bent cop is almost unthinkable; an incompetent one only a little less so.” I was actually surprised that none of these discussions mentioned the possible influence of hard-boiled detective novels: to be sure, one point of these is that their protagonist is not part of the official law enforcement system, but someone like Sam Spade moves precisely in a world of near-universal corruption (or, sometimes worse, incompetence) which very much includes the police. I mentioned the noir atmosphere of McBain’s Cop Hater, and I think there’s something of the same perspective–though illuminated by the flickering flourescent lights of bureaucracy, rather than the foggy fitfulness of street lights–in these bleak cop novels.
As for the cases, well, I didn’t like the graphic violence and sensational bursts of action in Faceless Killers. Two of the Beck novels I’ve read so far also turn on quite violent crimes, and particularly in Roseanna, the details are unrelentingly specific. Having read McBain’s comments about facing up to violence while still trying not to be “salacious” about it, I can see a similar principle at work in the Beck books, though I think the authors flirt with danger in the way they linger over the details of the sexual crimes and, especially, seem preoccupied with women’s sexual histories, or with women who are “too” sexually assertive or demanding. There are only rare cases of women who are something other than nagging/disappointed wives at home, or ‘whores’ shading into victims: here too, perhaps, some fruitful consideration might be given to the influence of hard-boiled novels, or perhaps this is just another reflection of the hyper-masculine world of the police. The standout exception is the woman police officer who helps entrap Roseanna’s murderer…but she too ultimately must play the vamp and then becomes a victim, only to be rescued. That the belatedness of the rescuers’ arrival is caused by the same kind of stupid screw-ups that typify the world of the novels more generally adds only a little painful irony to an exploitive situation.
These remain first impressions, but I feel like I’m making progress. I’ve talked fairly often about blogging as a way of thinking in public; it’s also, wonderfully, a way of learning in public. Thanks for your help so far–feel free to keep correcting and supplementing my attempts to come to terms with this material! | |||||
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] | null | [] | 2020-04-30T00:00:00 | If any crime novels deserve to be called modern classics, it is the ten police procedurals about Martin Beck and his colleagues. With them, the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975), virtually created the modern detective novel. Written in the 60s and 70s, the decalogue is nothing short of a national… | en | A Crime is Afoot | https://jiescribano.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/maj-sjwall-and-per-wahl-1935-2020-1926-1975/ | If any crime novels deserve to be called modern classics, it is the ten police procedurals about Martin Beck and his colleagues. With them, the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975), virtually created the modern detective novel. Written in the 60s and 70s, the decalogue is nothing short of a national literary treasure, with countless contemporary imitators across the world. Together, the ten books chronicle the painful creation of modern society. (Salomonsson Agency)
Maj Sjöwall (25 September 1935 – 29 April 2020) was a Swedish author and translator. She is best known for her books about inspector Martin Beck. She wrote the books in collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö on a series of ten novels collectively titled The Story of a Crime, published between 1965 and 1975. After the death of Per Wahlöö, she continued working amongst other things as a translator, small work in writing columns for magazines and her work as an author. Sjöwall had a 13-year relationship with Wahlöö which lasted until his death in 1975. Sjöwall died on 29 April 2020 at the age of 84 after a prolonged illness.
Per Fredrik Wahlöö (5 August 1926 – 22 June 1975) was a Swedish author. He is perhaps best known for the collaborative work with his partner Maj Sjöwall on a series of ten novels collectively titled The Story of a Crime, published between 1965 and 1975. Following school, he worked as a crime reporter from 1946 onwards. After long trips around the world he returned to Sweden and started working as a journalist again. He had a thirteen-year relationship with his colleague Maj Sjöwall but never married her, as he already was married. Per Wahlöö died in Malmö in 1975, after an unsuccessful operation on the pancreas (necessitated by cancer).
During the 1960s and 1970s Sjöwall and Wahlöö conceived and wrote a series of ten police procedural novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the Swedish national police; in these the character of Martin Beck was the protagonist. Both authors also wrote novels separately. For the Martin Beck series, they plotted and researched each book together, and then wrote alternate chapters simultaneously. The books cover ten years and are renowned for extensive character and setting development throughout the series. This is in part due to careful planning by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. In 1971, the fourth of the Beck books, The Laughing Policeman (a translation of Den skrattande polisen, originally published in 1968) won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel, the book was also adapted into the film The Laughing Policeman starring Walter Matthau. All of the novels have been adapted into films between 1967 and 1994, six of which featured Gösta Ekman as Martin Beck. Between 1997 and 2018 there have also been 38 films (some only broadcast on television) based on the characters, with Peter Haber as Martin Beck.
The Story of a Crime series: Roseanna (Roseanna, 1965); The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966); The Man on the Balcony (Mannen på balkongen, 1967); The Laughing Policeman (Den skrattande polisen, 1968) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1971); The Fire Engine That Disappeared (Brandbilen som försvann, 1969); Murder at the Savoy (Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970); The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971); The Locked Room (Det slutna rummet, 1972); Cop Killer (Polismördaren, 1974); and The Terrorists (Terroristerna, 1975).
‘Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were truly innovative writers of detective fiction. Their books are lean and compelling crime novels but at the same time they function as unforgiving left-wing critique of Swedish society. The authors wanted to show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. Their mission and way of writing received a great deal of attention and they are often regarded as the founders of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. Their concept was updated in the 1990s with Henning Mankell´s detective character Kurt Wallander and in the 2000s with Stieg Larsson´s Millennium trilogy featuring Lisbeth Salander. According to Henning Mankell, the couple were pioneers of realism and political engagement in the detective story: “I think that anyone who writes about crime as a reflection of society has been inspired to some extent by what they wrote,” Mankell has said.’ (Source: Nordic Noir)
‘The Story of a Crime, the collective title for ten perfectly formed books by Sjöwall & Wahlöö, hardly seems dated at all when read in the twenty-first century. The duo allowed their detective Martin Beck to investigate a variety of crimes (in their range) cast a spotlight on many aspects of Scandinavian society. And the plot potentialities afforded the duo were considerable.’ (Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film & TV, by Barry Forshaw, Pocket Essentials an imprint of Oldcastle Books, 2013).
A Guide to the Martin Beck Series
CrimeFest 2015: legendary crime writer Maj Sjöwall in interview with Lee Child
Maj Sjowall at ‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’
(Facsimile Dust Jacket, V. G. Gollancz (UK), 1968)
From Wikipedia: Roseanna is a mystery novel by Swedish writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, first published in 1965. It is the first novel in their detective series revolving around Martin Beck and his team.
Book Description: The first book in the classic Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s – the novels that shaped the future of Scandinavian crime writing. Hugely acclaimed, the Martin Beck series were the original Scandinavian crime novels and have inspired the writings of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. Written in the 1960s, 10 books completed in 10 years, they are the work of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – a husband and wife team from Sweden. They follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction; without his creation Ian Rankin’s John Rebus or Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander may never have been conceived. The novels can be read separately, but are best read in chronological order, so the reader can follow the characters’ development and get drawn into the series as a whole. ‘Roseanna’ begins on a July afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from Sweden’s beautiful Lake Vattern. Three months later, all that Police Inspector Martin Beck knows is that her name is Roseanna, that she came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people. With its authentically rendered settings and vividly realized characters, and its command over the intricately woven details of police detection, ‘Roseanna’ is a masterpiece of suspense and sadness. (Source: HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd)
Salomonsson Agency page
From the Introduction by Henning Mankell: Now I’m rereading the novel Roseanna on a December day forty years after its first publication. I’ve forgotten a great deal, of course, but the novel still stands strong. It’s well thought-out, well structured. It’s evident that Sjöwall and Wahlöö had carefully laid the groundwork for their plan to write ten books about the National Homicide Bureau – in fictional form but based on reality. (2006)
Roseanna has been reviewed, among others, at The Complete Review, The View from the Blue House, Crimepieces, Reviewing the Evidence, Reactions to Reading, Detectives Beyond Borders, Ms. Wordopolis Reads, Mysteries in Paradise, and DJ´s Krimiblog.
Back in 2009 my review in Spanish come and say as follows: Roseanna begins one afternoon in July when, accidentally, the body of a young woman shows up during the dredging works in one of the locks on Lake Vattern in Sweden. Her naked body makes the identification difficult. The police in Motala, the nearest town, does not manage to find anything. Deputy Inspector Martin Beck and his colleagues Kollberg and Melander are dispatched from Stockholm to investigate the case. The process is slow but with determination Beck and his colleagues try to find the missing pieces. Who that young woman was? How she ended up there? Who killed her? The book’s pace follows the investigation tempo. The case proceeds very slowly at first, allowing the reader to become familiar with the different characters, their characteristics and their personality. Then the pace begins to increase and it grows as the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together.
Roseanna, perhaps, is not the best novel in the series, but it is sufficiently attractive as to read it in one sitting, besides being the first in the series. This is important since the authors originally planned the series as a sequence of novels under a common title and, reading them in its chronological order will allow us to better appreciate the evolution of every character. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 59 | https://responsejournal.net/issue/2021-11/article/animistic-uncanny-representation | en | The Animistic and Uncanny Representation of Nature in Jordskott | [
"https://responsejournal.net/sites/default/files/styles/natural_small/public/media/image/article/animistic-uncanny-representation/younescoverphoto.jpg?itok=KlYjrw7F 400w, /sites/default/files/styles/natural_medium/public/media/image/article/animistic-uncanny-representation/younescoverphoto.jpg?itok=_JDNFAO0 800w, /... | [] | [] | [
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] | null | [] | 2021-11-01T12:00:00+00:00 | en | /sites/default/files/favicons/apple-touch-icon.png | https://responsejournal.net/issue/2021-11/article/animistic-uncanny-representation | Season one of Jordskott revolves around police detective Eva and the mysterious events that unfold upon her return home to the fictional Swedish town of Silverhöjd to take care of her late father’s will. In doing so, she uncovers the exploitative capitalist practices of her father’s company, Thörnblad Mineral & Cellulosa, a logging company intent on clearing the forest surrounding the community. The exploitative practises of her father’s company are closely linked to an investigation of several missing children including Eva’s daughter, Josefin, who has been missing and presumed dead for seven years. As the investigation unfolds, the characters and viewers are exposed to the spiritual workings of nature and the landscape. The characters encounter humanoid spiritual protectors of the Silverhöjd forest, one of whom has been holding the children hostage to force a halt to the logging process. The introduction of the spirits of the forest transforms the setting of Silverhöjd “into a living and evolving organism, endowed with personal history, psychological complexity, and agency.” While we might immediately assume that the spirit’s act of kidnapping is the central crime typical of a television crime show season’s narrative arc, this role is, it emerges, occupied by Thörnblad Mineral & Cellulosa’s legalized practices of logging. The true criminal is capitalism: the kidnappings began as a reaction against Eva’s father breaking an ancestral treaty between the humans and the spiritual beings of the forest. This violation of the treaty propelled a human-driven genocide against the natural landscape and spiritual inhabitants. Humans would not only destroy the forest but bring about the extinction of the creatures that inhabit it. As a popular culture and literary art form that ties capitalist exploitation of nature and the spirit of nature, Jordskott negotiates “between the human and nonhuman.” Ultimately, the narrative deconstructs the culturally-constructed divide between the natural and the human through its animistic representation of nature.
In its animistic representation of nature, Season One puts on display humanity’s “moral responsibility to the millions of other species who depend on us to get it right.” Helen Mäntymäki argues that Jordskott is an uncanny narrative, “challenging our knowledge of reality” by depicting nature as both a stranger and that which is familiar to us. While Mäntymäki’s use of the theory of the uncanny in her reading of Jordskott is useful, she neglects to account for the quintessential theorist of the uncanny, Sigmund Freud. To Freud, the uncanny means both the return of repressed psychological material, but also (and in this case, more importantly) the surmounting of an archaic attitude, the attitude of our ancestors, which was animistic. Freud argues that “the old, animistic conception of the universe, which was characterized by the idea that the world was peopled with the spirits of human beings, and by the narcissistic overestimation of subjective mental processes” is a type of regression. More interested in the personal unconscious, Freud dismisses animism as unworthy of further discussion. My analysis of Jordskott Season One will expand upon Mäntymäki’s reading of nature in Season One by drawing on and questioning Freud’s foundational understanding of the animistic representation of objects.
Jordskott’s spiritual representation of nature, strongly suggests, contra Freud, that a return of the animistic worldview is not a regression, but a progression, a way for nature to gain subjectivity. In support of this argument, I will use two primary examples from Season One of Jordskott: (1) the animistic and uncanny representation of nature as both spirit and humanoid, and (2) the consumption of the parasite or symbiont organism (the “jordskott” of the show’s title) by Eva and her primary nemesis, the bounty-hunter, Harry, as instances of the patriarchal capitalist exploitation of nature. In short, such an animistic worldview provides an anti-capitalist and posthumanist understanding of nature as a subject, as opposed to an object designed to be exploited. Jordskott uses the conventions of popular Nordic Noir detective fiction, investing the genre with spiritual elements to represent an animistic nature, in order to imagine and conceptualize the inherent intersubjective relationality of the human and the natural.
Nordic Noir and the Melancholic Environment
One of the reasons for detective fiction’s enduring appeal is the genre’s ability to address – often obliquely – a broad range of societal concerns (including gender, race and sexuality) that pertain to the period in which it is produced and consumed. Whether detective fiction authors are writing in the classic period, the golden age, the hard-boiled era, or contemporary times, the environment (landscape and setting) remains an important feature of the narrative. Coupled with other conventions of a detective text, the setting or environment addresses, as Swales puts it in his introduction to the genre, “our inborn sense of guilt” and “confirm[s] what we have always known—that we are sinful creatures, prone to choose the darkness rather than light.” Guilt is “a fundamental generic element” and it “gives expression to texts’ notions of the source of crime.” The environment embodies the guilt and darkness of humanity of a specific time. This may be generalized cultural/metaphorical guilt embodied in the society of a narrative, but in Jordskott it is the literal environment as represented through the visual motifs of Nordic Noir. In Jordskott, the environment is literally poisoned by human actions. Nordic Noir transforms the intrinsic guilt of detective narratives into a melancholic environment.
The term Nordic Noir was coined by the Scandinavian Department at the University College of London in 2010. Hansen and Waade trace the introduction of the “socially sensitive sleuth in the 1960s” to Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. This introduction sparked the Nordic regions’ interest in literary crime fiction. By the mid-1990s, distinctively dark-toned, contemporary Scandinavian crime fiction, film, and television gained “immense international success” thus re-branding this “cross-media trend … as Nordic Noir.” While there are some fundamental conventions of Nordic Noir narratives that distinguish them from other crime and detective fiction texts, I will focus here on the depiction of anxieties around the landscape.
In Nordic Noir, the depiction of the “toxic” environment has changed from one that serves as a metaphor for moral, criminal corruption to the literal destruction and poisoning of the landscape. The pressing environmental issues that permeate the contemporary world have sparked an ecological movement that asks human beings to take into account the effects of our capitalist and exploitative actions on the natural landscape. Nordic Noir takes up such societal issues and, in focusing on environmentalism, emphasizes and attempts to draw out the sinister culpability of those who transgress against nature. Capitalist-driven “crimes against the environment point toward a significant source of Scandinavian guilt.”
The specific crimes that result from human action in other forms of detective fiction transform into a sense of pervasive melancholy in Nordic Noir. Such melancholy is highlighted through “the dark streets, the dim lights, the naked trees and the dreary autumn atmosphere.” Specific characteristics include “winter darkness, midnight sun, and immense, desolate landscapes.” Nordic Noir’s melancholy “link[s] artistic work to Nordic nature, including the landscapes, flora, fauna and climate conditions.” The sub-genre expands upon darkness, guilt, and shame from other detective fiction, and adapts such conventions to suit Nordic culture and landscape. Guilt and shame translate into “eco-guilt” and “eco-shame.” To this purpose, the medium of TV is a useful tool to represent visually how melancholia manifests in the landscape. While in most earlier detective fiction nature is an objective correlative to the moral degeneration of humankind, in Nordic Noir, the depiction of nature is often a literal representation the degradation of the landscape by human occupation. The victim in Jordskott is thus nature and the landscape, and the criminal is not a person, but a system—patriarchal industrial capitalism.
More specifically, Jordskott relates the melancholy characteristic of Nordic Noir society and culture to catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. As already noted, the investigation of the missing children is closely linked to the exploitative capitalist practices of Thörnblad Mineral & Cellulosa which stem from Eva’s father’s actions. The damage her father wreaks is literally Eva’s legacy, and it has clear intergenerational ramifications going forward as well, since it impacts on her daughter’s fate. We can think of such capitalist motivations as examples of “total environmental callousness in the service of a get-rich-quick ethic that dominates all other considerations.” Ultimately, “a conventional closure is reached as the exploiters’ unsustainable aspirations are crushed and they are punished with death or a total loss of power.” Through the unfolding of the investigation, viewers are introduced to the humanoid spirits who are protecting the landscape against Thörnblad Mineral & Cellulosa’s industrial production. Or, in other words, the viewers are “made cognisant of the approaching catastrophe as a direct repercussion of Thörnblad company board’s decision to ignore the outcomes of the geophysical survey, according to which the continuation of mining operations in the Silverhöjd’s area would drastically augment the risks of land dislocation and earthquakes.” Jordskott does not simply draw out ecological issues in a melancholy representation of the Swedish landscape. It incorporates the spiritual which makes it an “ecofantastic crime thriller,” blending a realistically rendered melancholic environment with fantasy elements, including spiritual humanoids and organisms, to disrupt the ecological imaginary of rational, capitalist subjects. The incorporation of the spiritual elements suggests “that the detective narrative may need to incorporate irrational, speculative and culturally specific elements in order to inspire care and concern on behalf of more-than-human nature.” The images of the landscape in the season and the spiritual creatures work together to draw out the deeper melancholia that results from a capitalist venture that exploits nature.
The Spiritual and Patriarchal in Jordskott
The Uncanny Rethought
The representation of nature in Season One of Jordskott is significant in understanding humankind’s relationship to climate change and the environment. Mäntymäki cites Tzvetan Todorov’s use of the uncanny, defining it as “a narrative drawing on simultaneous and ambiguous familiarity and unfamiliarity, thereby challenging our knowledge of reality.” However, the idea of the uncanny is more commonly associated with Freud. In his essay, “The ‘Uncanny’ ” (1919), Freud argues that the uncanny “undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible—to all that arouses dread and creeping horror.” Furthermore, the uncanny is frightening “precisely because it is not known and familiar.” Freud contends that the psychological uncanny as a return of the repressed is indicative of the modern rational mind, as opposed to the archaic animistic mind, which represents a type of regression: “the old, animistic conception of the universe, which was characterized by the idea that the world was peopled with the spirits of human beings, and by the narcissistic overestimation of subjective mental processes” is a type of reversion. Freud’s critique of animism depends upon his assumption that our archaic ancestors projected their own mental processes onto an unintelligent nature. But what if our forebears were better listeners and better analysts than Freud gives them credit for, rather than mere projectors? What if modern rationality has dulled our capacity to relate to and communicate with the nonhuman in mutual understanding? We should be taking Amitav Ghosh’s argument in The Great Derangement more seriously: “climate change events … are peculiarly resistant to the customary frames that literature has applied to ‘Nature’: they are too powerful, too grotesque, too dangerous and too accusatory” to understand how to represent them. In this sense, an animistic representation is not a “regression.” Conventional or rational ways of representation may prevent us from hearing and understanding those accusations. Nature may be too powerful and difficult to represent coherently in any other way.
The Spiritual Protectors of Nature in Jordskott
In the narrative backstory of Jordskott, underground spirits have existed in Silverhöjd from time immemorial, protecting the wildlife, plants and waters. Throughout season one, Silverhöjd is “presented to viewers from a top-down bird’s eye view” which “conveys an impression of the wilderness as empty and readily exploitable.” As noted, a treaty was established between these spirits and the pre-capitalist humans who eventually settled in the area. However, that peaceful and symbiotic relationship ended when Eva’s father broke the treaty and began logging the forest, consciously plotting the genocide of the forest dwellers. In episode seven, Ylva, an ally of the underground creatures protecting Silverhöjd forest, recounts witnessing Eva’s father killing the forest and the creatures therein. She explains to Eva:
As you probably understand now, Silverhöjd forest hides many secrets. In it there lives a people almost not quite like us. 350 years ago your ancestor Adolf Fredrik made an agreement with them. Peace would prevail if he promised to leave the northern forest untouched. But your father made himself an enemy of the forest. He wanted to restore Thörnblad’s wealth and prestige. He became obsessed with the riches that were rumoured to be in the forest.
These people are thus the very embodiment of Freud’s uncanny “almost not quite like us,” a fantastical element that emerges into the rational realist world. In that same scene, Ylva goes on to recount that after ignoring Ylva’s warnings, Eva’s father began to harvest the north woods and, in 1978, his company “sprayed the north woods with a deadly poison. The poison took all living plants, animals, and the underground people.” As she is recalling this incident in a flashback, toxic fog and smoke from the pesticide creates a melancholy environment. Ylva is seen covering her nose and mouth with a scarf as she witnesses the destruction of the forest.
Ylva was able to save one of the underground protectors of the forest. Ylva found “him” by listening to cries of a human baby. In the same scene, Ylva explains that she took care of him and “nursed him back to life.” She names him “Muns” which means “life” in the creatures’ language. Muns is the creature that has been kidnapping children. However, Ylva explains that he is “not out for revenge” but rather for a restoration of this “blood pact.” In other words, Muns “is not a monster.” The only time viewers see Muns is at the very end of the season. He is covered in leaves and dirt, with only his blurred humanoid shape visible. He is both human, evidenced by his human baby cries and by him being typed as a male, but he is also a spirit of the forest, a spirit of the voiceless trees, plants, flowers, animals and waters. The spirit of nature is manifested in physical beings who are human, animal and spirit.
Like Muns, there are other spiritual creatures that try to flourish after Eva’s father breaks the treaty. Throughout the season, we see werewolves and sea creatures being murdered by Harry Storm, who carries out his role as a bounty-hunter, a killer-for-hire in the capitalist environmental economy. These creatures are threatened by Gustaf Borén, current CEO of Eva’s father’s company, who employs Harry. Harry refers to the creatures as “predators” and “monsters,” demonizing and objectifying them to justify violent actions against nature. In fact, his actions are conceived of, not just as murder, but as genocide. As capitalism can only view nature in terms of its potential for exchange value, it requires a discourse to justify its compulsive destructiveness. In Gustaf’s all-consuming capitalist standpoint, and Harry’s desire for complete eradication of the creatures, nature becomes impossible to think about other than as an object or source of evil. As a product of instrumental rationality, the capitalist attitude indeed deems regressive any attempt to acknowledge the spiritual qualities of the nonhuman. However, “thinking of plants, animals, and elements not as objects to exploit and obstacles to remove, but as friendly or unfriendly neighbours, to visit or tolerate” is a kind of culture “which to coexist and from which to learn, without colonial domination, or special (as in species) eviction.” Although Harry is successful in killing the creatures of the forest, Ylva’s instincts as a protector disrupt the patriarchal and capitalist antagonist by bringing back a sea creature from an unknown place to raise it in her bathtub, and, eventually to release it into the waters of Silverhöjd. Her hope is to bring life back to the forest. Such nurturing actions make Ylva a listener in “wild places” and part of “an audience” that tries to have conversations with nature through “a language not our own.” Ylva listens to the landscape and the “language of plants” which has become a “second tongue” to her. As soon as she listens and saves the sea creature, we see leaves on trees beginning to sprout. As we will see below, this sea creature plays a critical role in the restoration of peace in the forest.
Consumption of The Organism Jordskott and Patriarchal Exploitation
“Jordskott” is a term invented by the creators of the series to describe an animistic parasitic or symbiotic organism. Loosely translated during the season, jordskott means “earth shot.” Although not a “moral entity itself,” jordskott “becomes a lens through which to regard the acts of the human and (non-) human characters.” Furthermore, jordskott “represents imprisonment, however, at the same time it highlights a connection with nature as a harbinger of expanded conceptualization and Life. The organism both gives and takes; it can heal and kill; it is beyond rationality, and in that sense it also emphasizes the polymorphism of the potentials of nature.” Jordskott is consumed orally, and, in so doing, the human host merges with the organism, making “visible the boundary between the host and the unwanted, intruding other, while simultaneously emphasizing its role in the interconnectedness of all life.” This is an example of how “the non-human is held as distinct and separate from the human, but then displaced on to the human while investigation of crimes against nature is put aside.” In the final few episodes of the season, we see two characters ingesting jordskott: Eva and Harry. The effects are different on each character. (The following section will juxtapose the scenes of consumption of each character, specifically commenting on the intersections of gender and spirituality and furthering our discussion of both the capitalist exploitation and the animistic representation of nature. )
Both Eva and Harry consume jordskott to heal from deadly wounds. This consumption places them in a symbiotic and spiritual relationship with nature and comments on common, contemporary, religious beliefs. Eva and Harry become part of nature just as in Catholicism one consumes the transubstantiated bread and wine to become part of Jesus’ body. The added element of the uncanniness of the union gives the scenes of consumption a noir-ish twist on the religious and spiritual union between humans and nature. Jordskott is thus one of the central ways that the narrative represents the animistic qualities of nature beyond those imaginable by capitalist reason. The effects of ingestion on Eva and Harry are different. For example, for Eva, it is a ritualistic, spiritual and physically healing process. However, in retaliation for overconsuming the organism in his pursuit of power, jordskott becomes a physically destructive force for Harry.
In episode six, Eva suffers from a gunshot wound. In the next episode, Eva’s colleague, Rikskriminalen detective Göran Wass, brings her to Ylva’s house (a house that is surrounded by greenery and permeated by the sounds of insects) to remove the bullet from Eva. When removing the bullet fails, and Eva is assumed to have died, Göran attempts to revive her with electric pulses. After that also fails, and Eva has lost a lot of blood, Göran and Ylva force Eva to swallow jordskott. Both agree that if they do this, “there is no turning back.” Ylva then massages the organism down Eva’s throat. Eventually, the wound starts to heal and we see visible branches forming around Eva’s gunshot wound. When Eva awakens, she has numerous questions for Göran. Göran remains vague in his answers, indicating only that he and Ylva gave Eva something “alive” to heal Eva. The vagueness surrounding the characterization of jordskott does not limit the organism to a confined definition, easily classifiable and understandable, and thus more easily exploitable. Jordskott has two clear effects on Eva: heightened senses and strength. However, there is the risk of being completely overpowered by jordskott if Eva does not give it nourishment. An example of the latter effect can be seen with Eva’s daughter, Josefin. In the last episode of the series, Josefin is completely overcome by the parasite, and she merges with the landscape, becoming fully nature. Unlike the circumstances of Eva’s consumption of jordskott, when Josefin was exposed to the organism, she presumably had no knowledge of how to coexist symbiotically with it. Eva and Josefin are juxtaposed, with Eva being an example of what a symbiotic and successful relationship with jordskott is and Josefin with what can happen to a human/jordskott hybrid if the relationship is not well-preserved.
The same cannot be said of Harry. In episode nine, he breaks and enters into Ylva’s house and steals jordskott. Harry tries to make sense of the unclassifiable and mysterious jordskott, mistakenly believing from having read Ylva’s notebooks that the organism is not harmful and can provide him with physical and spiritual power. Like with Eva, Harry suffers a wound that cannot be cured by conventional means. However, unlike the greenery and insects that surround Ylva’s house and the room that Eva is in, Harry is in a cold and grey room. Moreover, unlike Eva, who was given the jordskott, Harry demands a young boy named Jörgen Olsson (who has been tricked by Harry into helping him kill off the creatures) feed him jordskott in order to heal. When the effects of the first jordskott subside, Harry asks for more, exploiting the organism and performing consumer desire. Eventually, Harry overdoses, and, in contrast to the branches we see healing Eva’s wound, Harry’s face is engulfed by roots and tree bark. He also becomes more physically powerful than Eva, punching items and throwing Jörgen across the room. He moves in a robotic and unnatural manner. With his newfound strength, Harry tries to kill Göran and Ylva only to be overtaken by the creature in the water that Ylva released earlier.
These two incidents, analyzed side-by-side, demonstrate how the representation of capitalism, patriarchy, and nature are mobilized in Nordic Noir to further an ecofeminist perspective. In other words, the two incidents address the intersections of social injustices stemming from patriarchal values to environmental relationality. While Eva is sensitive to what it means to be in a symbiotic relationship with jordskott, perhaps even questioning the religiously-constructed boundaries between humans and their environment, Harry is infatuated by the organism’s ability to give him inhuman strength. Eva nourishes jordskott and ensures that neither she nor the organism die, while Harry seeks to exploit jordskott. The last two episodes show Eva coexisting harmoniously with jordskott, using her heightened abilities to help find the missing children and put an end to Gustaf’s capitalist ventures. Conversely, Harry uses his newfound strength to try to kill Göran, Ylva, and others who stand in the way to eradicating “evil” creatures and sustaining Thörnblad Mineral & Cellulosa’s capitalist agenda.
The animistic characterizations of nature and the incidents involving Eva and Harry raise questions of subjectivity and gender and interrogate the culturally and religiously constructed divide between humans and nature. The season demonstrates the difficulty in drawing a line between good and evil actions and motives that contribute to environmental degradation. For example, there is the literalization of the evils of patriarchal capitalism since the absent villain of the series is Eva’s capitalist father. Furthermore, while there is the immediate and obvious white supremacist capitalist patriarchy of Gustaf, there is Harry’s weirdly conservative-religious mission (not a standard capitalist mission) to eradicate the evil spirits. Eva’s deceased father influences an array of actions that are performed by obviously capitalism-driven people like Gustaf and more complicated figures like Harry. Harry’s vigilante spirit blurs the line between determining what is good versus what is evil. Regardless of their motivations in determining good/evil, both Gustaf and Harry exploit nature and such acts are highly opposed to the relationship that Eva and others foster with nature. In so doing, Jordskott, as a popular culture phenomenon, reveals the intersections of gender, capitalism and nature in contemporary society.
Conclusion
In a 2016 article in The Guardian, Ghosh argues that “the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination.” Taking the conventions of violence, guilt, and melancholia, and applying them to season one of Jordskott, we can see how detective fiction is an imaginative tool that helps us gain a better understanding of contemporary environmental concerns. The season tackles the climate crisis by using imaginative elements to deconstruct the culturally, socially and religiously created human/nature divide. The representation of the “full variety of human and nonhuman lifeforms” through the spirits of the landscape depict nature as “an agent with its own logic,” an agent that “therefore does not need to be incessantly mastered and controlled.” Jordskott’s inclusion of the humanoid spirits of Silverhöjd is an example of how a return to an animistic representation of nature in a contemporary popular culture medium helps us better understand our relationship to nature and nature itself as a subject rather than an object to be exploited.
Bibliography
Belyea, Andrew and Nanette Norris. “Introduction: Ecocritical Spring and Evolutionary Discourse” in Worlds for a Small Planet: Ecocritical Views, ed. Nanette Norris, 1-16. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2013.
Jordskott. Directed by Anders Engström and Henrik Björn (2015; Stockholm: Sveriges Television AB).
Bruhn, Jørgen. “Ecology as Pre-Text? The Paradoxical Presence of Ecological Thematics in Contemporary Scandinavian Quality TV.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 10, no. 2 (2018): 66-73.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” Translated by Alix Strachey (1919). (https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf)
Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
––– . “Amitav Ghosh: Where Is the Fiction about Climate Change?” The Guardian October 28. 2016, www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change-
Hansen, K.T. and A.M. Waade. Locating Nordic Noir. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Hochman, Jhan. Green Cultural Studies: Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory. Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1998.
Jordan, Peter. “Carl Hiassen’s Environmental Thrillers: Crime Fiction in Search of Green Peace.” _Studies in Popular Culture,_13, no. 1 (1990), 61-71.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Mäntymäki, Helen. “Epistemologies of (Un)sustainability in Swedish Crime Series Jordskott.” Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 22, no.1 (2018), 89-100.
Nestingen, Andrew. “The Mountains and Death: Revelations of Climate and Land in Nordic Noir” in Climate and Literature, ed. Adeline Johns-Putra, 212-226. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Rugg, Linda Haverty, “Displacing Crimes against Nature: Scandinavian Ecocrime Fiction.” Scandinavian Studies, 89, no. 4 (2017), 597-615.
Souch, Irina. “Transformations of the Evil Forest in the Swedish Television Series Jordskott: An Ecocritical Reading.” Nordicom Review, 41, no. 1 (2020), 107-122.
Swales, Martin. “Introduction” in The Art of Detective Fiction, ed. Warren Chernaik, et al., xi-xv. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000.
Walton, Lindsay Jo and Samantha Walton. “Introduction to Green Letters: Crime fiction and Ecology.” Green Letters, 22, no. 1 (2018) 2-6.
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"Nathaniel Rich"
] | 2009-07-08T11:02:00+00:00 | Having read close to 30 Scandinavian crime novels over the last several months, I can come to only one conclusion: Scandinavia is a bleak, ungodly,... | en | /favicon.ico | Slate Magazine | https://slate.com/culture/2009/07/why-do-scandinavians-write-such-great-crime-fiction.html | Having read close to 30 Scandinavian crime novels over the last several months, I can come to only one conclusion: Scandinavia is a bleak, ungodly, extraordinarily violent place to live. The capitals are seething hot pots of murder. In Oslo, a serial killer slips red diamond pentagrams under the eyelids of his victims (Jo Nesbø’s The Devil’s Star), while in Stockholm a stalker terrorizes young girls in public parks (Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s The Man on the Balcony). The situation is even worse at the local level. Take, for instance, Ystad, population 17,000, a quaint fishing village on Sweden’s southern shore best known for its high-speed ferry terminal. It has suffered, in the novels of Henning Mankell, the following horrors: the torture and execution of an elderly farmer and his wife ( Faceless Killers); the torture and execution of two men who are found floating off the coast in a life boat ( The Dogs of Riga); the impalement of a retired bird-watcher on sharpened bamboo poles ( The Fifth Woman); and the self-immolation of a teenage girl ( Sidetracked). Each of these crimes—and many, many more—is committed by a different killer and all within just three years. In terms of per capita incidence of violent crime, Mankell’s Ystad would rank behind Mosul but well ahead of Johannesburg and Mogadishu.
Fortunately, more people are murdered every year in the pages of Scandinavian crime novels than are murdered in Scandinavia itself. The homicide rates in Scandinavian countries are among the lowest on the planet. This year, the Global Peace Index ranked Denmark and Norway the second and third most peaceful countries. Sweden came in 13th. The Nordic countries also consistently rank as the happiest countries in the world. It is not surprising to observe a trend of Chinese novels about Communist oppression or Ugandan novels about child soldiers. But Scandinavian homicide fiction? Why do such peace-loving societies produce internationally best-selling authors like Mankell, Nesbø, Karin Fossum, and Håkan Nesser? How to explain Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, who was the second-best-selling author in the world last year?
There are a few reasons Scandinavian writers have taken to the genre. The crime novel, and particularly the British crime novel, has been enormously popular in Scandinavia for decades. And the famous Nordic pragmatism is well-suited to the intricate mechanics of crime investigation plots. But the best explanation is the most mundane: Crime novels sell. Most of the Scandinavian crime novelists began their careers in other genres. Mankell, for instance, wrote seven well-received but unlucrative novels, and more than a dozen plays, before turning to a life of crime; Karin Fossum was a prize-winning poet; Maj Sjöwall was an editor and translator. Before the current explosion of crime novels, the only contemporary Scandinavian novelist to enjoy major international success was Peter Høeg. Høeg may be a “literary” novelist, but his breakout Smilla’s Sense of Snow is about the investigation of a suspected homicide. The lesson is clear: If you want your novel to be read abroad, particularly in the English-speaking world, you’d better include a murder. Even if you’ve never heard of a murder actually being committed in your country.
A better question: Why have readers taken to these writers? The novels are not formally innovative: With a few exceptions, these are straightforward whodunits, hewing closely to conventional models from the English tradition. Nor does their appeal depend on a “relentlessly bleak view of the world,” as a writer for the London Times has put it. Bleak worldviews are not particularly hard to come by in crime novels, no matter what country they come from.
What distinguishes these books is not some element of Nordic grimness but their evocation of an almost sublime tranquility. When a crime occurs, it is shocking exactly because it disrupts a world that, at least to an American reader, seems utopian in its peacefulness, happiness, and orderliness. There is a good reason why Mankell’s corpses tend to turn up in serene, bucolic settings—on a country farm, on a bobbing raft, in a secluded meadow, or in the middle of a snow-covered field: A dark bloodstain in a field of pure, white snow is far creepier than a body ditched in a trash-littered alley.
Stieg Larsson, like many of the other successful Scandinavian crime novelists, began in the straight world, editing an anti-racism magazine and several science fiction fanzines and writing political journalism. In 2004, shortly before dying of a heart attack, Larsson completed the first three novels of a planned decology. The second volume, The Girl Who Played With Fire, will be out in the States this July and will likely confirm Larsson’s position as the most successful crime novelist in the world. His novels mark the apotheosis of the genre—they are not only the best-selling, but they are also the most frenzied and exhaustive examples of the form.
To an even greater extent than Mankell, Larsson is adept at heightening the contrast between his setting, contemporary Stockholm, and the tawdriness of the crimes that drive his plots. Larsson’s Stockholm manages to be both cosmopolitan and charmingly quaint. It’s not unlike the Ikea approach—modish design with a side of Swedish meatballs. (Larsson, in fact, sets an entire scene at the store; when a character moves into a new apartment, she goes on a shopping spree, buying 12 items, including an “Ivar combination storage unit,” a “Pax Nexus three-door wardrobe,” and a “Lillehammer bed.”)
Larsson worked hard to keep his references up to date. His characters use iPods, iBooks, and BlueTooth technology; they track criminal suspects on Google; and the plots of both novels rely on the efficient machinations of a mysterious international network of nerd computer hackers. Yet Larsson’s main character, Mikael Blomkvist, is a hard-charging investigative journalist at that vestige from the print age, a weekly newsmagazine. His heroine, 24-year-old cyberpunk Lisbeth Salander, is horny, bisexual, and covered with tattoos and piercings but is also passionate about chess, mathematics, and women’s lib.
Larsson’s sentences are dead on arrival. (When Blomkvist enters the apartment of a young couple and discovers that they’ve been murdered, he feels “an icy shiver run down his neck. … She had been shot in the face. … The flow of blood was if possible even greater than that from her partner.”) But the crimes themselves are surprising. The murder victims are young leftist do-gooders: a journalist and a doctoral student, who have teamed up to investigate an underground sex trafficking ring in Sweden. Gradually, as if pulling a scab off a wound, Larsson exposes a scummy underworld of corrupt cops, meat-fisted thugs, sleazy government operatives, and sadistic child rapists. When these goons intrude upon the world of glossy magazines and Ikea, the result is pleasantly discordant.
Much of the attraction of the Mankells and Fossums is that even when their novels are based in cities, they rarely lose the quaint, small-town feel and the reassuringly mechanical, ticktocking plots. Larsson may have provided a new direction for Scandinavian fiction. In his novels, he moved decisively away from classic whodunit, man-in-a-locked-room crime plots, favoring, instead, capacious, messy romps that buzz with the tech-savvy cosmopolitanism of the moment. Then again, maybe the genre will keep putting along as always, with catatonic detectives tramping across frozen tundra. As long as there’s a dead Nord, it’s hard to go wrong. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 11 | https://smithereens.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | en | Smithereens | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/82209b3042b68b8e8a20a3b70e143e7c8b6a8e6d7e1a6e2bd81b5d245727512f?s=200&ts=1723901417 | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/82209b3042b68b8e8a20a3b70e143e7c8b6a8e6d7e1a6e2bd81b5d245727512f?s=200&ts=1723901417 | [
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] | null | [] | 2021-12-02T21:31:09+01:00 | Posts about Per Wahlöö written by S | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/82209b3042b68b8e8a20a3b70e143e7c8b6a8e6d7e1a6e2bd81b5d245727512f?s=32 | Smithereens | https://smithereens.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | Although this one is #7 in the series (of 10), this is my penultimate book (as I didn’t read it in order, but in function of what was at the library). Strangely enough, the library doesn’t have the whole series, and they might have been scared by such an abominable title. (or by the book cover). Another version would be that it was so good that a reader stole the library copy. Whatever the version I choose, I’m glad I have bought this copy, because it’s quite memorable.
The Abominable Man (in Swedish version The repulsive man from Saffle) is not the killer. It’s actually the victim. A man is killed with a bayonet as he lies defenseless in a hospital bed. He was a high-ranking policeman and a former soldier. But don’t cry for him just yet. As Martin Beck and his team investigate, they discover that this man was the epitome of police brutality. By his negligence, prejudices, direct or indirect actions, he’s responsible for the death of several innocent people and the harassment and unfair indictment of countless others. In short, he won’t be missed much and it’s rather difficult to narrow down a list of suspects. To make it even more relevant to some recent cases in the media, a lot of people among the police force were aware of his cruelty and abuses, and they all kept silent.
Contrary to several books of the series, where the crime is rather banal and the investigation is long and tedious, this book is flashy and cinematic. The killer with the bayonet will not stop just with one victim, his despair and hatred have turned against the whole police force and he’s not afraid to die. It’s a tragedy of epic dimensions, and the humor of the previous volumes is scarce. The denunciation of the systemic corruption of capitalist (patriarchy, conservative, insert any of the more current vocabulary) Swedish society gets more obvious, but never at the cost of forgetting the human dimension. That’s why Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s books are still so relevant today.
The book is so full of tension, it’s hard to stop reading, especially the last quarter of the book. There’s a rampage of violence, with a single man on one hand, and the entire Swedish armed forces on the other hand. The cliff-hanger is absolutely nail-biting, but I spoiled it a bit for myself by having read book #8 before. Don’t make the same mistake!
In a twisted way, it reminded me of a classic 1975 French movie with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Peur sur la ville (The Night Caller in UK/US), where the whole of the police force is hunting a cunning killer throughout a dehumanized landscape of modern towers, but in many important ways the movie and this book are polar opposites. In the movie, no soul-searching about the systemic violence of the police, no social criticism, but instead a not-so-subtle manly man demonstration of force to protect weak single women from evil killers who certainly aren’t worth a fair trial, and barely the bullet of the good detective’s gun. Unless you’re interested in cultural movie history, don’t bother watching this dud, but I guess the relentless movie music by Enio Morricone would be the perfect soundtrack for the Sjöwall & Wahlöö book.
We’re now in December, and only one last book left in the series to complete! I can’t wait!
And so, to make things a bit more interesting, I decided to complete the Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö novels by the end of 2021. Because it feels great to check some goals off and, quite frankly, this one seems a lot more reachable than others I had in my 2021 list (hello, mastering basic Korean verbs! Realistically, you will probably remain as mysterious as you were on Jan. 1)
This book is in the middle of the series (#6 out of 10), and the themes and characters are by now well established. The random violence, the strong of location (here in Malmö), the social injustice, the fastidious and methodical investigation, the mistakes and length of the search for clues. There are as in some other books an element of comic, slapsticks even, as stupid policemen get bogged down by procedure. The original title of the book refers, if I understand well, to a common insult against Swedish policemen who are compared with potatoes. This comes up a few times in the novel and contrast with the upper class delicacies that hotel guests eat at the Savoy, including Martin Beck himself.
American readers may be surprised how Swedes seem to take a relaxed approach to sex. The victim’s young and beautiful widow enjoys summer sun in the nude (with her lover), and finds nothing embarrassing when the inspector arrives to ask questions, and Beck has sex with a young colleague, but no strings attached. I can’t say if it’s Sweden, 1969, or if Sjöwall and Wahlöö meant something political by it.
Just as in Roseanna, luck and unluck play a part in the investigation, but in the end, Beck is more depressed than satisfied by having brought a criminal to justice. Compared with my last read of them, The man on the balcony, this one is a lot less tense, one might even say hysterical, as the crime itself is less showy, and we feel that nobody really feels sorry for the victim. But the book is still a solid mystery, and I can’t wait for the next one, which I already downloaded on my Kindle.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, The Man on the Balcony (1967)
It was only one month ago that I finished reading #8 in the series and that I resolved to be more intentional if I wanted to complete the whole series. And I do want it very much! (all the more as the last series I’d completed was not a huge success, in a whole other genre). But within a few weeks, what a change of tone! The book I read in March was a lot of fun with literally LOL moments, this one is chilling and rather stark.
The book starts with a daily, ordinary scene in Stockholm. While people go about their daily business and kids go out to school or to the park, a man just looks down at the street from his balcony. Nothing more. But as we know we’re reading a police investigation, we just wonder where the blow will come from and expect the worse from any ordinary character.
And so we should. In this rather short book, Beck and his colleagues are confronted with a senseless murder and no clues whatsoever. Someone has attacked, raped and murdered a little girl in a park, and nothing can point to the murderer. The police are clueless and can only resort to the feeblest attempts by rounding up the usual suspects, by making more rounds in the various parks of the city, but they’re really looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The worst is that police can only secretly hope that there will be another murder to find more clues. Martin Beck’s colleagues, who seemed so stupid and grotesque in the book I read before (and which is a later installment of the series), are now tragic figures who are all too aware of their powerlessness. They sift through telephone calls in search for the tiniest clue, and we witness how ungrateful this effort is and how little it yields. Just like Roseanna which I read many years ago, the resolution will come by a combination of sheer luck and good memory. Which is not very comforting.
This book, which is rather early in the series, is less politically-heavy handed than the later ones and it was nice. The authors clearly want to denounce the Swedish society from the 1960s where people live in anonymous large buildings without knowing, or caring for their neighbors, and where petty crime is growing. But to me people in this book, besides the tension created by the plot itself, seemed rather carefree and reasonably content. Is it the Swedish character? I’m not sure, but I look forward to reading the rest of the remaining books.
Major Sjöwall and Per Wahloo, The Locked Room (Swedish, 1972)
The last time I read one of these Swedish mysteries was in 2019. In fact, it seems that I need to wait 2 years or more before getting to another one in this series, which is probably not the most efficient way to do it. But who says reading has to be efficient? This leisurely pace really suits me, as my memory gets a bit blurry, but I still feel as if I am meeting old friends again. And as always, I don’t read it in order, as I depend on which volume is available at my local library. This time, I was in the mood for a locked room mystery (having recently watched with the kids The Mystery of the Yellow Room, inspired by the Gaston Leroux novel) and the book was perfect.
If I try to be a bit more systematic with the poor detective inspector Beck who is nothing if not methodical, persistent and logical, I have to conclude that I have read more than half of the books in the series, beginning by Roseanna (1965) and The Man who went up in smoke (1966) read in 2010 (back when I still read books in order, or maybe it was sheer luck), then in 2013 I moved to #4: The Laughing Policeman (1968). Then 4 more years passed before I started again, this time with Cop Killer (1974), which is the penultimate one. Then in 2019 I moved back to the #5 The Fire Engine that Disappeared (1969). And now The Locked room (1972) which is #8.
Have I ruined any pretense of being orderly? Is it enough to make your head spin? I’m only missing #3 (because there’s a child killer), #6 and #7 and #10. Mmmh… Which means that I probably shouldn’t count on luck only to help me find the ones I haven’t read yet.
The best thing about this book is that it made me laugh out loud. Yes! (even in Covid year!) I had called these detective stories gloomy, terse, depressing and painstaking. I remembered I loved them, but I didn’t remember how much fun they really were. In this book, the Swedish police force is mobilized against a series of bank robberies. As always with Sjöwall and Wahlöö, there is always a strong social(ist) commentary that condemns the anti-democratic tendencies of the police and how desperate the social and political situation is. But at the same time, those policemen are real clowns! They are both full of themselves and stupid, a combination that ensures that they are always too slow to catch the robbers. There’s a scene of pure slapsticks where a whole policemen squad ends up injured and almost dead in an empty flat, by a combination of ineptitude and bad luck.
On the other hand, Martin Beck is patient and perceptive. He has survived an almost fatal injury (which I don’t know much about as I haven’t read the previous book), and as he’s returning to his job, he’s given an obscure case to get back on his feet. An old man found dead, shot by a gun, in a locked flat, with doors and windows all closed. No gun on the premises, but by the fault of policemen’s ineptitude, it was first ruled as a suicide. Beck is the opposite of all his colleagues. He doesn’t jump on conclusions, he doesn’t hurry to arrest anyone, he’s polite and patient. The ending of the book really questions what is real justice.
Also, as I had remembered how Beck was stuck in an unhappy marriage, it made me really happy that he seemed to find a nice girlfriend. Don’t you see how I feel Beck was an old friend I was seeing from time to time? I really wish his new relationship will work out. Well, we’ll see, probably in a year or two…
The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (Swedish, 1969)
After reading some Maigret in December, I decided that classic noirs and old police procedurals are totally worth returning to at regular intervals. And It was waaay too long since I’d read a Martin Beck police mystery. Fall of 2017, to be exact (thank you, blog archives!).
So as soon as 2019 rolled in, I reconnected with the Swedish police force, and it was as if not a day had passed since I’d left them. Beck is still at odds with his wife (and brother-in-law). Kollberg is still his grumpy old self. Melander is brilliant but boring. Gunvald Larsson is an unlikely hero. And there’s a newbie, a rookie policeman who is hilariously ambitious and clumsy (a dangerous combination).
I had forgotten how funny these books are. I mean, seriously laugh out loud funny, with just a few words for a full effect. People are so real, in their petty concerns, wishing for the weekend, hating the cold weather, bad-mouthing the colleagues… By any standards people are not very expansive and prone to emotional outpours but it delivers a punch. They do have a life beside the office, and in part because of that, and also because life is complicated, investigations often progress at snail pace, which is way more realistic than the 50 minutes open-and-shut cases of SVU and CSI. These books are not for hurried readers who want cheap thrill and twists in each page, but if you’re good with that, it is a real treat.
The fire engine that disappeared is a tongue-in-cheek title, because the story starts with an explosion, that could be arson, or murder, or suicide, or plain accident, and it takes a long time to settle between these possibilities. The fire engine that would have extinguished the fire took a very long time coming (yes, things don’t run as smoothly in Stockholm as the ideal country of hygge would have us think). There actually is a toy fire engine that gets lost in the story too, and this mystery too gets resolved in the end.
Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, Cop Killer (Swedish 1974)
Part of the fun to decide to read another Martin Beck police investigation is to search through the library shelves and try to remember how exactly both names of the writers are spelled. In my head, they are Maj and Per, which doesn’t exactly help. And you can’t really get help from the librarian if you don’t know how to pronounce them, right?
This one is Martin Beck’s ninth book, and they can be read out of order, but it’s probably best not to start with this one, because one can witness the trajectory of Martin Beck’s mood and beliefs from the beginning in the sixties to this one in the mid-seventies. In short, it’s not a spoiler to say that it doesn’t get better. Also, it’s better to have read Roseanna before, because one of the suspects of this investigation is a character from the first novel in the series.
If I was dealing with real people and if being gloomy was not part of the gumshoe’s and detective’s cliché image, I would be tempted to suggest a strong dose of Prozac to Beck and his close colleagues. Sjöwall & Wahlöö are part of the tradition that uses the conventions of the police procedural to denounce everything that goes wrong in society: miscarriages of justice, hasty judgments, unregulated use of violence by the police force, but also a country where young people struggle to find a right place, where they don’t find jobs and don’t find meaning in the jobs they may find. A country where press and politicians manipulate the news (has anything changed since?). 1974 is a time when young Swedish people are disenchanted, and except for smoking dope and having long hair, Swedish policemen such as Beck and Kollberg are just as disenchanted as they are. 1974 is the year heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped, the year Abba released Waterloo and when lots of bombings by extremists and the economic crisis worried people all over the world. The 1970s were dark and bleak and the book does reflect this mood.
Reading a Maj & Per book is not about big twists and big shockers, it’s about the work and the time policemen put in to find a killer, often without much recognition. Only dogged determination, and a part of chance too. The pace is slow and it takes more than half the book to understand why the book is titled Cop Killer, but I promise, this is all worth it.
Now I know where to turn when I want perfectly depressing cold-weather murders: 1960s Sweden of the Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s fame. Don’t we love them all? (uh, just kidding)
But I know my limits. After Roseanna and The Man who went up in smoke, I decided to skip the next mystery in the Beck series because it involved a child murder, and Beck’s Sweden being depressing enough, I didn’t want to add insult to injury.
The Laughing Policeman is no laughing matter (except when you take a second look and start to look for dark humor, which you’ll find aplenty). It starts with a random mass killing in a public bus in Stockholm. Among the ten victims, a young colleague of Beck is found, carrying his service weapon despite not being on duty. When his girlfriend tells the police that he was working days and nights on a case, Beck and his colleagues have no idea which one. And they aren’t even sure that the murder has anything to do with their colleague’s presence on the bus rather than with any of the other victims’ dark secret.
I don’t think the whole plot goes by with any sunny day. It’s always raining and policemen are miserable with colds and sore throats, not to mention damp feet whenever they visit witnesses and suspects. You sure can’t accuse Sjöwall and Wahlöö to glorify the police, nor to work for the Tourist bureau. Detectives’ work is painstaking and ends up in many dead-ends.
Make no mistake: it may sound suspiciously boring, but it isn’t. There’s a lot of humor and warmth in the detectives team’s description of quirks and twists. Sjöwall and Wahlöö also have a terrific eye for painting society as a whole, with just as many words as necessary. Vietnam demonstrations open the book and there’s no doubt that the writers aren’t quite happy with the conservative government of the time.
I knew my love affair with Swedish detective inspector Martin Beck was no fling. I fell hard for him with Roseanna, and it was not too long before I contacted him again for another steamy affair.
Well, steamy, it depends what you look at. This mystery is the second in the series (a sure sign of my devotion is when I respect the order of publication for a series – pretty rare indeed if you know my reading habits). Beck is like his usual self: very very serious, dedicated to the point of being nearly obsessed by his cases, but not emotional at all. And here, he keeps his cool under very steamy, not to mention shady, circumstances.
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke is basically a locked room mystery, but the room is a whole country within the Iron Curtain. It’s set in 1966 Budapest, the then-communist capital city where you (both as a foreigner or a Hungarian) can’t just move around and come and go as you please. Well, the book is never about repression, but it surely shows that police is everywhere in the country and that they have a lot of information about everyone.
Or almost so.
A Swedish journalist visits Hungary to interview a swimming champion. He shows up at his hotel, drops his luggage, goes out again. And whoops, he’s nowhere to be found anymore. Just gone. Pretty embarrassing for a dictatorship, don’t you think? Beck is sent there on the day of his own annual leave, to find the missing guy without too much embarrassment. And it’s not going to be easy.
Like in Roseanna, the mystery unfolds very slowly, in quiet routine details. But to me, there was the added pleasure of seeing a place I like a lot through his 1966 eyes. Budapest in summer has a seductive torpor, even under Communist rules. Policemen visit thermal spas for a relaxing bath, that is so effective that they drop their guard and exchange information about the case. Beck takes a steamer and stays in a hotel with faded grandeur, whose old bed creaks. It rings quite true.
I can’t wait for my next meeting with Inspector Beck. In Sweden this time? Actually, anywhere he wishes.
Mr. Smithereens was right.
The owners of that little bookshop in Brittany were right.
Kate was right too!
I should have given my attention to this book a lot earlier, what a great mystery!
Perhaps even my favourite mystery of the year up till now (and there were solid contenders like Josephine Tey and Frank Tallis in line). Roseanna is impressive for realism, for suspense and for sheer writing skills. The language is terse, there are a lot of conversations. Not one word is in excess, but emotions (indignation, anger, determination, pity) don’t need flowery descriptions to show on the surface.
But perhaps my exaltation doesn’t really suit “Roseanna”. It’s a police procedural that sticks to the facts. Nothing much happens for a long, long time, but believe me, it’s riveting. How so? Because in real life it takes a lot of dedication and energy not to abandon a cold case, and you can’t help but admire Martin Beck and his team from the Swedish police.
The naked body of a young woman is discovered in a canal. No identification is made. She’s not from the area. There’s absolutely no clue for whole months, until it can be ascertained that the body has been thrown from a boat and a passenger’s name can be traced. She’s Roseanna McGraw, an American tourist travelling on a boat. How a young woman from halfway across the globe can end her life in a Swedish canal? Funnily enough, Martin Beck’s world is as global as ours. Despite bad telephone lines, no internet and no Fedex to communicate physical clues and information, Martin Beck’s team painstakingly contact tourists from all over the world who have all travelled on that boat, as well as staff members who have moved on to other jobs.
That book should probably come with a warning: “Slow Book”. But surprisingly, faster books (and entertainment) come out at a disadvantage. I’ve started watching The Mentalist series on TV (with Simon Baker as Patrick Jane) right after I’d started Roseanna, and I couldn’t be bothered with the tricks and “jumping on conclusions” of the program. It seemed faked and superficial compared to the Swedish police. | ||
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for readers. In one part of town, a woman robs a bank. In another, a corpse is found shot through the h… | en | /favicon.ico | Goodreads | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1105470.The_Locked_Room | November 12, 2023
I could plot out the book and discuss all that action rot, but what really matters in this eighth book in Sjowall and Wahloo’s masterwork can be boiled down to two points: 1. Martin Beck; and 2. the illusions of justice.
1. Martin Beck is in less than half of this eighth book. While his friends and colleagues are seconded to the Robbery department trying to solve a murder in a recent bank robbery, and to end a seemingly linked rash of bank robberies entirely, Beck has been handed a case (sort of an act of rehabilitation to ease him back into service after his recovery from a bullet to the chest) of apparent suicide, which turns out to be a classic "locked room" murder. When Beck is around, though, boy does he tower over the story. His quiet investigation is the one that matters; his scrupulous and plodding methodology is the effective methodology; his conscience is the moral core of the series; his love for Rhea Nielson (a lefty landlord he bumps into during his investigation) is a necessary lesson about the characters we’ve come to love in the series, and not just Beck, of whom we learn the most, but even those men who never meet Rhea. is Beck’s tale, even when he’s off-page, and Beck’s denouement (because it is all his) is as satisfying for us as it is frustrating.
2. The illusions of justice loom even larger over the story than Martin Beck. I can’t help feeling that Sjowall and Wahloo don’t believe that justice is something we should aspire to let alone something that is even possible. Not that they come out and say that. But they ask questions and leave them unanswered, making us do the work: is it just for a man to be imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit while being simultaneously acquitted for a crime he did commit? Does the success of one false conviction make up for the failure of what could have been a genuine conviction? Is it just for the perpetrator of one of the killings to go free due to her social standing and circumstances? Is the manipulation of data a just way to expand power? Is a class based society inherently unjust? Is it just to control a person? To impede a person? To listen to one person over another? To judge a person? To have one's own perspective? Is perspective inherently unjust? As I have said, they don't even try to answer these questions. They want us to think about the answers for ourselves, and I adore them for that.
This series is better with each installment, and I am increasingly convinced that this is detective fiction of truly literary calibre. Usually I wouldn't want a series of this quality to end, but this time I want to finish it as soon as possible so I can continue the reread I've already begun. It's THAT good.
Later -- I am now on my third read (listen) through of this series and I feel compelled to add a third reason why The Locked Room is such a wonderful instalment.
3. This is the moment when the long game Sjowall and Wahloo were playing becomes impossible to ignore. From the first moment in Roseanna to the last moment in The Terrorists, Sjowall and Wahloo were weaving a Sweden wherein all the lives that touched each other set off reverberations that would last years. Their books span a decade and decisions made eight years before -- or even twenty years before (at a time long before the books began their record) -- have consequences in The Locked Room. One of the things many people love about Harry Potter is the complexity of its intersections -- I think Sjowall and Wahloo have Ms. Rowling beat.
April 7, 2022
The Locked Room, Martin Beck #8 in the Majo Sjowall and Per Wahloo mystery series, reveals a bit of sense of humor in its self conscious focus on a sub-genre, a “locked room” mystery, associated originally with Agatha Christie. Beck himself does not read detective stories, but several people around him do, and they all recognize the death of an older man in a locked room as a familiar mystery trope.
So there’s two crimes in the book, that only Beck thinks are related, for no obvious reason. A woman robs a bank and kills a man in the process, and an old man is killed in a locked room, which everyone initially assumes is suicide, but where is the murder weapon? Beck sees that mistakes were made in the early investigation of both crimes because of early too-quick assumptions.
In recent books we have gotten a little back story on Beck’s team as people, and regarding Beck himself we now see he is divorced, forging a relationship with his adult daughter, and maybe strating a new relationship? Is he happier? Well, he smiles once a while! Oh, and of course Beck recovers from his traumatic rifle wound at the hands of The Abominable Man (#6). He’s back at work, mostly lonely, driven.
The solution of the crime in this one features Beck as almost Poirot-like in revealing to a suspect that he knows more about the scene and the suspect than anyone could have imagined. And there is a twisting set of surprises in the resolution that are engaging. Satisfying, clever. I thought there were several nods in this one to Christie and Poirot, since Beck is usually not the central figure in solving the crimes. In the Beck stories, it is a team approach. But I like the centrality of Beck in this one, and his humanity: he connects with Rhea, a landlady, who helps him with the crimes, reaches out to connect with him. Possible love connections.
What else is remarkable about this entry? It’s the most consciously leftist critique of Swedish society, with increased crime, higher suicide rate, dugs, prostitution increasing, police corruption, issues with injustice. I like the introduction by mystery great Michael Connelly, paying his respects to his predecessors.
April 7, 2022
The Story of Crime can be read out of order. Crime is an ongoing process, it started with Cain and Abel and will continue for a long time into the future. Likewise, Martin Beck started his police career many years before Roseanna, and will probably continue after the tenth book, if the authors don't plan to kill him off. Each novel is focused on one particular case, and there is no need to be familiar with the previous ones. But Sjowall and Wahloo did have the whole thing planned in advance and there is a bigger picture to be revealed at the end of the series. It has less to do with individual characters and their personal development, although Beck goes through some family troubles from one novel to another, and more with the general sickness of the Swedish society, with the roots of evil as the leftist authors saw it, with the social and moral conditions that facilitate crime and the incapacity of the government structures to deal with the problem.
Michael Connelly is spot on in his introduction to this eight book and what it meant for him in his formative years as a crime writer:
... there were no better teachers when it came to showing how the detective story could rise above mere entertainment to the point of holding a mirror up to ourselves and the societies we build.
He also points out, and I agree with him on this, that the present novel is one of the funniest in the whole series. A particularly bleak and bitter sort of humour, but it did manage to make me laugh out loud more than once. The source of this humour is more often than not police incompetence, a series of bumbling mistakes and pratfalls worthy of the Keystone cops, but the initial chuckles turn to anger after awhile, an effect that I am sure is deliberate. So while I laughed at a roomful of brass watching a security camera movie with an unexpected protagonist, or at the unusual shopping list for a bank robbery ( One dozen pairs of briefs, fifteen pairs of nylon socks, six fishnet vests, a pound of black caviar, four Donald Duck rubber masks, two packets of of nine-millimetre automatic ammunition, six pairs of rubber gloves, preserved Appenzeller cheese, one jar of cocktail onions, cotton wool, one astrolabe ... ), I found little to admire in the display of blind self-promotion or sheer stupidity that resulted in the bank robbers escaping with the loot and a parody of a trial where the accused is condemned for a crime he didn't commit and absolved of the one he did perpetrate
In a film, maybe, there's something comic about tumbling out of a widow and dangling five storeys above the ground. In reality there certainly isn't. Torn hands and clothes aren't particularly funny either.
As I started to say earlier, the story is multi-layered (the criminal, the individual, the social, the political), and apparently disjointed, but it all comes together to an elegant and logical conclusion.First there's the actual mystery of the locked room, one of the very first themes used in detective novels when the likes of Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot were able to unlock the puzzle by logical deductions helped along by pipe smoke. Martin Beck is cut from a different cloth:
The Sward story was odder and not really reminiscent of any case Martin Beck had ever handled. This should have been stimulating, but he had no personal interest in enigmas and did not feel stimulated at all.
Beck knows that the majority of crimes remain unsolved, but this is his job and he will see it through, even if he takes no pleasure or satisfaction from it. A man is found dead in his apartment in an advanced state of decomposition. The door and all the windows are locked, so the case is initially dismissed as a suicide, without a thorough investigation of the crime scene. Beck is given the file when he comes back to work after a long convalescence, but nobody expects him to get far.
The second layer is another crime, a bank robbery that ends with a foolish bystander shot dead. Several members of Beck's team are assigned to this second case. This plot line is presented in alternate viewpoints between the police and a criminal gang, and appears unconnected to the locked room murder.
As a police procedural novel, the tension is produced by the contrast between Beck's professionalism and patient accumulation of clues and the gung-ho, guns blazing approach of the other task force who jumps to action based on feeble leads and wrong assumptions. The class system and prejudices also come into play, as the locked room case is initially ignored because the victim was poor and without connections.
Sjowall and Wahloo built their reputation not only on clever plots and biting satire, but also on strong characterization, and the present novel is no exception. Martin Beck plays a much more active role here than in the last three books, he struggles with physical and mental trauma after injuries sustained in the line of duty, and with loneliness and disillusionment at home. There is though a ray of hope for him, as he gets acquainted with a woman as vibrant and full of life as he is melancholic and introverted. Their chapters together mark an unusual positive and hopeful outlook for a series generally known for its downbeat and cynical tone.
Many of his team members are familiar to me from previous books, so instead of talking about them I would like to look closer at the criminal elements. The shift of blame from the individual to the social is evident for me here, as the line of demarcation between the good guys and the bad guys is completely erased. The first bank robber is shown to be a victim of domestic abuse and exploitative labour market. The other professional gangsters are unexpectedly portrayed as smart and interesting and fun to be around. Most of the blame is laid at the door of the police - poor recruiting criteria, poor training, lack of motivation, inept leadership, political meddling. The novel was published in 1972, but a couple of quotes will maybe help you see how significant the issues remain today. The first is about militarization of police:
All of a sudden, situations that formerly could have been cleared up by a single man equipped with a lead pencil and a pinch of common sense required a busload of police officers equipped with automatics and bullet-proof vests.
The long term result, however, was something no one had quite foreseen. Violence breeds not only antipathy and hatred but also insecurity and fear.
The second is about mass surveillance:
When the political police had been forbidden to bug people's telephones, the theorists of the National Police Board had hastened to their aid. Through scare propaganda and gross exaggeration Parliament had been prevailed on to pass a law permitting phones to be bugged in the struggle against drugs. Whereupon the anticommunists had calmly continued their eavesdropping, and the drug trade had flourished like never before.
The ending is a giant mockery of the idea of justice, a continuation of the black-and-white reversal and the most acid bout of mirth since "The Laughing Policeman". So much effort and resources and time have been spent for so little return that you can only shrug your shoulders and go get drunk in some quiet place while society stubbornly heads down a highway to Hell. You start to understand why Beck is always depressed.
I am though an incurable optimist, and maybe the next book will show me not only the woes of our time, but also some solution.
April 10, 2021
This is the final one in the series for me. I had already listened to all the others in audiobook form. However, this one was only available as a paperback book in my library system. On my to-read list since April 2014, it was time to bit the bullet and read it!
I marvel that this series was written by partners Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo. I can't imagine setting out to write a book with my partner, but maybe I lack imagination!
I love the humanity of the character of Martin Beck and his sensitivity. He is doggedly determined to discover the cause of death and not willing to take the easy route.
My favorite passage illustrates the lovely simplicity of an ordinary meal turned into something more meaningful with undercurrents of romance:
"You want to stay," she said to Martin Beck. "So, stay."
"No. I'm off now. Thanks for the tea, sandwiches, and wine."
He saw that for a moment she was thinking of exerting some kind of influence over him, presumably using the spaghetti [homemade spaghetti bolognese] as a lever. [.....] He was in a more cheerful mood than he'd been in for a long time, a very long time; though as yet he was not conscious of it."
It was a satisfying ending. There will be no more entries in this series and I am glad to have completed the circle and read all the volumes.
June 3, 2014
Martin Beck returns to work for the first time in fifteen months since getting shot in the line of duty, in his absence a spate of bank robberies have captured the public imagination and the focus of the abominable National Police Commissioner causing half of his team seem to be seconded to the Bank Robbery Squad and somewhere across town a pensioner is found murdered in his apartment, all doors and windows locked from the inside. The mystery unfolds against the backdrop of Sjowall & Wahloo's decaying Sweden, poisoned by the failures of "The Third Way" and a militarised police force, whilst Martin Beck's psychological recovery starts to take place, not just from getting shot but from a lifetime of being a lonely, melancholy policeman.
It's been said from the beginning of the remarkable "Story of a Crime" sequence of books featuring Martin Beck and his colleagues in the Stockholm Police Force that Sjowall & Wahloo were using the traits of the police procedural and the detective novel to critique the problems within in Swedish society in the late 60s but it is here within the boundaries of a truly classic mystery plot that they raise the commentary above the general hubbub of background noise and plant it front and centre. Yet with Martin Beck as protagonist and the general sense of melancholy and despair that surrounds him from day one it feels completely natural, almost like the impending sense of doom experienced in an apocalyptic novel as the world prepares to come crashing down around our heroes.
The Locked Room might just be the best entry in the series yet, with two intriguing mysteries intricately plotted and some wonderful observations of the effect the job can have on the man and how even small changes in attitudes of society can dramatically change the nature of the job, plus one of the most memorable police raids I've ever witnessed. Powerful stuff from "just a crime novel."
April 30, 2018
A man is shot in a bank raid.
A man is found in a room which has been locked from the inside. He has been dead for two months. Shot. But no gun in the room, so not a suicide. But how did the murderer get out?
Beck is back after sick leave - having himself been shot recently. He struggles to get back into the swing of policing, but doggedly pursues clues to the end. He has stopped smoking - reducing the ratio of adult smokers in the book to around 90%, a low for the series. There is a hint of a new love interest.
The lefty politics in this book have been turned up a notch compared to the earlier books. Though a card carrying liberal (I read the Guardian, me) I found this a touch irritating. Lots of right on comments about the Govt failing the people and favouring bankers instead. Plus ca change. Vietnam protests are gathering pace and the cops seem more interested in cracking open student heads than catching criminals.
One element I did really like. There is a fantastic passage about a botched police raid that is straight out of Keystone Cops. Comic genius.
Overall I found this less satisfying than the other books. Nonetheless they had set the bar high so this is still a good read.
Soundtrack - harmony in my head
The Clash - "White riot", "Police and thieves", "Bankrobber"
The Beat - "Stand down Margaret"
The Pogues - "The old main drag", "Birmingham six"
Tom Robinson - "Up against the wall" - perhaps "Martin" too
Bill Bragg - "Between the wars"
The Laurel and Hardy theme tune - when I used to go to football matches, we would sing this to the police, implying that they were less than competent. The wit of the crowd - we were full of it.
June 7, 2014
This is a little hard to rate. In some ways - quite a few, in fact -- this is their (Sjöwall and Wahlöö's) most accomplished book. The characterization is rich. But there were certain elements of the plot that I didn't like. For the longest time, for example, I thought that the whole section of the bank business was a false lead, which it is not.
So..., 4- stars. A somewhat ironic rating decision, I realize... penalizing the book for being *more* tightly plotted than it seemed to be. But the *seeming* itself counts for something, too, I suppose.
July 23, 2015
Of the two Martin Beck novels I’ve now read, I far preferred ‘The Laughing Policeman’. This volume, despite the classic but still intriguing premise, is just too slight a tale with far too much inconsequential padding.
The title of course says it all. This is the traditional story of a man found murdered in a room which no one could have got into or out of – so what the hell happened? It’s up to Martin Beck to find out. Unfortunately Sjőwall and Wahlőő are unable to make this tale fill an entire book. and so throw in a bank robbery plot as well. However the bank robbery is not investigated by Beck, and the team charged with tracking down the robbers is a little too Keystone Kops to fit in with your standard Scandinavian crime fiction. About half this novel is Beck, while the rest is a waste of time.
Still it’s an interesting snapshot of Swedish – and indeed Western – society in the early Seventies. There’s Vietnam protests, citizens believing that all police are fascists and a very free and easy view to sex and relationships. And at the centre of it all is Martin Beck, a tired and intriguing figure who I just wish had been given more to do.
October 23, 2021
This is classic Scandinavian thriller material of the seventies of the last century. And as for the quality of writing it is very good and the mystery is good.
Martin Beck returns from being shot 15 months ago to active duty. He gets an easy job like solving a locked room mystery and takes his time for it.
The other story line involves bank robbery and the policemen involved trying to nab some robbers and their helpers, which proves to be more difficult as previously thought.
The bankrobber storyline starts with a robbery with a deadly ending and does make for some interesting reading. In the end not everything in this book turns out to be as straightforward as you’d expect.
Classic Scandinavian thriller and still excellent reading
January 8, 2015
More than a year after the events of The Abominable Man, Martin Beck is recuperating from the gunshot wound which nearly killed him. The novel's title (the classic detective trope of the "locked room") refers to Beck's first case upon returning to work, a suspected suicide who has died from a gunshot to the heart. The only problem is that no weapon was found on the body or in the room and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. Beck has to revisit a badly botched investigation in order to make sense of the seemingly impossible.
Coupled with this narrative is a storyline revolving around what appears to be an unrelated series of bank robberies, the stopping and solving of which has become something of an obsession for District Attorney Sten "Bulldozer" Olssen and the special squad he (somewhat overenthusiastically) leads.
The social commentary is more strident than it has been before in the series, but I never found it irritating or overwhelming. To my mind, the authors have built up more than enough trust and their humane social vision and critique has been an ever-present feature of the series. The cynical observations of the omniscient narrator fit neatly and naturally in these stories in which personal crimes and the response of the state are firmly located in their social and political context.
For the fact of the matter is that the so-called Welfare State abounds with sick, poor, and lonely people, living at best on dog food, who are left uncared for until they waste away and die in their rat-hole tenements. No, this was nothing for the public. Hardly even for the police.
The small-scale counterpoint to an unfeeling society and a power-obsessed state apparatus is the beautifully realised character of Rhea Nielson, an unconventional landlord whose warmth and honesty opens up a new emotional landscape for Martin Beck. There is a lovely lightness and liberation to this slowly developing relationship that clearly marks a turning point in Beck's personal life.
The Locked Room is probably also the self-consciously funniest of the series so far. There has been a real undercurrent of humour (often fairly dark) in many of the other novels, but I laughed out loud at several moments while reading this one. Obviously, Sjöwall and Wahlöö are having fun with the "locked room" conceit (which is fairly playfully solved), but there's a real bubbling of comedy here. the bull-at-a-gate approach of Olssen's special squad is a source of some (nearly fatal) keystone cops style slapstick, and serves as a marked contrast to Beck's painstaking and methodical approach to police work. Ironic inversions abound, and even Kafkaesque bureaucratic absurdity that both collars a criminal and ensures that Martin Beck, much to his relief, is not promoted to Commissioner.
February 12, 2014
So: the famous Martin Beck series.
Hmm. Well, I must say it starts well, and when Beck himself's on stage, especially when he's actually doing something, this hums along quite nicely.
The problem with the book, though, is that it's far too often used as a soap box for pseudo-political passages on, say, the Swedish welfare system, problems facing police recruitment, etc. etc.
And the heavy-handed keystone kops style humour in places, while not unamusing, might find a more comfortable home in another novel.
Perhaps a function of the famed dual-authorship of this series? Whatever the reason, before long I found myself plodding, then skimming, then abandoning. A shame: I expected better. Is there a particularly good one I should have started with?
January 15, 2024
Points deducted for S&W's social criticism. Not because I disagree with it, but because of the way they (don't) weave it into their story here. Blunt, preachy and pushy. It's just annoying. Not annoying; Beck and his crew. Always nice hanging out with these guys. They once again face cases that are not as straightforward as they appear to be. This one has a bit of gangster flavour as well, with ambitious baddies planning one of those career-ending heists. Enjoyable, but the aforementioned noise makes this the weakest entry in the series (for now) for me. MVP? Bulldozer Olsson. Every bank robber's nightmare.
May 13, 2020
Having been drawn to the latest TV crime adaptation set in Europe. Van Der Valk policing in Amsterdam. I was keen to turn to an older trusted crime series.
Having finished all the Maigret novels I picked out the Martin Beck novels by Sjowall and Wahloo.
Incidentally, I didn’t enjoy Beck as a TV show recently .
The Locked Room is the eighth novel in this collection of books set largely in Stockholm and written by this husband and wife team over 10 years 1965-1975. It was always their intention to write 10 books only; future projects were never realised. Since, Per Wahloo died of cancer in 1975, only weeks after The Terrorists, the final instalment of the Martin Beck series was published.
I have read the earlier books in sequence and so The Locked Room was always high on my to be read list.
It is also interesting as my recent reading of Inspector Zhang series by Stephen Leather which focuses on a number of locked room mysteries.
When the great literary history of locked room stories are listed for some reason this one, despite its title giving it away, is not mentioned as a classic. Without doubt these authors were instrumental in influencing modern police procedures / crime thrillers. For locked room mysteries there are also few better in the context of realism and solid police work.
It is also timely to read one a Martin Beck story as Maj Sjowall recently passed away at the end of April this year. I dedicate this review to her memory and her literary heritage.
Martin Beck has been on long-term sick having got himself shot and very nearly killed in his last case. There are rumours that his survival is almost heroic and consequently he is in line for promotion. Something he wouldn’t want and has never sought. Indeed, he feels his incapacitation and rehabilitation were almost a critique on his own character of knowing best; in other words - poor judgement.
He is back on a phased return and is handed a cold case that has been handled badly; assumed a suicide when without doubt was murder. The confusion being bad police work and a locked room/crime scene.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team are redeployed to the major armed robbery unit where a group of known criminals are one step ahead of the investigation. A more recent fatal killing during a recent back raid comes under their operation but not their focus. It seems a rogue operation or copycat and their mission is to catch the brains behind it all, those pulling the strings and believed to be planning the ultimate heist.
With political asides and negative insights into the role of the police department the story is full of humour; incompetence and possible redemption of Beck himself. While clever police work is rarely seen, Beck transforms his investigation by methodical and old fashioned detective procedures. Following leads, having asked questions and being open to the answers. Meanwhile the more ‘modern’ approach is shown to come up short, fall down on assumptions made and bungling raids.
Subtle, informative and a beautifully revealed plot, that shows up mediocracy and mismanagement. When Beck closes his investigation,his seniors can’t understand his reasoning or conclusions. Their lack of comprehension is dismissed by applying a psychological interpretation on Beck’s report feeling his mind is still not back up to speed back on the job.
There is a paradox here. Justice must be seen even if the truth is blurred and criminals remain at large. It perhaps shows some of the political pressures at the time but it resonates with me even today about the role of inspectors in criminal investigations.
I loved this story. It blends and weaves together three plots into a seamless story that shows Beck is back on form and regardless of the profession he loves and which nearly took his life he is committed to his job. He might not be appreciated but the authors offer him a fitting distraction and full compensation in his spare time.
A great series and a standout book among them. I enjoyed it immensely and for those who haven’t discovered them, you are missing out.
November 27, 2017
Really enjoyable book. Never read any by this author before this one was recommended to me. Have the locked room dilemma and how could someone allegedly commit suicide when there was no gun or shell cartridge found in the room. Detective Martin Beck plays a very small part in this book since he must have been shot in Book 7 of the series. But there is a lot of comedy in this book not sure if it is intentional as the rest of the National Police Force reminds me of the Keystone Cops. Interesting way that Beck discovers how the deceased was murdered, but we have one person jailed for life for a murder they did not commit. That same person being acquitted of the murder they did commit. Bank robbers who get away with the money, etc. Not sure if this is the authors M.O. but it makes for an interesting and different read. Definitely would recommend this book!
August 28, 2021
La novela tiene sus altos y bajos. No es uniforme. Por momentos entretiene, por momentos aburre. Me quedo con una parte, la del policía Martín Beck. El resto es meter otra historia dentro de la original que lleva al título. Tenía otra expectativa.
The novel has its ups and downs. It is not uniform. At times it entertains, at times it bores. I'll take a part, that of the policeman Martín Beck. The rest is to put another story inside the original that leads to the title. I had another expectation.
September 13, 2016
Review of the audiobook.
This is the eighth book in one of the original police procedural series. I didn't expect this to be a surprise and in some ways it isn't. We have most of the same elements, but I was sad to see Melander not involved in this book - he is one of my favorite characters.
It's actually difficult to review this book without spoilers, but I'll try. In previous books, there have been moments where police officers are less than perfect. They make mistakes and that continues here and we have a scene that is a comedy of errors.
The ending in this one is a bit of a surprise, but since it's written in such a way that I have little actual emotion for any of the characters so I come away feeling surprised and entertained, but not disappointed. Much like real life, really.
April 13, 2017
Book no 8 in the series has a convalescing Beck (after his ordeal in Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle) investigating a classic-tinted "closed room"-mystery, while his colleagues hunt for bank robbers-cum-murderers in a seemingly unrelated case...
May 18, 2018
One of my favourites in the series. I like how Kollberg and Gunvald Larsson have learned to work together and a solidarity is felt even though they started out disliking each other.
The cases are baffling, the solution quite unforeseeable and well thought out. Can't really say more without spoiling.
Martin Beck meets Rhea and a new chapter starts in his life.
Only two more to go!
March 3, 2018
I literally could not put this book down, except for cleaning the bathroom and making our evening meal, I have read it all day! We have the last two on the bookshelf but I'd better delay reading them or I'll be reading all day tomorrow too!! Talk about a page-turner!
December 6, 2021
serinin karakterlerinin daha önceki kitaplarda yerine oturduğunu söylemiştik. artık bu karakterlerin gelişiminim, değişimini izliyoruz. 1970'leri İsveç'inin çok yalın bir panoraması veriliyor. Tüm karakterler, bu kitapta görüp kaybolanlar da dahil olmak üzere hepsi kanlı, canlı.
Bu kitapta toplumsal eleştiri gene var. Ama mizahî yön daha yoğun. Hele 18. bölümde başarısız polis baskınını okurken, Komiser Clouseau tadında bir absürt durum tadı alıyorsunuz.
Kurgu diğerlerinde olduğu gibi doğrusal, anlatım 3. şahsın ağzından.
Tercüme iyi. Ama nedense çevirmenden sonra bir editörün elinden geçmemiş metin. Çok olmasa da çevirmenin gözünden kaçmış olan hatalar aynen kalmış. İki örnek:
sayfa 210: "Elektrikli süpürgeyle saçlarını kurutuyordu."
sayfa 270: "Bildiğim kadarıyla, ant içmemişsen, eksik ya da yanlış bilgi vermek suç değildir." bura "ant içmek" değil "yemin altında ifade vermek"ten bahsediliyor.
October 5, 2021
Michael Connolly writes in his introduction to the Kindle edition of this novel that “The Martin Beck books tell us so much more than just how a crime is solved. . . [T]hey tell us how a crime happens and how a city, country, and society can often be complicit. They take us beneath the surface. They tell it like it is.” And that is certainly true of The Locked Room. In fact, of all the eight novels I’ve read so far in the series, this book most boldly lays bare the authors’ leftist perspective on Swedish society. The Locked Room advances the continuing story of Martin Beck and his colleagues in the National Homicide Squad. But throughout the book is a running commentary on the incompetence and unpopularity of the Swedish police, the deficiencies of Sweden’s welfare state, and the sad consequences of capitalism.
A Marxist view of Swedish society
For example, here are Sjöwall and Wahlöö describing the motivation of two career criminals. “Big-time criminals profit from everything—from poisoning nature and whole populations and then pretending to repair their ravages by inappropriate medicines; from purposely turning whole districts of cities into slums in order to pull them down and then rebuild others in their place. The new slums, of course, turn out to be far more deleterious to people’s health than the old ones had been. But above all they don’t get caught.” There’s truth at the core of this diatribe. But it’s far over the top.
Later, Martin Beck muses “that the law has been designed to protect certain social classes and their dubious interests, and otherwise seems mostly to consist of loopholes.” The Marxist influence could hardly be clearer.
The police come off badly
The National Police Commissioner is, apparently, a politician without prior policing experience. He’s concerned, above all, with secrecy. “Don’t let anything get out,” he admonishes at every turn. And he has good reason to fear exposure. Like New York during the same era, Stockholm is in the grips of a crime wave—and the police have proven unable to do anything about it.
Although the force is severely underfunded, the National Homicide Squad does better than most. But its budget is far outstripped by the security police, a rabidly anti-Communist outfit that follows leads from fascist organizations to pursue suspected leftists and ignores violent action on the Right. (This is historically consistent with the pro-Nazi stance of the Swedish police and security services in World War II.)
The district attorney is obsessed with bank robberies, of which there have been many in recent years. Two of Martin Beck’s closest colleagues are detailed to his special squad to pursue a gang of bank robbers who have eluded the DA for years. They end up stumbling into a bungled operation that’s reminiscent of a Keystone Cops episode.
The police are so unpopular that the force has great difficulty recruiting new officers. Now anyone, including the “retarded,” can gain access to a badge. And the proof of this comment by an embittered officer is in one of the members of the DA’s special squad who appears to have an IQ of about 60.
Now about that “locked room” mystery
In this novel, as in all the previous entries in the series, the men of the National Homicide Squad are involved in two different investigations. Two of them pursue the bank robbers on assignment to the DA’s office. Martin Beck goes solo on the other.
Martin Beck has been on leave for months, recuperating from a gunshot wound to his chest. To ease his way back into the force, his superiors assign him a seemingly unsolvable case that has gone cold. (It’s a way to keep him busy without getting back into the action.) A retired dockworker, essentially barricaded in his rented room, has died of a gunshot wound. The investigating officer, who is notoriously incompetent, has concluded the man killed himself—even though there is neither a gun nor a spent cartridge in sight. Spending weeks of patient investigation into the case, Martin Beck does solve it at length. But prepare yourself for an ironic surprise. In the end, it’s all very, very funny.
An awkward translation?
Unlike the previous novels in the Martin Beck series, The Locked Room reads as though one of the two coauthors did most of the writing—the more doctrinaire of the couple. That seems apparent not only from the numerous passages lamenting the sorry condition of Swedish society and the incompetence of the Swedish police but from the dialog as well. Many of the conversations come across as awkward, something I hadn’t noticed in the pair’s earlier work. Now, perhaps the translator was at fault. A number of different translators worked on this series, and the man who translated The Locked Room was not responsible for any of the other books.
April 4, 2013
"You can't start playing at Sherlock Holmes every time you come across a dead tramp"
O oitavo livro da série do Inspector Martin Beck é mais longo, obscuro e tem um enredo muito mais complexo que os anteriores.
Com 49 anos, quase 50, Martin Beck volta ao seu trabalho como Inspector Chefe da Policia de Estocolmo após 15 meses de convalescência. Depois de recuperar de um tiro nos pulmões que quase lhe tirou a vida, o nosso protagonista aparenta ter menos idade.
Para começar com calma, Beck investiga um caso, aparentemente simples, de um homem encontrado morto, fechado no seu apartamento. Não há sinais da arma usada e a vitima esteve à espera de ser descoberta durante mais de dois meses. Estando trancada por dentro, a porta teve de ser arrombada. Ainda que misterioso, o caso foi dado como resolvido: um suicídio, apesar de todas as pontas soltas.
Simultaneamente, os colegas de Martin Beck, entre os quais Kollberg (que está de dieta), Larsson (como sempre mal-humorado) e Rönn (que ainda antipatiza com o chefe) encontram-se a investigar um assalto a um banco, que resultou numa morte.
Neste livro são as mentes dos ladrões o alvo de exploração dos escritores suecos, que andam pelos lugares mais obscuros e duvidosos da cidade de Estocolmo.
Maj Söjwall e Per Wahlöö criaram um protagonista solitário, com uma ausência óbvia de romance na sua vida. Contudo, em "The Locked Room", durante a investigação, Martin Beck conhece Rhea Nielsen, uma mulher porque quem se sente instantaneamente atraído e que o ajuda, indirectamente, a resolver várias questões relacionadas com o misterioso quarto fechado.
O ritmo da narrativa começa por ser lento, provocando mesmo em mim um sentimento de frustração por ansiar ver determinados detalhes desvendados. Mas aos poucos acelera e, de mãos dadas com a história, oferece ao leitor um conjunto maravilhoso de pequenos pormenores distintos que no final encaixam na perfeição! Três fios distintos ligam-se e no fim de tudo uma coisa é certa: o acaso e o destino estão novamente presentes.
Se um criminoso é punido por um crime que não cometeu, é a punição injusta, tendo em conta delitos tão ou mais graves que cometeu? Independentemente da resposta, a verdade é que me parece uma partida do destino, que oferece ao castigado uma questão para reflectir eternamente.
"One can never be really sure about anything in this world."
July 3, 2014
While I liked the two story lines, especially how they improbably tie together in the end, I found some of the political commentary about Sweden to be trying in the eighth book in this series. (Other readers have found this to be more bothersome in Book #6/Murder at the Savoy.) Martin Beck comes back from his convalescence, and is assigned a dead end case, where a retiree is found dead in his locked room and suicide is assumed until they find he has been shot and no gun or bullet casing can be found. In the other subplot, a DA is after a bank robber/killer, who he believes is part of a notorious gang, which has never been violent before. The Locked Room is a double entendre for the first murder and for Martin himself, who in the course of his investigation finds some solace in an unpretentious, caring landlady, Rhea Nielson. (I was disappointed that my e-book did not include the introduction by Michael Connelly.)
April 3, 2018
This one seemed different than the previous ones in the series for a couple of reasons. First, Martin Beck, himself, isn't actually in it that much, relatively speaking. And second, while they were always political, this one seems more damning of just how dysfunctional Sweden was in the early 1970s. Plus, it didn't really have a satisfying conclusion. Still, the locked room mystery was intriguing, even if the investigation into the bank robberies was an utter shower.
September 24, 2021
The eighth installment of this series finds Martin Beck just returning to work after a life-threatening encounter with a bullet. His colleagues are trying to put a stop to an outbreak of robberies--primarily bank robberies, but robberies of all sorts have taken over Stockholm. Most recently, a young woman walked into a bank, wound up with 87 thousand kroner, and shot a man who tried to stop her. Witnesses' accounts conflict (don't they always?)--she had several different outfits; she got into a blue car or a beige one--no, wait she didn't get in a car at all; she had accomplices waiting for her or maybe she just drove off/walked away alone. Who knows? The head of the bank robbery investigations--District Attorney "Bulldozer" Olsson soon decides it's one of a string of robberies planned by criminal mastermind Werner Roos. According to Bulldozer, Roos is planning a BIG robbery--his biggest yet--and the DA is adamant that they're going to get him this time.
A hot lead to Roos's plans practically falls into Bulldozer's lap, but will he and his team be able to use it to their advantage (Spoiler Alert---that's a big no). Meanwhile, Beck is handed an impossible crime to solve. The body of Karl Edvin Svard was found shot to death (after several weeks) behind the quadruple-locked door of his apartment. All the windows were shaded, unbroken, and locked as well. The local officers quickly filed it under suicide--but the case is handed over to Beck because things don't quite add up. For one thing, if the man shot himself, where is the gun? In an odd little twist, it's found in the most interesting place...Beck will, of course, figure it all out. But will he be able to prove it? And what about those bank robberies?
I'm having a difficult time deciding what I think of this one. It is both entertaining (in a Keystone Cops kind of way) to read about the absolutely inept handling of the bank robbery investigations by Bulldozer and his special team and depressing to see how little justice and correct police procedure ultimately figure in this story.
Seriously, if you can read the scene where Larsson and Kollberg and company bust into the room where they believe two of the bank robbers are holed up and Larsson winds up hanging out the window, one of the nervous uniformed officers shoots the lights out (literally) as well as hitting a hot water pipe (insert image of spraying hot water pipe), the police attack dog bites one of the officers and refuses to let go, and--as a grand finale--one of them tosses in some tear gas...and you don't laugh, then I guess you just don't like physical humor. It's slapstick straight from the era of silent film. And, of course, the bad guys aren't even there anymore. And the crackerjack band hot on the trail of the bank robbers don't get any better. Just wait till they screw up the intelligence they receive on the upcoming BIG bank job.
So, entertaining? Yes, indeed. And the locked room mystery is pretty good as well. Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö use an old trick to good effect and there's enough going on to distract most readers from seeing it until Beck finds the answer.
But...then there's the actual police investigations--breaking and entering for evidence; the whole Bulldozer fiasco; Beck not being sure his taping equipment is working properly (though--Beck comes through the best in this book). And there's all sorts of shady goings-on among the police. Not to mention that at the end of the book, Beck's superiors decide not to promote him (there had been rumors) and why? Because they think he's unbalanced. Now--just to be clear, Beck doesn't want to be promoted. He wants to keep on investigating crimes and not be kicked up to a desk job. [And he's definitely not unbalanced--he's probably the best detective they've got.] But, let's just suppose that Beck really is unbalanced. His superiors think it's better to keep an unbalanced Beck where he is--investigating crimes and dealing with the public?! There's some fine bureaucratic thinking for you... I know that this sort of thing happens in real life--but I'm not all that keen on my fiction being so realistic. I like the wheels of justice to run smooth in my detective stories.
On balance, this is a solid story. I enjoyed the mystery and I especially enjoyed the slapstick antics and Martin Beck's portion of the plot. If it hadn't been for the (to me) depressing realism of how justice (and the police) really works, I would probably rate it higher.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.
July 5, 2022
Это был бы отличный шведский детектив от Вале и Шеваль, с интересной криминальной линией (даже с двумя, титульное убийство в запертой комнате + ограбление банка со стрельбой), с живыми персонажами, с жесткой критикой еврокапитализма...
...но авторы в этот раз почему-то решили буквально всю фабулу романа построить на совпадениях и случайностях.
В результате всю книгу герои, фигурально выражаясь, на бегу сталкиваются лбами и падают друг на друга. Все персонажи романа со всеми случайно знакомы, все случайно живут в соседних домах, все случайно встречаются в самых неподходящих местах. Случайно срываются сложные планы сыщиков, бандиты случайно попадаются в лапы правосудия, арестованные случайно избегают наказания за совершенные убийства (но случайно попадают на пожизненное за то, чего не совершали). Убийство в запертой комнате тоже объясняется длинной последовательностью невероятных случайностей.
Не знаю, чего Вале и Шеваль хотели добиться таким странным литературным экспериментом, но я от их книг ожидал совсем другого. Впрочем, пишут они отлично, и ниже 4* им поставить просто рука не поднимается. Будем считать, что роман получает 3* за детектив и еще 1* за невероятно умилительную романтическую линию в исполнении (кого бы вы думали?) старого ипохондрика Матрина Бека.
August 29, 2020
"The Locked Room" is the eighth novel in the Martin Beck series that is generally recognized to have inaugurated the modern crime novel of Sweden of which realism and a concern with sociological issues are the dominant traits. Possibly aware that the end of their series was near, Sjöwall and Wahlöö seem to have decided to poke some fun at themselves and at crime-writing in general. Their lack of seriousness is quite clear from their decision to write a locked-room mystery. Having chosen a higly trite genre, Sjöwall and Wahlöö proceed to fill their novel with a host of comical Runyonesque characters. As entertainment, it works well enough although it does finish in a regrettable tsunami of irony. Fans of Sjöwall and Wahlöö should enjoy this bonbon. Being a born churl, I can give it no more than a single star. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 85 | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/14/sweden-crime-writers-interested-love | en | Sweden's crime writers too interested in love, says Maj Sjöwall | [
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"Charlotte Higgins",
"www.theguardian.com"
] | 2013-08-14T00:00:00 | Too much romance and too little police work in today's thrillers, says architect of modern Scandinavian crime thrillers | en | the Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/14/sweden-crime-writers-interested-love | The grandmother of Scandinavian crime writing has said her counterparts today are too concerned with screen adaptations of their work and "are not about police work and crime, but very much about love and relationships – like girls' books".
Maj Sjöwall wrote the 10 bestselling Martin Beck novels with her partner in life and writing Per Wahlöö over a decade from 1965. Together they invented the Swedish police procedural, preparing the ground for authors such as Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, and TV series such as The Bridge and The Killing.
By the time of the 10th novel, The Terrorists, Wahlöö was ailing: he died in 1975, aged 49, before the book came out. Now 77, Sjöwall has barely written a detective story since: there has been a short story and another cowritten book, but mainly she has worked as a translator. "It's a bit boring to go on writing the same kind of novel. I don't want to publish any more. I don't want to be part of this circus."
The Martin Beck novels – although they were bestsellers and eventually became the basis for TV and film adaptations – never made her a wealthy celebrity author in the manner of such figures as Henning Mankell. "When we were writing no one was interested in the authors. Now the writers are themselves almost like film stars," she told audiences at the Edinburgh international book festival.
She described how a political engagement as Communist party members led to her and Wahlöö writing the Beck novels.
"When we began, there were no police procedurals, just Agatha Christie-type stories with amateur detectives," Sjöwall said. "But we wanted to present a view of our society and to describe an era and a time in Sweden."
This "new kind of genre", she said, produced a new kind of reader: a young, politically radical generation of Swedes. Their project was to show "how the social democrats were pushing the country in a more and more bourgeois and rightwing direction".
She met the political activist and former crime reporter in 1961, after he had been deported from General Franco's Spain in 1957. "It was the Spanish civil war that made him a socialist," she said. The last word of the last novel in the series is "Marx" – though Sjöwall left the party and describes herself now as a socialist.
The couple would discuss the stories in detail, establishing a shared language between them. "We were talking, talking, talking about our characters: what did they think, what did they do." Having worked out a 30-chapter synopsis, at night, after the three children were in bed (a girl from a previous relationship of Sjöwall's and two boys) they would set out to write. They would sit at opposite ends of the table: one of them would take the first chapter, the other the second. The next night they would swap, typing up each other's work and editing along the way.
Crime writer Ian Rankin, who was chairing the event, pointed out that it was Sjöwall who "we have to blame for all us British crime writers who have to walk past tables and tables of Scandinavian crime fiction". "Jo", she replied succinctly – and with a wicked grin. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 24 | https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/437598/the-martin-beck-stories-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/9781785299964 | en | The Martin Beck Stories | [
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"Per Wahlöö",
"Maj Sjöwall"
] | 2017-08-10T00:00:00 | 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 Howarth
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Man on the Balcony (1967) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Laughing Policeman (1968) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
Murder at the Savoy (1970) - translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Abominable Man (1971) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Locked Room (1972) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
Cop Killer (1974) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Terrorists (1975) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims | en | /apple-touch-icon.png | https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/437598/the-martin-beck-stories-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/9781785299964 | 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 Howarth
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Man on the Balcony (1967) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Laughing Policeman (1968) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
Murder at the Savoy (1970) - translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Abominable Man (1971) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Katie Hims
The Locked Room (1972) - translated by Alan Blair and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
Cop Killer (1974) - translated by Thomas Teal and dramatised by Jennifer Howarth
The Terrorists (1975) - translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims
Per Wahlöö
Born in 1926, Per Wahlöö was a Swedish writer and journalist who, alongside his own novels, collaborated with his wife, Maj Sjöwall, on the bestselling Martin Beck crime series which are credited as inspiring writers as varied as Agatha Christie, Henning Mankell and Jonathan Franzen. In 1971 the fourth novel in the series, The Laughing Policeman, won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Per Wahlöö died in 1975.
Learn More | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 4 | https://www.waldenpondbooks.com/scandinavian.html | en | Scandinavian Mysteries, Crime, and Suspense Thrillers at Walden Pond Books, Oakland, California | [
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"San Francisco",
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"Norwegian",
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"detective",
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"Karin Alvtegen",
"Aka Edwardson",
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"Karin Fossum",
"Peter Hoeg",
"Arnaldur Indridason"... | null | [] | null | Scandinavian mysteries and thrillers at Walden Pond Books in Oakland, CA - The San Francisco East Bay's finest independent bookstore | null | Scandinavian
Mystery Authors
Karin Alvtegen
K.O. Dahl
Ake Edwardson
Kjell Eriksson
Karen Fossum
Peter Hoeg
Anne Holt
Arnaldur Indridason
Lars Kepler
Jan Kjærstad
Camilla Lackberg
Asa Larsson
John Ajvide Lindqvist
Henning Mankell
Lisa Marklund
Jo Nesbø
Hakan Nesser
Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom
Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Maj Sjowall / Per Wahloo
Johan Theorin
James Thompson
Helene Tursten
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SCANDINAVIAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE
SO YOU'VE READ ALL THREE STIEG LARSSON BOOKS,
AND YOU WANT MORE...
Stieg Larsson's phenomenally successful books are just the tip of a Scandinavian iceberg of riveting suspense fiction written by Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic authors virtually unknown to American readers.
Walden Pond Books carries the very best of the Scandinavian literary thriller renaissance. Discover authors Karin Alvtegen, Aka Edwardson, Kerstin Ekman, Kjell Eriksson, Karin Fossum, Peter Hoeg, Arnaldur Indridason, Jan Kjaerstad, Camilla Lackberg, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Asa Larsson, Henning Mankell, Lisa Marklund, Jo Nesbo, Hakan Nesser, the writing team of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, the writing team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Johan Theorin, James Thompson, and Helene Tursten. Their best works are all on the shelves at Walden Pond Books!
Drop by Walden Pond Books at 3316 Grand Avenue and browse. Or - if you see a book listed here that you know you've just got to read immediately - call us at 510-832-4438 and we'll hold that title for you at the front counter or ship directly to your home.
Essential Web Sites
Scandinavian Crime Fiction in English (Gustavus Adolphus College)
A Guide to Nordic Noir (The New York Times)
Crime in a Cold Climate (Santa Clara County Library)
International Noir Fiction (Blog)
Steig Larsson and Scandinavian Thrillers in the News
"The Publishing House That Stieg Larsson Built" (The Guardian)
"Johan Theorin Beats Stieg Larsson to Crime Writing Award" (The Guardian)
"The Original Stieg Larsson" (MSN News)
"Very Cool Cases..." (Washington Post)
"This Summer Belongs to Stieg Larsson..." (USA Today)
"Making Tattoo Indelible" (Wall Street Journal)
Scandinavian Literary Thriller Authors
(in alphabetical order)
Karin Alvtegen (Sweden)
Karin Alvtegen - without any training or thought of becoming a novelist - resolved to write her way out of some family tragedies: The result was Missing which won Scandinavia's prestigious Glass Key award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, and was nominated for the 2009 Edgar Award for best novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Her next novel, Betrayal, was shortlisted for the Glass Key award, and also for the Swedish Crime Writers Academy award for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the year. Reviewers have called Alvtegen's third novel, Shame, her finest novel to date (2010) -- the work, in the words of one critic, of "a modern-day Strindberg." (Karin Alvtegen is the great-niece of Astrid Lundgren, author of the ever-popular "Pippi Longstocking" books.)
K.O. Dahl (Norway)
Award-winning author Kjell Ola Dahl has attained cult status in his home country of Norway with his sharp, riveting bestsellers. Finally, with his gripping and intelligent novel, The Fourth Man, this master of Norwegian crime writing is crossing the Atlantic. Dahl is a true master at merging the suspense of the classical whodunit with the detailed precision of the police procedural novel. Start with The Fourth Man (the first in a series featuring Detective Inspector Frank Frolich and Detective Chief Inspector Gunnarstranda), continue with The Man in the Window, and The Last Fix. Questions of love and betrayal, loyalty and guilt consume these investigations, just as they fill the private lives of the investigators. Caution: highly addicting!
Ake Edwardson (Sweden)
Åke Edwardson is a professor at Gothenburg University, the city where many of his Inspector Winter novels are set. A long-time number one bestseller in his native Sweden, Edwardson's profile was conspicuously raised when his novel Frozen Tracks was chosen as a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Until now, however, the novel that launched Edwardson's critically acclaimed Erik Winter series has never been available in the United States. With a new series translator who fully captures Edwardson's signature atmospheric style, Death Angels is America's introduction to Sweden's youngest Chief Inspector.
Kerstin Ekman (Sweden)
In a forest outside the remote Swedish village of Blackwater, a woman stumbles upon the site of a grisly double murder - a crime that will remain unsolved for nearly 20 years. Ekman's novel is a unique thriller in which the hearts and minds of the characters are as strikingly compelling as the exotic northern landscape that envelops them. "Wonderful..powerfully enigmatic. . .extremely intelligent. . .Blackwater works so brilliantly both as a mystery and an evocation of an unfamiliar world." - Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
Kjell Eriksson (Sweden)
Already a huge star in Europe and the Nordic countries, Kjell Eriksson has American critics also raving, with every review of his spellbinding novels featuring Police Inspector Ann Lindell studded with words like "stunning," "chilling," "haunting," "ingenious", and "brilliant."
("Stunning . . . haunting . . . can chill you to the bone."- Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times)
Start with The Princess of Burundi, follow up with The Cruel Stars of the Night, and race to read Eriksson's third Inspector Lindell stunner, The Demon of Dakar.
Karen Fossum (Norway)
Norway's Queen of Crime began her writing career as a poet, her first prize-winning collection published in 1974 when she was just 20, but it took her another 20 years to find her true métier in crime writing. Her series of detective novels featuring the tough but fair and highly intelligent Inspector Konrad Sejer begins with Don't Look Back. Critically acclaimed across Europe, Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer novels are masterfully constructed, psychologically convincing, and compulsively readable, and are now available in the United States for the first time. "Psychologically astute, subtly horrifying" - The New York Times. 1. In the Darkness (2012) aka Eva's Eye 2. Don't Look Back (2002) 3. He Who Fears the Wolf (2003) 4. When the Devil Holds the Candle (2004) 5. Calling Out For You (2005) aka The Indian Bride 6. Black Seconds (2007) 7. The Water's Edge (2009) 8. Bad Intentions (2010) 9. The Caller (2011) 10. The Murder of Harriet Krohn (2014) 11. The Drowned Boy (2015) 12. Hell Fire (2016) 13. The Whisperer (2018)
Peter Hoeg (Denmark)
Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow was an early entry in the Scandinavian Literary Thriller Renaissance. With its Hemingwayesque prose, a plot revolving around a powerful Danish corporation involved in a strange conspiracy, and a strong, fascinating and eccentric heroine, Smilla's Sense of Snow was selected as 1990's Best Book of the Year by Time Magazine. Hoeg's next novel, The Quiet Girl, is now available in the United States and has been likewise met with critical acclaim: "Treat The Quiet Girl as a thriller, and you'll sprint happily to its unexpected and enigmatic ending. Treat the novel as a love story, and you may be surprised by the deep silence of its final pages."--The Washington Post. "Completely immersive and riveting" -- The New York Times.
Anne Holt (Norway)
Anne Holt is Norway's bestselling female crime writer. She was a journalist and news anchor and spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway's Minister for Justice in 1996 and 1997. Her breakout novel in the U.S. was the acclaimed 1222 (nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel) which first introduced Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen to readers. The success of 1222 was such that Holt went on to write a 10-book series based around the character of Hanne Wilhelmsen, the first seven of which served as prequels to 1222:
The Blind Goddess (1993)
Blessed Are Those Who Thirst (1993)
Death of the Demon (1995)
The Lion's Mouth (1997)
Dead Joker (1999)
No Echo (2000)
Beyond the Truth (2016)
1222 (2007)
Odd Numbers (2017) aka Offline
In Dust and Ashes (2017)
Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland)
From Iceland, the land of the saga, journalist Arnaldur Indridason burst onto the literary scene with Jar City, an absorbing police procedural dense with psychological pressure, haunted by past secrets. Indridason won the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel for both Jar City and its sequel, Silence of the Grave, and in 2005 Silence of the Grave also won the Crime Writers of America Gold Dagger Award for best novel of the year. Three more outstanding novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson (Voices, The Draining Lake, and Arctic Chill) have established Arnaldur Indridason as one of the most critically acclaimed authors of the Scandinavian Literary Thriller Renaissance.
Lars Kepler (Sweden)
As The Hypnotist swept through Sweden's and then every European best seller list in 2009, it was revealed that the author's name "Lars Kepler" was actually a pseudonym. Several well-known Swedish authors, including Jan Guillou and Henning Mankell, had to publicly deny their authorship. So in the end, amid a media frenzy, the authors - Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril - a married couple, 42 and 43 years old, had to go public. "This is the thriller that's taking Europe by storm. Ferocious, visceral storytelling that wraps you in a cloak of darkness that almost blots out the light, but still feeds the imagination: Stunning!" - The Daily Mail (U.K.). The "Lars Kepler" team followed up with more riveting titles featuring Detective Inspector Joona Linna:
The Nightmare (2012)
The Fire Witness (2013)
The Sandman (2012)
Stalker (2016)
The Rabbit Hunter (2018) aka The Hunter
Lazarus (2020)
The Mirror Man (2022)
Jan Kjærstad (Norway)
The first in Jan Kjaerstad's Wergeland trilogy, The Seducer (followed by The Conqueror and The Discoverer) has been hailed as a postmodern masterpiece, and was an international bestseller. In 2001, The Discoverer won the Nordic Council Literature Prize - Scandinavia's top literary award. Protagonist Jonas Wargerand is a successful TV documentary producer and a notorious womanizer. One day he returns from the World's Fair in Seville and discovers his wife dead on the living room floor. What follows is a quest full of twists and turns to find the killer. As Jonas investigates his wife's death, the author also begins to investigate Jonas himself, and the road his life has taken to reach this point. Also translated into English, the subsequent novels in the trilogy are now out of print in the United States and can be found occasionally only in used bookstores.
Camilla Läckberg (Sweden)
The Ice Princess is the first of Camilla Läckberg's ten novels set in the Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka and marked the American debut of the number-one best-seller in Sweden and the winner of France's 2008 Grand Prix de Litt'rature Polici're for Best International Crime Novel. The female protagonist of The Ice Princess, Erica, a writer struggling with her latest book, deals with her grief over her parent's untimely death and her mixed feelings about returning to her hometown. Läckberg skillfully details how horrific secrets are never completely buried and how silence can kill the soul. The town of Fjallbacka and its crimes and people are featured in the rest of the series:
The Preacher (2008)
The Stone Cutter (2010)
The Stranger (2011) aka The Gallows Bird (compact disc only)
The Hidden Child (2011) (compact disc only)
The Drowning (2012) (compact disc only)
The Lost Boy (2012) (out of print in U.S.)
Buried Angels (2014) aka The Angel Maker's Wife (out of print in U.S.)
The Ice Child (2016) aka The Lion Tamer (out of print in U.S.)
The Girl in the Woods (2018) aka The Witch (out of print in U.S.)
Åsa Larsson (Sweden)
On the floor of a church in northern Sweden, the body of a man lies mutilated and defiled - and in the night sky, the aurora borealis dances as the snow begins to fall. So begins Åsa Larsson's Sun Storm (aka The Savage Altar), winner of Sweden's Best First Crime Novel Award and an international literary sensation. Follow with The Blood Spilt, and continue on to The Black Path. This trilogy features an unforgettable heroine: attorney Rebecka Martinsson. In prose that is both lyrical and visceral, Åsa Larsson has crafted novels of pure entertainment - taut, atmospheric mysteries that will hold you in thrall until the last, unforgettable page is turned. The trilogy is followed by two more novels featuring Rebecka Martinsson:
Until Thy Wrath be Past (2011) (out of print in U.S.)
The Second Deadly Sin (2013) (out of print in U.S.)
John Ajvide Lindqvist (Sweden)
Lindqvist has achieved cult status in Europe for his unique melding of horror, mystery, and psychological thriller. Start with Let Me In, Lindqvist's internationally acclaimed novel whose movie adaptation (Let the Right One In) won the Tribeca Film Prize for Best Feature Film. When the blood-drained body of a teenage boy is discovered, twelve-year-old Oskar personally hopes that revenge has come at long last - revenge for all the bad things the bullies at school do to him. And then he befriends the precocious girl next door who only comes out at night. . . Lindqvist's next novel, Handling the Undead, is hailed as a masterpiece of horror that transcends its genre by showing what the return of the dead might really mean to those who loved them. Starred reviews from both Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews!
Henning Mankell (Sweden)
Mystery aficionados need no introduction to the late Henning Mankell - the dean of Nordic mystery authors. With the 1991 publication of Faceless Killers, (first U.S. publication: 1996) Mankell launched the career of Inspector Kurt Wallander, the hero of one of the most acclaimed series in international crime fiction. Faceless Killers is followed by:
The Dogs of Riga (1992)
The White Lioness (1993)
The Man Who Smiled (2005)
Sidetracked (1995)
The Fifth Woman (1996)
One Step Behind (1997)
Firewall (1998)
The Pyramid (2008) (Wallander's first case)
The Troubled Man (2011)
An Event in Autumn (2014)
As well as the entries in the Inspector Wallander series, Mankell has also contributed a score of electrifying stand-alone thrillers which have established Mankell as "by far the best writer of police mysteries today. He is in the great tradition of those whose work transcend their chosen genre to become thrilling and moral literature." - Michael Ondaatje. Mankell's The Return of the Dancing Master or The Man From Beijing, are prime examples of absolutely masterful thrillers.
Liza Marklund (Sweden)
Until recently, American readers know Marklund only as James Patterson's co-author of The Postcard Killers. But in her native Sweden, Liza Marklund is renowned as Scandinavia's most successful female crime writer. Her novels featuring the gutsy reporter Annika Bengtzon instantly became international best-sellers, and Marklund's books have sold 9 million copies in 30 languages to date. Finally, with the February, 2011 publication of Red Wolf, readers in the U.S. will get their chance to immerse themselves in one of the most compelling of all the Scandinavian thriller series. Other entries in the Annika Bengtzon series include:
Exposed (2002) aka Studio Sex (out of print in U.S.)
Paradise (2000) aka Vanished (out of print in U.S.)
Prime Time (2002) (out of print in U.S.)
The Bomber (2001) (out of print in U.S.)
Red Wolf (2003)
Last Will (2012)
Lifetime (2013)
The Long Shadow (2013)
Borderline (2014)
Without a Trace (2015)
The Final Word (2016)
Jo Nesbø (Norway)
Universal praise has greeted every one of Nesbo's three novels that follow the career of detective Harry Hole. Nesbo's debut, The Redbreast, garnered unanimous starred reviews from the critics: "An elegant and complex thriller. . . Ingenious design. . . Harrowingly beautiful scenes." -- New York Times Book Review. The follow-up, Nemesis, was hailed as "a beautifully executed heist drama. . . Expertly weaving plot lines from Hole's last outing, Nesbo delivers a lush crime saga that will leave U.S. readers clamoring for the next installment." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review). Nesbo's mastery of pace and tension is especially evident in his most recent entry in the series, The Devil's Star, and Harry Hole is acclaimed "the best lone-wolf cop for the 21st century" -- Library Journal (starred review).
Hakan Nesser (Sweden)
Hardly anyone else in the world tells crime stories in such a unique way or features such a memorable investigator. Now the novel that introduced the unforgettable Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is available for the first time in English. Hakan Nesser debuts his protagonist in Mind's Eye, a tale of murder and suspense that reveals the deep humanity of the characters portrayed even as it sends chills up the spine. Riveting, intellectually satisfying, and unexpectedly poignant, Mind's Eye unfolds like a chess match where each move could prove deadly. Nesser's next entry in his Chief Inspector Van Veeteren series is Borkman's Point, followed by The Return and Woman with Birthmark. Inspector Van Veeteren has claimed his place amongst the great European detectives. Even Oprah has taken notice: "Van Veeteren is the most appealingly unlovable hero ever!" -- Oprah, The Oprah Magazine.
Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom (Sweden)
The writing team of Roslund and Hellström made their U.S. debut with Box 21, a remarkable tale of loss, addiction and revenge set in Stockholms seedy underworld. This dark and gritty tale revolves around Lithuanian sex slaves Lydia and Alena, vicious mob enforcer Jochum Lang, and Hilding Oldeus, a desperate heroin addict. Their stories converge when cranky, old-fashioned police inspector Ewert Grens is assigned to the investigation of Lydia's horrific murder. Box 21 is a Scandinavian thriller of the highest order: a mindblowing psychological drama written with powerful intensity. Roslund and Hellstom's latest novel, Three Seconds, won last year's "Best Crime Novel" award in Sweden and has just been released in the U.S. to critical acclaim: "Extremely difficult to put down. . . Crime fiction rarely gets as good as this." -- Booklist (starred review).
Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Iceland)
Set in modern-day Iceland - and already an international sensation - Last Rituals introduces one of the most compelling and exceptional new characters to appear in years, Thora Gudmundsdottir, in a tale of medieval witchcraft and modern murder. Thora, an attorney and single mother of two, uncovers contemporary horrors in Iceland's grisly history. In the long, cold shadow of dark traditions, nothing is quite what it seems . . . and no one can be trusted. In My Soul to Take, the chilling follow-up to Last Rituals, Thora Gudmundsdottir is once again pulled into a darker side of Iceland's history as she hunts for a savage killer. Once again, the critics and fans rave!
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (Sweden)
The novels by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo are classics in the field. Between 1965 and 1975, the husband and wife team collaborated on ten mysteries featuring Detective Inspector Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad which challenged and changed the genre forever. Vintage/Black Lizard Press announces the re-launch of the Martin Beck Police Mystery series, with fresh introductions from some of the biggest names in Crime Fiction today. All ten books from Edgar Award-winners Sjowall and Wahloo are now available in paperback. Start with the very first, Roseanna. And don't miss The Laughing Policeman, the incredible fourth novel in the series. The final twist on the final page is legendary in thriller fiction.
Johan Theorin (Sweden)
Johan Theorin's first novel, Echoes From the Dead, is as chilling as it is psychologically acute - a gripping study of loss, sorrow, and true evil. Set predominantly on the Baltic island of Öland, Theorin's deeply disturbing debut will remind many of Henning Mankell both in its thematic intensity and dark tone. Winner of the Swedish Best First Crime Novel Award, the novel's themes of greed and revenge lead to a stunning surprise ending. Theorin returns to the island of Öland for his follow-up, The Darkest Room, a powerhouse of suspense - at once a crime novel and a searing family drama which won Sweden's Best Crime Novel Award last year and the International Dagger Award this year. The third in the series, A Place of Blood, is due for U.S. release in early 2011.
James Thompson (Finland)
James Thompson is an American writer who has lived in Finland for over a decade. His first thriller in a new series, Snow Angels, features Inspector Kari Vaara, a haunted, hardened detective who must delve into Finland's violent underbelly. Two weeks of unrelenting darkness and soul-numbing cold fall upon Finnish Lapland, a hundred miles into the Arctic Circle, just before Christmas. It is the time the Lapps call "kaamos". Some get through it with the help of cheap Russian alcohol; some sink into depression. This year, it may have driven someone mad enough to commit murder. The brutalized body of a beautiful Somali woman has been found in the snow, and Inspector Kari Vaara must find her killer. It will be a challenge in a place where ugly things lurk under frozen surfaces, and silence is a way of life.
Helene Tursten (Sweden)
Helene Tursten's Irene Huss mysteries are among the finest in the genre and they have been made into a film and a TV series. Detective Inspector Irene Huss of Göteborg, Sweden, is not the stereotypical hard-boiled heroine. With a chef husband and twin teenage daughters, she must balance her home life and her work life, in which there are always too few cops and too many cases. The picture Tursten provides in her first novel, Detective Inspector Huss, of Sweden's growing anti-immigrant resentment - embodied in Huss' skinhead daughter - imbues this novel with a cold chill of dread. Tursten's next novel, The Torso, is absolutely outstanding - the scenes in which Huss tracks her killer through the underbelly of Copenhagen are unforgettable. The shocking ending of Tursten's third entry in the series, The Glass Devil, questions the very nature of justice and evil. All three are "must-reads"!
Scandinavian authors not yet published in the U.S.
(but so good that they probably soon will be):
Leif Davidsen (Denmark) - U.S. editions currently out of print
Inger Frimansson (Sweden)
Anne Holt (Norway) - U.S. editions currently out of print
Wexi Korhonen (Finland)
Jens Lapidus (Sweden)
Leena Lehtolainen (Finland)
Kristian Lundberg (Sweden)
Harri Nykanen (Finland)
PLEASE NOTE:
The contents of this page are the property of the reviewer.
Express your appreciation for this list by purchasing these titles
at Walden Pond Books and other independent bookstores
(rather than corporate chain stores and online conglomerates). | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 68 | https://www.scribd.com/document/263512453/Scandinavian-Crime-Fiction | en | Scandinavian Crime Fiction | https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/263512453/original/8cdd61fb1c/1723901560?v=1 | https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/263512453/original/8cdd61fb1c/1723901560?v=1 | [
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] | null | [
"Susanta Bhattacharyya"
] | null | Scandinavian Crime Fiction - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document provides a roadmap to help readers get started with Scandinavian crime fiction. It summarizes several influential and important works in the genre, beginning with Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Martin Beck series. It then briefly outlines novels by Peter Høeg, Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Arnaldur Indriðason, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Stieg Larsson, Håkan Nesser, Anne Holt, and Johan Theorin that were influential in bringing Scandinavian crime fiction to international audiences. The document serves to introduce readers to some of the landmark authors and titles in this popular genre. | en | https://s-f.scribdassets.com/scribd.ico?19d484716?v=5 | Scribd | https://www.scribd.com/document/263512453/Scandinavian-Crime-Fiction | |||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 32 | https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/wahloo/ | en | Kirkus Reviews | [
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7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 67 | https://www.rosecityreader.com/2021/01/the-laughing-policeman-by-maj-sjowall.html | en | Rose City Reader: The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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] | null | [] | null | The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the fourth Martin Beck Mystery, on Book Beginnings on Fridays on Rose City Reader | https://www.rosecityreader.com/favicon.ico | https://www.rosecityreader.com/2021/01/the-laughing-policeman-by-maj-sjowall.html | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 91 | https://www.academia.edu/44863955/THROUGH_SCANDINAVIA_DARKLY_A_CRIMINOLOGICAL_CRITIQUE_OF_NORDIC_NOIR | en | THROUGH SCANDINAVIA, DARKLY: A CRIMINOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF NORDIC NOIR | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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"Steve Hall",
"independent.academia.edu"
] | 2021-01-08T00:00:00 | Nordic noir is a popular crime genre associated with a region (Scandinavia), a narrative style (un-pretentious/socially critical) and a particular aesthetic look (dark/foreboding). Renowned for its psychologically complex characterization and gloomy | https://www.academia.edu/44863955/THROUGH_SCANDINAVIA_DARKLY_A_CRIMINOLOGICAL_CRITIQUE_OF_NORDIC_NOIR | In the Conclusion the authors sum up their findings with reference to different factors at play in the conceptual development of Nordic Noir and claim that four primary perspectives are necessary to decode the conceptual content of Nordic Noir: (a) a common press reference, (b) a brand name, (c) stylistic and narrative content, and (d) a locative concept. By referring to two recent television dramas, Valkyrien and Marcella, the authors conclude that the ‘Nordic’ in Nordic Noir is a very negotiable term which, when Nordic Noir travels as a style, has very little to do with geography and much more with stylistic content. They sum up by suggesting that an emotional turn of the spatial turn of media studies might inspire the further development of location studies.
You might think you know what Nordic Noir is. Brutal crimes. Harsh landscapes. Brilliant but socially dysfunctional protagonists. Stylish knitwear. Yet, as a generic category and cultural phenomenon, Nordic Noir has always been far more complex. The story of its success owes as much to adaptation and evolution as it does to geographical migration or cosmopolitan curiosity. But how did this happen? What was it about the genre that struck such a chord with international audiences and readers? How did it build on previous trends and influences? And how has the category changed in order to survive in a cutthroat commercial landscape? Has it become less «Nordic »? Less «noir »? Has its proverbial moment in the sun passed? Featuring twelve original chapters and an editorial introduction, The Scandinavian Invasion brings together leading media and literature scholars from the UK, Denmark and Australia to critically examine how the phenomenon took shape and what we can learn from it. By exploring the cultural, aesthetic and industrial forces that propelled Nordic Noir across borders, the book provides a kaleidoscopic look at a disruptive cultural phenomenon in transition. Nordic Noir is dead. Long live Nordic Noir!
Abstract Alexi Sofia, Film Studies, Victoria University of Wellington Abstract of Master’s Thesis, Submitted 10 April 2017: “Investigating Nordic Noir” Scandinavian crime films and television series have become popular in recent years. This thesis explores some of the key texts in ‘Nordic noir’ through a discussion of detectives, the environment, and visual style. The emphasis in the project is on textual analysis. The first chapter examines the figures of Wallander and Lund in Wallander and Forbrydelsen respectively. I argue that the conflicts Nordic detectives often have between work and the domestic sphere are an indication of how gender stereotypes are challenged in the Scandinavian crime genre. The second chapter considers the role of the natural and built environments in Nordic noir. Features such as forests and water play a crucial role in Forbrydelsen because of the ways in which they create uncertainty, anticipation, and suspense. The urban spaces of Bron/Broen develop a sense of anonymity that recalls the function of the city in classic film noir. Rather than developing links between Sweden and Denmark, the series suggests that the Øresund bridge that spans the two countries is ultimately a disconnecting, centrifugal force that functions as what Marc Augé would call a ‘non-place’. The final chapter considers the role of colour and light in the films Insomnia and Jar City. My analysis demonstrates that Nordic noir encompasses more than naturalism and realism. Like classic and neo-noir, it includes a range of expressive aesthetic strategies that serve both narrative and thematic functions.
As the book’s introduction, this chapter argues that Nordic noir is an under-recognized and in fact constitutive element of Nordic noir and in so doing, reframes the prevailing critical view. Born from the genre of Scandinavian crime fiction and now celebrated for its regional and global sweep, Nordic noir has not been understood as the thoroughly transnational and transmedial phenomenon it is. Deploying the concepts and tools of current adaptation studies to undertake a wide-ranging geographical, transcultural, and intermedial exploration of Nordic noir, this volume approaches it less as a genre than as a brand, network, or family, thus adding an important new layer to the rich scholarship that has arisen around Nordic noir in recent years.
Nordic noir can be productively defined as a group style. The global popularity of prototypical Nordic noirs Forbrydelsen (The Killing, 2007–2012) and Bron/Broen (The Bridge, 2011–2018) encourages Nordic filmmakers and television producers to adapt and appropriate their conventions in the hope of reaching large audiences. Employing a specific style is a way of producing crime films and television series in an identifiable manner as Nordic noir. As a key example, the chapter analyzes how “the first Finnish Nordic noir” Sorjonen (Bordertown, 2016–) adapts and appropriates stylistic elements from The Bridge and The Killing in its use of (1) modernist art cinema elements, (2) conventions of the popular crime genre, and (3) Nordic regional elements. These are the three categories essential to Nordic noir.
Abstract Gender politics is at the heart of what crime novelist Hakan Nesser called ‘the strange genre of Nordic Noir’ (quoted in Foreshaw 2012: Preface), a contemporary body of writings with historical roots in a heavy political subtext that betrays a wider dissatisfaction with both the demise of the welfare state and the ideal of post-war utopianism in contemporary Scandinavia. Steig Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2005) quickly became regarded as a key example of the emerging new genre of Nordic Noir and one of the biggest global publishing phenomena of the twenty-first century. As a result of its popular female protagonist, Lisbeth Salander and section headings featuring damning statistical data about male violence against women in Sweden, the novel has been celebrated as a vessel for Larsson’s ‘deep feminist sympathies’ (Whitelaw 2010). Challenging claims that the novel offers a vision of female empowerment, this article instead suggests that Larsson uses his first fiction, and the wider Millennium Trilogy of which it is a part, to create and cull female characters using the men who ‘hate’ them as representations of the competing tensions between masculinity and violence in the new genre of Nordic Noir. Nordic Noir is the product of claustrophobia, of small countries in the midst of population crises, frustrated at a lack of safety promised in the post-war years and experiencing a growing lack of faith in the authorities governing them. This article suggests that beneath popular imaginaries of seemingly peaceful and equal societies, Nordic Noir exposes violent masculine authority as an expression of the relationship between the individual and the neoliberal state in the twenty-first century. Keywords: Nordic Noir, Gender, Politics, Genre Fiction, Steig Larsson. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 88 | https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/guilty-pleasures-of-political-crime-fiction | en | Guilty Pleasures of Political Crime Fiction | [
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"John Saul",
"J.W. Horton",
"John-Henry Harter",
"David Roediger",
"Lital Khaikin",
"Brian Palmer",
"Therese Jennissen"
] | null | First off, what is a “political thriller”? Wikipedia opines that thrillers “are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.” I treat the category expansively in order to cover the books I like best to read when I’m not working: mystery stories, from private eyes to police procedurals to the entanglement of “mere” private citizens in mayhem, malevolence and derring-do. A few spy novels, too, as well as various riffs on international intrigue and the murky misdeeds of corporations and governments. | en | https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/guilty-pleasures-of-political-crime-fiction | When I first arrived at Princeton University almost fifty years ago, I felt pretty green – far from home and familiar landmarks, physical and intellectual. One of my fellow grad students, simultaneously friendly and intimidating, was Phil Green, a lefty who would go on to be a member of The Nation magazine’s board and also to write a number of weighty tomes (including Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, a classic on the irrationalities of the nuclear balance of terror).
We had lunch on one of my first days in New Jersey, and I was all ears. You must read, he said, Joel Townsley Rogers’ The Red Right Hand and John Dickson Carr’s The Burning Court. Odd-sounding titles for political tracts, I thought, but I tracked them down – and what did I find? Thrillers. Good ones, too – although not particularly political – and certainly not “progressive.” What was going on here?
Read and find out, I told myself. So I began a life-long parallel pursuit to my Marxist political science and political practice: reading thrillers, which, alongside listening to jazz and playing basketball, became my principal not-so-guilty pleasures in life. Truth to tell, my reading of the philosophies of life of Lew Archer, Martin Beck, Harry Bosch, Kathy Mallory, Guido Brunetti and John Rebus ranks right up there on my personal hit parade with my exploration, then and now, of Sheldon Wolin, Bob Engler, Roderick Seidenburg, Brough Macpherson, Frantz Fanon, Baran and Sweezy, and Marx himself.
Now, flash forward from the early sixties to the present, and along comes my friend Cy Gonick to spoil my fun. Write us an article, he tells me, on “the political thriller.” Well, since you put it that way, Cy, let me think….
What is a Political Thriller?
First off, what is a “political thriller”? Wikipedia opines that thrillers “are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.” I treat the category expansively in order to cover the books I like best to read when I’m not working: mystery stories, from private eyes to police procedurals to the entanglement of “mere” private citizens in mayhem, malevolence and derring-do. A few spy novels, too, as well as various riffs on international intrigue and the murky misdeeds of corporations and governments.
Here we must add “political” into the mix. Again, Wikipedia has a suggestion: The “political thriller” is one “in which the hero must ensure the stability of the government that employs him.”
Surely not! As often as not, the government “that employs him” is as suspect as any other government or power centre. In fact, my kind of political thrillers retain a healthy skepticism about power and motivation, even when they don’t name the system that structures many such sordid realities as “capitalism.”
True, many thrillers are very skeptical about prevailing social conventions and structures. But even these can only go so far. After all, in the North Atlantic world, it’s one thing to expose the abuses of power, but quite another to create a vibrant, if contested, counter-hegemonic alternative around which plots and intrigues might swirl. The fact is that there aren’t too many alternatives out there upon which to peg and examine a full-blown (socialist?) solution – and spin a mystery, too.
No, even if we scrupulously avoid thrillers of the Right – the William F. Buckleys and the William Haggards – our enjoyment must often be compromised by political qualms. Within limits and when “the game’s afoot,” I don’t let it bother me.
Nonetheless, the quantum of left political thrillerdom that actually exists, though it remains more effective at exploring the compromised nature of power than at exemplifying the alternatives, may still be well worth contemplating.
The Left Political Thriller
Thriller writers have taken less for granted as the years have passed: the psychology tends to deepen and fewer social “certainties” can be assumed. Even as he wrote, the great pre-World War II innovator in the field, Francis Iles, saw the crime story developing into a novel with a detective or a crime interest: “The puzzle element will no doubt remain, but it will become a puzzle of character, rather than a puzzle of time, place, motive and opportunity.”
In the works of thoughtful authors, the claims made on behalf of “law and order” also became more doubtful than than before; already, Hammett (The Glass Key) and Chandler, while spinning yarns with lots of entertaining by-play, indicated that the broader social order itself didn’t smell quite right.
Indeed, the celebrated Marxist economist Ernest Mandel was probably correct to note, in his Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story, that “the history of the crime story is intertwined with the history of bourgeois society itself.” For the latter history is inevitably about property and its negation (in other words, crime), and about a society that “breeds crime, originates in crime and leads to crime” – in short, “a criminal society.”
To illustrate: One often hears the holy trinity of hard-boiled detection evoked: Spade, Marlow and Archer. And, truth to tell, Ross Macdonald, author of the Archer mysteries, is one of my favourites. “Best Canadian,” for starters (though born in the U.S.), he grew up and came to university here before returning via Michigan and the U.S. Navy to California, there to write more than his fair share of “keepers”: The Galton Case, The Chill, The Goodbye Look… I could go on. So, make that “Best Canadian” with an asterisk; perhaps the accolade itself should go to his wife, Margaret Millar – actually born, bred and educated here, although she, too, settled in sunny Cal – and a fellow thriller writer of great quality: Stranger in My Grave, Beast in View, Beyond this Point Are Monsters.
But in today’s world of globalized thriller writing, such national chauvinism may not matter. After all, they’re coming at us from all sides: Scandanavia, Italy, Japan, Latin America, Spain, South Africa – and many of them very good, indeed. More important here, as regards Macdonald, is perhaps a different question; for, aside from sheer enjoyment, what are we lefties to make of his brilliant oeuvre?
In A Long Way from Solving That One, his study examining Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer tales, Jeffrey Mahan concludes that “an important element in the conservatism of the hard-boiled detective story is its affirmation of individualism…. The moral and psychological focus of the tale is on the implications of the choices that the individual makes in living in a less than ideal world. The individualistic ethic makes difficult if not impossible the compromises that might lead to coalitions for significant social change.” A certain amount of our enjoyment even of Ross Macdonald has to be tempered by the curse of our radical consciousness. Macdonald doesn’t dig quite deeply enough into the full range of knotted contradictions that hold the U.S. together, but he is even less able to suggest what might be necessary in order to confront them.
But damn it all, I do like his books!
Perhaps it’s Swedes Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö who come closest to what we’d like to see: excellent police procedurals in which even the policemen begin to become disillusioned with the Western social order. Their ten books do not allow Sweden’s less-than-savoury realities to pass by unscathed. By the end of the series, in fact, one of the most sympathetic of the cops can’t hack it any more: Kollberg resigns the force – this in the tenth and last of the books, The Terrorists, which features a manhunt in the wake of the sobering assassination of an Olaf Palme-style politician.
Flash forward to the final scene of The Terrorists: Martin Beck, the series’ protagonist and a senior officer anchored more firmly in both his job and society than Kollberg, is spending an evening socializing with his old friend. As the book ends, Kollberg tells Beck: “The trouble with you, Martin, is just that you’ve got the wrong job. At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system.” Then it’s back to their board game, and the apparently idle chatter about the letter “X” that accompanies it. “X, as in ex-policeman,” Kollberg had “breezily” suggested earlier – “as if they all didn’t know how impossible it was it was to squeeze in one more example out of that hopeless letter.”
Now, Kollberg offers, as he settles in to play: “My turn to start? Then I say X – X as in Marx”!
Globalizing the Thriller
Nothing in the present dramatic efflorescence of Scandinavian crime fiction goes quite as far. Yet, they have refreshingly irreverent views on the people and politics shaped by the Nordic societies they know well; that, for me, is a an attractive plus.
For something more overly political than the current bounty of Nordic talents, you may wish to move south – to Spain, let’s say, and the late Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. Not that Montalbán’s own politics were so confident as he turned to thriller writing – following his own jail time for anti-Franco activities and the denouement that followed the Falangist nightmare.
But the numerous books in the series (including, recall, Murder in the Central Committee) are nonetheless refreshing – and his wry P.I., Pepe Carvalho, is clearly a leftie as revealed in his asides, references, jokes and sensibility. Maybe not a particularly hopeful one – bracing, but bruised – we might conclude of Carvalho … and of Montalbán himself.
Elsewhere, an even more jaundiced sensibility of underworld, big business and suspect government provenance, together with lively writing and plotting – it’s about the most one can hope for politically. But so many books are excellent reads, I’m loathe to quibble.
Perhaps predictably, I’d rate Ian Rankin’s John Rebus adventures quite high – not least his later novels: The Naming of the Dead and Exit Lines, for example. Here, high politics begin to intrude into the world of low crime. The lineaments of a sociology of Scotland as a criminal society are firmly in place, if not the politics of how that condition might be transcended.
But there’s also Graham Hurley (and his Joe Faraday) in Portsmouth and Jake Arnott, as well as those Canadian-based expatriates Peter Robinson (think: Yorkshire’s Inspector Ian Banks) and John Brady, of Matt Minogue fame. Add the old reliable Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Val McDermid and a host of others in both Ireland and the U.K. – along with other expatriate authors, like the Italian Donna Leon and her intriguing policeman, Inspector Guido Brunetti (and his redoubtable wife, Paola), hanging out in Venice together with the late Michael Dibdin and – no doubt – a raft of Italian literary accomplices about whom I don’t know nearly enough.
Then there’s Fred Vargas in France – and Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley (a definite pinko – see his A Red Death), Carol O’Connell, Sara Paretsky, Lee Child, S.P. Rozen and the deeply sour James Ellroy, in the US. And in Canada: Eric Wright, William Deverell, Varda Burstyn, Gilles Blunt, Pat Capponi, Rosemary Aubert. How, I ask you, am I ever to get any real work – or real politics – done?
One could advance around the globe: Qui Xiaolong take us to China, and Akimitsu Takagi and Seicho Matsumoto to Japan, Colin Cotterill to Laos, Gary Disher to Australia, Cheryl Benard to India, and Stan Jones’ Native sleuth to the Chukchi world in Alaska (as Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee once carried us to the American southwest). Plus a host of Latin Americans: from Cuban-born José Carlos Samoza to the Uraguayan Daniel Chavarria, who in crime fiction navigates the callous milieu of that continent’s military dictatorships. And, in Germany, there’s the world of the “new” migrant worker explored in Jakob Arjouni’s Happy Birthday Turk.
Global Intrigue
The spy story offers us more scope – at least in political terms. In war, cold or hot – or in the contemplation of the fate of regimes, rather than the fall-out of particular crimes – one can more easily envisage political change and the complexities and mysteries that surround it. In fact, this seemed easier in the run-up to the Second World War – who, after all, would want to write in favour of Hitler and company? – than in the Cold War, when it was less easy to distinguish clearly the merits of either the Soviets or equally imperial West. Some, like le Carré, of course, managed to ride the ambiguities of that confrontation most entertainingly. Yet, politically one feels more at home in his most recent novels, in which he tellingly exposes the connivance between governments and multinational corporations in stories that also genuinely entertain: The Constant Gardener and The Mission Song – as well as his celebrated 2003 article, “The United States of America Has Gone Mad”!
Small wonder that in the 1930s, amidst all the revealing polarizations of that period, strong writers like Eric Ambler – and perhaps Graham Greene, “slumming” – could entertain mightily, probing the horrors that loomed while also exploring possibilities (especially in Ambler’s pre-war books) that cried out in a world going mad. Small wonder, too, that one of the best of our contemporary thriller writers can still find in the sad world of the 1930s reasons for fictional protagonists to take personal risk and manifest righteousness: Alan Furst, in a glittering series that runs from Night Soldiers to The Foreign Correspondent.
That world, too, gives us Phillip Kerr’s reluctant SS man Bernie Gunther (Berlin Noir and The One from the Other), who in the post-war period unveils the scramble among both the Americans and the Russians to recruit Nazi and Gestapo operatives for their own nefarious Cold War games.
Perhaps espionage is one of the last refuges of a critical thriller of political weight. But not exclusively – and perhaps not forever. For there are other settings where deep-seated political contestation and contradiction can lend edge to crime fiction: South Africa, for example. The apartheid regime spawned the revelatory “thrillers” of James McClure and Wessel Ebersohn. But its subsequent transition from white minority rule to democracy brought startling real-life dramas to the fore, while also promising many gripping future fictions of betrayal and intrigue. The first fruits are interesting enough: Jann Turner’s Southern Cross and Gillian Slovo’s The Betrayal and Red Dust. And can we not expect the grimly anti-climactic nature, full of contradictions, of post-apartheid South Africa to produce ever-more tantalizing political thriller material?
And there are also the grim and intersecting worlds of right-wing Islam and paleolithic Bushian Christian fundamentalism (linked to corporate connivance), a world that is ripe for a “fiction” of bracing cynicism – and, just possibly, a intimation of something better. I’ve mentioned le Carré. Closer to the belly of the beast, I’ve found Daniel Fesperman’s recent novels evolving. Moving beyond the pervading grayness of the Balkans foregrounded in his early thrillers, he has more recently (in The Warlord’s Son) married the blight of feckless local Afghani internecine war-mongering to the fishing in such troubled waters by selfish corporations – and, in The Prisoner of Guantánamo, a convincing and cruel picture of both life behind the barbed wire of Gitmo and the most secret levels of government. No answers to our troubles are presented, but such troubles are revealed to us from new angles – and are revealed as having more than one singularly inhuman face.
I’m here to tell you – no surprise – that we’d better not rely on thriller writers to do our forward-thinking political work for us. But they can help us to envisage more clearly the problems that confront us with some of the realities of our world than we might otherwise do for ourselves. Besides, if you manage to take time off from thinking about and/or making the revolution, many of them are pretty neat. Enjoy! | ||||||
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Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo - the 10 Martin Beck Crime Novels.  
Roseanna,   (1965)
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke,   (1966)
The Man on The Balcony,   (1967)
The Laughing Policeman,   (1968)
The Fire Engine that Disappeared,   (1969)
Murder at the Savoy,   (1970)
The Abominable Man,   (1971)
The Locked Room,   (1972)
Cop Killer,   (1974)
The Terrorists,   (1975)
I really liked Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc), thought Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole was excellent, and I am currently reading Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallander books. So I guess I am a fan of what is called Scandi Noir. Ages ago, I read an article where some famous author said that of all the Scandi Noir books, his favourite was still the original Inspector Martin Beck series written way back in the 1960's. I was intrigued, and thought I would give the books a try - but easier said than done. It has taken me ages to find any of the series in charity shops. I have been looking for years, and have got about five of the ten books, but it was only very recently that I finally got a copy of "Roseanna", book one in the series, and I could at last start to read the books.
Per Wahloo was born in 1926, and his common law wife Maj Sjowall was born 9 years later in 1935. They were both marxists, and earned a living as journalists - Per working as a crime reporter. They wanted to write about what they thought was wrong with Swedish society, but to sugar the pill and make the message one that an audience would want to read, they came up with a ten book police procedure crime series, featuring a strange anti hero - DI Martin Beck. They thought of the series as one complete work of 300 chapters, split into 10 books each 30 chapters long. And extraordinarily they put their children to bed, and then sat up into the night writing away, each doing alternate chapters. I don't know how such a wierd approach is even possible. Sadly Per Wahloo died in 1975, just after the final book was published. Maj Stowall continued as a journalist, doing translations, and jointly wrote another book with another author - not of course about Martin Beck. Sadly Maj died in March, 2020. In August, 2015, when I wrote this introduction, I had read an interview with her in the Daily Telegraph the previous month where she said she didn't care much for Henning Mankell's Wallander books as they were too gloomy. She said you need light and shade. By coincidence, Henning Mankell wrote a very complementary introduction to Roseanna, book one in the series, in the copy I finally obtained.
It's an interesting series, crammed full of police procedural detail. Detection is a long, hard slog, and months can pass with few signs of progress. It's very much a team process, and everyone needs patience and persistence. Martin Beck is an investigating detective inspector in Central Division in Stockholm in Sweden. He is a strange, somewhat cold character, utterly devoted to his police duties to the detriment of any home life. He is married to Inga, but he practically ignores her, and spends little time with her, nor with his children Rolf and Ingrid. I can't see that Inga will put up with this much longer, and doubt that Martin will still be a married at the end of the series. As I write this I have only read book one, but first impressions are that it will be an OK, but not top rate series. It's slow going, and could do with a bit more humour. But I may change my mind as I get into the series - it's early days.
Roseanna,   (1965)
I read this book in August, 2015.
Roseanna is book one of ten in the famous Martin Beck "Scandi Noir" series written way back in 1965 by Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo. I say famous because Stowall and Wahloo are acknowledged as godparents of the dark scandanavian crime series, and most authors of Scandi Noir later series pay due homage. Perhaps it was because it was so famous and so praised, that I had too high expectations. I thought Roseanna was very slow going, and almost boring for about the first half of the book. I thought the translation by Lois Roth used quite a few very dated expressions - we don't talk of villians as "louses" any more, but perhaps we did in 1965. P.D. James was writing the The Adam Dalgleish books about the same time, and I don't recall making similar criticism. However I started to get into the book about the half way mark when I realised that the idea of using people's holiday photos to try to get at a mysterious killer appears here, some 40 years before Larsson used it in "The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo". And of course I did keep turning the pages to see if Martin Beck and his crew could catch a cunning killer.
As it's book one, we are introduced to DI Martin Beck, and his crew. Its quite a big cast. Kollberg is Beck's most trusted colleague, and Melander and Larsson are also to the fore in this book. Beck's boss is Evald Hammar - he seems to trust Beck and leaves him to get on with things. Beck is married to Inga - he was devoted to her early on, but after a year he thought she changed, and now he mostly ignores her - he works long hours, doesn't say when he will be home, and when he is home is is off by himself doing model work, or a jigsaw. He hardly seems to notice his two children - Rolf and Ingrid. I am sure this is his loss, and he is a poorer character for this. Devotion to work can be overdone. Apart from his family failings, Martin Beck seems a decent enough person, and can be very sensitive in interviewing witnesses. He seems excellent as a detective, and has developed sound police instincts - ie a police nose. He is not someone you warm too - but perhaps this may change later on.
It's quite a good story. The body of a naked woman is dredged out of a canal, and soon it is apparent that she had been savagely raped and murdered. Who is the woman, and how did she get dumped in the canal? There is a search among the missing persons files - locally first, and then intenationally. Eventually, after quite some time, a police inspector in America puts a name to the body - Roseanna McGraw. The trail has gone cold, but Martin Beck is persistent and keeps working at it, and we follow the case to the end. There is also quite a climax at the end - will the killer strike again and succeed before Beck and crew get there.
Overall I was slightly underimpressed - certainly initially, less so in the second half of the book. I think the series has potential, and I'll read on, and reserve judgment.
Links to author index and home page
Sjowall & Wahloo Heading Author Index   Go to Home Page
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke,   (1966)
I read this book in November, 2015.
This is the second book in Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series of books. I started reading them when some authors said how good the original of the Scandi Noir genre was. I was a little disappointed with book one - OK, but nothing special. However, once again, I have found the second book of a series better than book one .
It's a terrific little story, very finely paced. Not much happens, and there is a puzzle as to what it is all about, and what Beck is doing where he is. Martin was only a few hours into a long deserved holiday, when he was summoned back to take over the case of a disappeared journalist Alf Matsson. He was in Hungary on businees, and just disappeared - had he been murdered or kidnapped ? He could not have just gone up in smoke, could he ?
The story is set two years after book one. In Roseanna, Martin Beck was obsessed with the case. Here he can barely summon up a modicom of interest. It's all being done "semi" officially at the non request of a nameless politician anxious to keep in with the journalist's employers. It's not really a good reason for Martin to have to interrupt his holidays, but of course, we suspect that things at home are not "rosie", and Beck is quite pleased to abandon his family. Failing marriages seem an occupational hazard for police detectives .
Beck is an astute detective. He goes to Hungary, doesn't seem to be making any headway, but then almost gets himself killed. So he must be making some sort of progress. And yet, the Hungary story is just an aside - once solved the disappeared Alf Matsson is still disappeared. It's a strange case, and the strangeness goads Beck on to solve the mystery.
It's a gentle little story that I enjoyed reading. There is quite a lot of understated humour too. I think the quality of the series is starting to appear, and I look forward to book three. Will Martin still have a marriage ? His wife is bound to leave him soon - if not in the next book, surely in the one after that.
How can Beck be such a conscientious / sympathetic policeman, but so crass and careless of his wife and family ? Interesting characters are full of flaws and contradictions.
Links to author index and home page
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The Man on the Balcony,   (1967)
I read this book in November, 2015.
This is book three in the highly acclaimed Martin Beck Swedish series, and it's a terrific story - an excellent blend of despair / futility / world weariness / and humour. Unusually, the book is exactly about what it says in the title.
Martin Beck is now a superintendent. The story is about a mugger in the town parks who seems to know his way around the parks, and has escaped many times, and a sexual deviant who attacks and molests / kills young girls. Martin and the crew throw everything into catching the child molester - each time that he strikes brings despair to the team.
It's an excellent police team procedural story - we follow the man hunt from start to finsh. Sjowall and Wahloo are both Marxists, and use this book to comment on a rotten society, as they see it. They paint a bleak picture of the "swinging sixties" in Sweden - sexual freedom, free love are misnomers - it's all described as a failed society. This message is clearly there, but it's not overdone. Kollberg and Beck make a good team. Of the rest, Beck doesn't like DI Larsson, nor pipe smoking Menander with his photographic memory (cf Beate Lonn in Joe Nesbo's Inspector Harry Hole books), Ronn is the dimmest of policeman, and its left to chance and Kristansson and Kvant, bone-headed patrolmen, to catch the molester.
Martin is still married to Inga, but there is no mention of his two children. It's not a happy marriage, doomed to failure.
I like the world weariness of the book. Beck doesn't think much of his colleagues abilities, but he doesn't think much of his own either. It's definitely a series worth reading.
Links to author index and home page
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The Laughing Policeman,   (1968)
I read this book in August, 2016.
This is book four in the highly regarded Martin Beck Swedish series. I am reading this series because I read in some interview that of all the "scandi noir" series, the original one was never bettered. I am not sure that I fully agree with that, but I do agree that it is a good, interesting series. It was written in the 1960s, some 30 to 40 years before Wallander or Harry Hole , or Stieg Larsson's The Millennium Trilogy. And it does have all the features that we see being copied later - Beck a disfunctional team leader with a temper, a brilliant forensic analyst, Larsson, a giant of a man, and one with a brilliant memory (Melander).
Martin Beck is still a detective superintendent in the Swedish central homicide squad - a division called on to help the municipal police in major incidents. Martin is still married to Inga, but he sleeps on the couch in the living room. They have two children - a daughter Ingrid (16), his favourite, and a son, Rolf. Beck works for Chief Superintendent Hammar, and the team also include Beck's colleague and friend Lennart Kollberg who is happily married to Gun, Gunvald Larsson, Ronn, and Melander. Beck usually phones Kollberg before he sets out to work each morning, and they take the same train in together. Failing that, they always travel in the last coach, and so meet that way. Strangely, the team all seem to be friends, but there is a lot of bitching between them at work, and they almost converse in snarls. It all seems a bit strange.
There is a new member in the team, the young Ake Stenstrom, married to Asa. He has been there for some 18 months, a raw recruit lacking self confidence, and is trying hard to win his colleagues respect. This is the background to the story. An apparent madman on a double decker bus shoots and kills all 8 passengers at a quiet place near the bus terminus, and disappears unseen into the night, leaving no clues whatsoever. But there is one clue - one of the passengers on the bus was a policeman. At first Beck is fearful as he cannot contact his friend Kollberg - was he the victim ? We soon learn that the dead policeman was Stenstrom, and the clue lies in answering the question - what was Stenstrom doing on the bus ?
It's quite a good, original story that I don't want to spoil, but behind the slaughter on the bus is an unsolved case from about 11 years earlier. This was the Teressa killing - a very high profile case that got massive national cover and resources, but could not be solved. Any detective managing to solve such a case years later would earn a formidable reputation. So Beck and his colleagues must solve an old mystery, and at each stage of their investigation they find that Stenstrom got there before them!
Beck's daughter Ingrid gives her dad a copy of "The Laughing Policeman" record for his Christmas, and a lot later Beck cannot help but laugh out loud at the very end of the book, when a missing page from Stenstom's notes is finally found. Hence the title, I supose ? Mostly, though, its a good, well written, police procedural story, and we have all got to know Beck and his team a bit better. I look forward to reading the next installment.
Links to author index and home page
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The Fire Engine that Disappeared,   (1969)
I read this book in September, 2016.
This is book five in the Martin Beck Swedish, police procedural series that lead the way and inspired so many of the later "Scandi Noir" writers. With hindsight, it's a pity that I didn't read this series first, because I am getting it all back to front. I keep thinking Beck is just like Wallander or Harry Hole , but of course they are the ones that came 40 odd years later, and they are the ones that are just like Beck.
The book I read had an introduction by Colin Dexter , who admitted that whilst, of course, he knew of Sjowell and Wahloo by reputation, he had never read any of their 10 famous Martin Beck books, rather put off by by the authors' Marxist leanings, and the strange Swedish place and people names. Having read this book, he was a convert, and was going to read the rest of the series. I agree with both Colin's points, but the Marxist slant is not overdone, and there is lots of humour to offset this. But I too do struggle with the strange names, and can't remember who is who, of the incidental cast. The book I read had a good definition of what a police procedural novel comprised. Such books first appeared about the end of the second world war, and the American author Lawrence Treat's "V as in Victim" of 1945 is said to be the first. But the actual term was not used until 1956. Generally you have a bigger cast of people, and follow the detailed procedures as they do their best to go about their difficult tasks solving major crimes at the same time as working of all sorts of other cases. We follow the fortunes of the main characters as they develop from book to book.
In this book, all the main characters are here again, but there is a new recruit in detective Skacke, a replacement for Stenstrom. He is rather looked down upon, especially by Kollberg and Larsson, and given trivial tasks to do to keep him out the way, but he seems an able enough detective. How fitting that he saves Kollberg's life at the end of the book.
The story opens with two separate events that happen on the same day - someone commits suicide, but leaves a note with Martin Beck's name written on it, and Larsson is helping out with a bit of serveillance work, when the house he is studying suddenly explodes. Larsson manages to rescue most the people in the house, is a hero, is on sick leave and to be awarded a medal. Melander convinces everyone that the house gas explosion was caused by a man called Malm also committing suicide, but Larsson returns to work, does not accept this explanation, and digs and digs to prove otherwise. Both Melander and Larsson are correct - it was both attempted murder and suicide. We follow the story as the team keep at it, and eventually most of the breakthrough comes from Mansson, a detective in another district. Beck himself plays mostly a background role. The part about the fire engine that disappeared is a bit contrived. Ronn has bought his young son, a large, expensive toy fire engine, and this disappears from their flat. Ronn obsesses about it - and the real fire engine that should have attended the house explosion also disappeared. Why this happened is a clue. At the end of book, Ronn is very impressed by Mansson's skills, and he invites him home for a home cooked meal - and casually mentions that they still cannot find the missing toy !
Beck's marriage is all but over - he and his wife simply live in the same house. Daughter Ingrid is 17, and leaves home for a flat of her own. She asks her dad, why doesn't he leave as well ?
All in all, an interesting read, and yes it's a good series.
Links to author index and home page
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Murder at the Savoy,   (1970)
I read this book in November, 2016.
This is book six of ten in the Martin Beck Swedish, police procedural series. It's a series that seems to get better and better, and it's certainly one that I enjoy. I don't even mind the Marxist authors' on going comments about all that is wrong in the Welfare state in Sweden - very much a theme with them, but not yet overdone. I just let them have their say, and then we all get on with the story.
The book opens with Martin, a DCI in charge of Sweden's national murder squad, in his new flat in Stockholm. He has finally left his wife, but they had been leading separate lives for years. Divorce and mild depression is par for the course for crime fiction detectives - our heros are brilliant sleuths, but disfunctional, troubled men. As I've mentioned before, Wallander seems a later carbon copy of Martin Beck.
We now switch to the story proper. Victor Palmgren is a powerful, but ruthless industrialist, who cares nothing for the feelings of others, for the conditions of his employees, etc. All he wants to do is maximise profit. We later learn that some of his companies are shady enterprises dealing in arms with countries on the Swedish blacklist. He is clever, powerful, covers his tracks well, and plenty people seem very willing to turn a blind eye. Anyway, he is giving a speach at a small group gathering at the Savoy Hotel in Malmo - just his young trophy wife there, and MD's of some of his companies. A man walks in to the room, draws a pistol, shoots Palmgren in the head, and escapes through an open window at the side of the room. Is it a political assassination, or the work of a madman ? Mansson is the detective in charge in Malmo, but the national police chief calls in Beck to take charge of the case. Martin is under pressure to solve the case quickly. I say under pressure, but he seem remarkably immune to this pressure. We then follow the story as Beck and Mansson work steadily to chase up leads. Some days nothing happens, other days some progress is made. Some times Beck in Malmo calls his friend and colleague Kollberg to do some work for him in Stockholm. Eventually there is a stroke of luck, a posible name for the murderer is discovered, and the case is solved quite simply without any climactic shoot out. I guess it's all very realistic. A beginning, a middle and an end, and all very beleivable.
There is quite a bit of humour in this story. The two dumb cops in Stockolm, Kriastansson and Kvant, make an appearance and a mess of picking up a suspect - distracted by a story involving the three little piggies. We met Asa Torell before, a young vice squad policewoman and widow. She also is in Malmo, and is booked into the same hotel as Martin Beck. Martin is old enough to be her father, but both are lonely, lost souls, and so they find themselves in bed together, perhaps for the first and only time, but who knows. When Asa is asked if she is now returning to Stockholm, she says yes, she has "accomplished all she wanted to do in Malmo" and looks at Martin with bright innocent eyes. The book is full of super little touches.
I thought this book series started off slowly, and perhaps I wondered if it was as good as it's reputation, but I have no doubts now. As an extra bonus there were extra sections to the book, essays on the authors and notes about some other writing partnerships - and these I found very interesting.
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The Abominable Man,   (1971)
I read this book in November, 2016.
This is book seven of the ten part series featuring DCI Martin Beck, now head of Sweden's murder squad. The authors of this series are a husband and wife team Sjowall and Wahloo, who are Marxist leftist communists. They seem to be writing a sustained attack on what they describe as an attempt to find a middle way between communism and capitalism - namely the welfare state, and specifically the welfare state in Sweden. They paint a bleak, gloomy picture of a country in a terrible state, and a disillusioned, jaundiced, politicised police force fighting a losing battle to maintain law and order, but being vilified in the process.
Put like that, who would want to read such a series - but it's well written, Martin Beck is an interesting character, there are some good stories, and there are touches of humour. I didn't enjoy reading this book, but I don't regret reading it, and I can see why the series is so respected.
As always, there are two parts to the story. Part one is the plot, and part two is another instalment in the private lives of Beck and his colleagues - but I am not going to say too much here in case it might be a spoiler. As for Asa Torrell and Martin, there is no further mention ?
First to the plot. The book opens with a high ranking policeman ill in hospital, weak, and unable to defend himself. A madman comes in through the window, attacks the policeman with a bayonet with brutal efficiency, and escapes. It's a revenge killing on a beast of a man who almost deserved to die, but feelings for revenge poison the killer's mind, and soon he is at war against the whole police force. All our heroes, Beck, Kollberg, Larsson, and Ronn come under attack, and the book climaxes with a mass shooting. Who will survive to the next book ?
It's a sad, bleak world. Who would want to be a policeman ? No one seems to be happy with his work, and they don't seem to like each other, and don't really mix socially. But when the chips are down, and a police colleague is injured, his colleagues are not slow in puting their own lives at risk. It's not team spirit as such, but it's something.
These books seem to be getting gloomier and more political as the series progresses. It's not a book to be read for enjoyment, but it's a series deservedly praised, and of course I'll read on. But I don't expect any happy endings.
I'm going to read Hamish Macbeth next to cheer myself up.
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The Locked Room,   (1972)
I read this book in January, 2017.
This is book 8 in the excellent Martin Beck series - the series that lead the way for Scandi Noir, e.g. Jo Nesbo , and Henning Mankell. This isn't the best book in he series, but it's good enough. I read it quickly, which is always a good sign.
Beck has been on sick leave for 15 month recovering from a near fatal shooting. Now he is back at work as the DCI in charge of the Swedish National Murder Squad. All the usual characters are back, but now they are no longer working for Martin Beck. They have been seconded to the Robbery Section and are working for a public prosecutor, Bulldozer Olsson. Olsson is a strange character. He is clever, but unfortunately not clever enough. From paid informants, he knows the names of the mastermind and the two major criminals behind a series of bank robberies, but he cannot get any proof. In spite of this, though, he is constantly 100% confident - but falsely confident. Really this Bulldozer should not be in charge of anything. Morale in the police force is at rock bottom. Most police are either stupid, or, if detectives, massively overworked. Another bank robbery takes place, and this time an innocent bystander is killed. Through bad luck a criminal by the name of Mauritzon finds himself in police custody. He is guilty of many things, but not this latest bank robbery, for which he is eventually convicted. Strangely and wrongly, this is regarded as fair enough, because there is insufficient evidence to get a conviction for the things (including murders ) that he did do. Beck had managed to get him to confess to a murder that he did do, and had secretely taped this confession, but it turned out that the tape recorder was broken. Nothing in Sweden seems to work, in the sad, jaundiced picture of Sweden painted by Sjowall and Wahloo.
On his return to work, Beck had been given an apparent suicide case to work on - the Svad case, who was found dead in a 'locked room'. Beck worries at the case, and as part of a comprehensive investigation tracks down Svad's former landlady, Rhea. Martin and Rhea like each other, and sort of start seeing each other regularly. Beck is almost a happy man, for once.
I'm sure as the authors intended, I worked out who the real bank robbers were. Apparently, it's only the stupid police who cant follow the clues. Whilst Beck had not been involved in the bank robberies investigation, he had found that his Svad case and the robberies were linked. Martin solves his 'locked room' case, but cannot prove it - so his bosses think he has lost his touch, and decide to sit on their earlier decision to promote Beck to Commissioner. Martin is delighted at this - he likes murder solving, not pen pushing.
I thought there was the usual surfeit of Marxist opinion as to the dire state of Swedish society. Also there didn't seem to be enough of Martin Beck in this book - hence my opinion that this is not the best in the series. Also there was nothing about Beck's children.
I have only got books 9 and 10 to read, and hopefully book 9 will have more of Martin Beck in it, and I hope the series ends in some fitting a way in book 10. All in all though, this is a worthy member of a classic series.
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Cop Killer,   (1974)
I read this book in February, 2017.
This is book 9 in the excellent Martin Beck series set in Stockholm, and written by Marxist husband and wife Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. They paint a terrible picture of 1960s Sweden. Sadly I have no idea if there is any truth in this picture, but surely I can't be true, can it ?
They write of a politicised police force in a country where the welfare state approach has failed society. The police don't like their fellow colleagues, are ruled by incompetent chiefs, and half the force have insufficient intelligence to do their job. And life is getting worse instead of better.
Our hero, Martin Beck, is in a better place himself in his private life. Not only is he still seeing Rhea, but he and Rhea have fallen in love, and very importantly, there is someone for Martin to return home to.
As part of a sense of a series coming to an end, we meet up with a lot of Martin's old colleagues again - only they are scatterd throughout various branches of the police force, and no longer concentrated in a special team under Beck. Martin is still head of Sweden's Murder Squad, and does have his collegue Lennart Kollberg still working alongside him, but like everyone else, with integrity, Kollberg is fed up being a policeman under the current set up. By the end of the book he has typed his letter of resignation - and this letter is a good summing up of what has gone wrong ( in the author's somewhat biased opinion). Will Martin Beck be the next one to resign in the final book, I wonder - but what else could he do?
We also meet once again two criminals put away by Beck in previous books, but now released. Folke Bengtson was the murderer of book 1 - an insane sex maniac, who should never have been released from prison. Folke is blamed when his female neighbour, Sigbrit Mard, goes missing, presumed murdered. Beck's boss, Malm, orders Beck to arrest Folke, even though there is only circumstantial evidence. The papers are braying for an arrest, and Malm is governed by what the papers say. The papers usually get things wrong, but this is ignored. And so the plot is set up - did Folke kill his neighbour Sigbrit?
The local police officer where Folke and Sigbrit lived is Hergott Allwright, and Martin likes the decent, honest Allwright. Not all police officers are incompetent, it's just that the system eventually conspires against them.
It's a well written series, highly praised, and I can see why. There is quite a lot of humour too, mostly in describing the police raids that go wrong, and the all too persistent bungling by the Swedish police. This is course a work of fiction, and hopefully things were not as bad as described by Sjowall and Wahloo.
I look forward to concluding the series with the next and last book. I wonder what will happen to Martin, and did Kollberg really resign ? However, I think my conclusion will probably be that 10 books is probably sufficient, and I doubt that I will long for a book 11. It's all really quite depressing, and enough is enough.
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The Terrorists,   (1975)
I read this book in February, 2017.
I started reading this excellent Martin Beck series in August, 2015, and now I have come to book 10, the final in the series. As I started to read it, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was intended for Martin Beck. Was it to be a hero's death, or could Martin and Rhea have a happy ending? Usually when we read a series we know that, no matter what dangers the hero faces, if there is another book in the series, the hero will survive. Well that doesn't apply here. The authors intended to write only 10 books, and this is the last. I usually try not to spoil the story for anyone else by giving away endings, and I'm not going to do that here. But I thought it was a good, appropriate ending - and I'll leave you to work out what that means.
It's a good story, and as appropriate for a final book, we get to meet once again a lot of the characters from books 1 to 9. So we have Martin Beck and his girlfriend Rhea, Kollberg who really did resign in book 9 and his wife Gun, Benny Skacke, Kollberg's replacement, Gunvald Larsson, a giant of a man, Melander with the good memory, and Ronn, a fine policeman, Mansson in Malmo, Bulldozer the public prosecutor, Malm, Martin's boss, and even Hergott Allwright from book 9. It's a stellar cast of strong characters.
There are several smaller stories - eg Rebecka Lind is an 18 year old single mother who finds herself in court as a bank robber simply for asking to borrow money - Rebecka is ground down by the system, and surprisingly appears again at the end of the book. The main story that gives the book it's title concerns 4 of the frighteningly efficient and deadly ULAG terrorist group, in Sweden to assassinate a visiting American senator, and former presidential candidate. Martin Beck is in charge of long range security and planning to protect the visitor - its a formidable task, but who better? We don't share all of Martin's plan and so we get surprises as it unfolds. I am not sure the trick he devises to outwit the terrorists would work nowadays - he would never get 100% co-operation from the media. The story has two parts - can the senator be protected, and then can the terrorists be captured. The main terrorist is Reinhard Heydt -as formidable a foe as any - but two of his companions, Japanese martial art experts are also lethal. Can Martin and his colleagues win through ?
As usual we get the Marxist propaganda throughout the book, but allowing Sjowall and Wahloo their say is the price we have to pay in return for this cracking series. Overall I would say the series is as good as its reputation - not the best ever series, but an excellent one nevertheless. I think 10 books are sufficient - I think the tale has been told, I am satisfied and I don't long for more.
This series led the way for the later Wallander series, and at the time of writing I still have two Wallander books to read. I wonder what sort of ending Wallander will have ?
All in all, a thoroughly recommended series.
Links to author index and home page
Sjowall & Wahloo Heading Author Index   Go to Home Page | ||||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 1 | https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/per-wahloo/ | en | Book Series In Order | [
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Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Publication Order of Inspector Jensen Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Martin Beck Books
with Maj Sjöwall
Publication Order of Anthologies
Per Wahloo is a Swedish author known for his crime fiction novels. Born in 1926 in Kungsbacka Municipality in Halland, he is sometimes known as Peter Wahloo in English. He debuted as a novelist with his first novel, The Lorry, being published in 1962. The book is also known by the title A Necessary Action. He is the son of writer and journalist Waldemar and had one brother.
Per Wahloo’s last novel was The Terrorists, which was released one year after he passed away in 1975 from an unsuccessful pancreatic operation done to try and address his cancer in Malmo, Sweden at the age of 48 (the book was published in 1976). The book was authored with the help of Maj Sjowall, his common-law partner and fellow Marxist for thirteen years. He is buried in the central cemetery’s memorial garden at Malmo Sankt Pauli.
Maj Sjowall wrote the detective/crime fiction Martin Beck series with him and includes a total of ten novels. In 1971, they won the Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America for their book, The Laughing Policeman, which features the police detective working in Stockholm. Many of their Beck books have been filmed. There was a television series that ran in Sweden from 1997 to 2015 that brought the character of Detective Inspector Beck to life starring Peter Haber as Beck. This series was shown in England with English subtitles as well when the BBC purchased it and aired the series in 2015.
Before he was a writer and after finishing school, Per was a crime reporter from 1947 and onwards. Wahloo started in the field and worked in 1949 as a permanent employee of the Evening Post. However, he embraced freelance work in the fifties and was very busy writing film articles and theater reviews for different papers before going to Stockholm to live.
He spent some time traveling all around the world before going back to Sweden and getting back to crime journalism. He was largely done with journalism around 1964, but went on to work for a journal called Tidsignal (Time Signal in English) for five years and served on the editorial board for the journal. His leftist tendency came to influence and define his early novels, which largely focused on power and the right. One example of this is the 1962 novel A Necessary Action and his Dictatorship series.
He is the author of The Chief, The Wind and Rain, A Necessary Action, The Stell Spring, The Assignment, Murder on the Thirty-First Floor, and The Generals. Wahloo is known for being one part of the couple that invented the genre of Nordic noir. He is also credited as an inspiration for the Norweigan writer Jo Nesbo.
The first book in the Martin Beck Series is titled Roseanna. First published in 1965, this is the first book where readers get to meet the Detective Inspector Martin Beck. Part of the Stockholm Homicide Squad, he works diligently to solve cases and catch those who have committed crimes– mainly, murder.
Beck soon is involved in a new case when a young woman turns up dead in Sweden’s Lake Vattern. The detective is assigned to the case, working on it along with the small local police force. However, initially, they have nothing to go on and don’t even know who the woman is, let alone the killer.
Eventually, they find out who the woman is: Roseanna. A free spirit who liked to travel and enjoy life and sex, her life was cut tragically short in a beautiful setting when she was relentlessly strangled to death. Now operating with a cause of death, all that they know is that she was on board a cruise with eighty people.
A little more than three months in, Beck has no idea who the killer is, but the thing that has made him so successful in his career is the fact that Martin Beck obsesses over his cases. It has ruined his marriage– or perhaps his marriage was never destined to last as he married his wife and she slowly became less and less happy. Even though they have two children together, Beck is much more engaged with the cases he covers than his family– that much is certain. Beck creates model ships to pass the time and work through cases.
When the murder turns out to be a rape as well, the case gets personal. Beck aligns with local detective Ahlberg, and they pore over the details of the case together. They communicate frequently, going over the information that they have and trying to figure out how they can get more leads. When they get the help of Detective Kafka from Nebraska, who interviews individuals who were familiar with the victim, the case slowly starts to gain traction.
Beck is a detective that goes with the info he has and his gut too. But as the pieces start to come together, does the killer know that they are on to him– and can they get to him before he finds them first? Read this exciting debut novel in the Martin Beck series to find out!
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke was published in 1996 and is the second book to feature the now-famous Detective Inspector. When Beck is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a prominent Swedish journalist a full two years since his Roseanna case.
Beck’s not on vacation for more than a day and a night before he is rung up and given the case. Alf Matsson disappeared without warning, and the detective inspector must travel to Budapest to try and find the journalist– alive or dead. But Budapest is full of more danger than he may have even realized.
When Beck stumbles into a totally different racket on his journey to find the journalist, he may be risking his life as the dangerous characters of the Hungarian underworld start to be alerted to his presence. The journalist left behind his luggage and key, so it seems like it was a kidnapping of some kind after all.
As the detective tries to retrace the steps of the missing journalist and getting little help from the police, it’s up to Beck to dodge smuggling racket members and find this man once and for all. Read this exciting crime fiction novel to see if Matsson can be found and if Beck can make it out of the country alive! | |||||
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] | 2022-05-28T08:51:36+01:00 | en | https://crimefictionlover.com/tag/maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/ | Paul Burke: The five books that got me hooked on crime fiction
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Raven: The five books that got me hooked on crime fiction
I became hooked on crime fiction thanks to the encouragement of my mum who started me reading, and gave me the keys to the crime kingdom with her crime and thriller collection very early on. Having quickly rejected the Golden Age – far too dull for my…
NagaiSayonara: The five books that got me hooked on crime fiction
Two years ago, we asked all our contributors to think about the five books that got them hooked on crime fiction. You can see what everyone said here. But since 2013 we’ve had new joiners and their favourites haven’t been honoured. So we’re going to…
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With its ancient port, the city of Bristol in the West of England used to welcome merchants from all around the world. They came to trade trinkets, wool, corn and cotton and even people. Those days are long gone, but this weekend the city was inviting…
Interview: Cilla and Rolf Börjlind
Swedish crime-writing couple Cilla and Rolf Börjlind have gone from writing TV and film scripts for Wallander, Arne Dahl and the Martin Beck series to their own literary creation. Their debut novel, Spring Tide, has been translated into more than 25 languages – and it…
CIS: My classics by Arne Dahl
When Swedish literary author Jan Arnald writes crime fiction, he uses the name Arne Dahl. His books about Stockholm’s Intercrime Squad – such as The Blinded Man, Bad Blood and To the Top of the Mountain – are being translated into English and gaining plenty… | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 10 | https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/invisible-ink-no-115-per-wahloo-7576195.html | en | Invisible ink: No 115 - Per Wahloo | [
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] | 2012-03-17T19:54:13+00:00 | It often takes around 20 years for a forgotten author to be rediscovered. With the Scandinavian crime boom still rolling on, it's good to see attention returning to the first Stieg Larsson. Per Wahloo was a Swedish crime writer born in 1926 who worked as a journalist and editor of a left-wing literary magazine before turning to unusual thrillers. Sound familiar? | en | /img/shortcut-icons/favicon.ico | The Independent | https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/invisible-ink-no-115-per-wahloo-7576195.html | It often takes around 20 years for a forgotten author to be rediscovered. With the Scandinavian crime boom still rolling on, it's good to see attention returning to the first Stieg Larsson. Per Wahloo was a Swedish crime writer born in 1926 who worked as a journalist and editor of a left-wing literary magazine before turning to unusual thrillers. Sound familiar?
He's best known for his collaborative work with his partner Maj Sjowall on a series of 10 novels featuring the detective Martin Beck. The couple wrote alternate chapters and set the tales in the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm, but their style was far removed from Larsson's dense, explanatory prose. Their approach was spare and unsentimental, detailed but disciplined.
Politicised at an early age, Wahloo became a committed Marxist, and used the traditional structure of the crime novel to take a scalpel to what he saw as a morally compromised society. Beck was not a lone detective making a deductive leap but a stubborn logician relying on teamwork and methodology to solve crimes. He had a failing marriage and eventually took a liberal lover. In the earlier novels, Beck's sympathy for downtrodden criminals was never overplayed as polemic, but he slowly polarised until he came to believe that he was part of the problem rather than the solution, and grew to doubt his role as a policeman. The later books reinterpreted the lawbreakers as vanguards of revolution within an increasingly violent Swedish society.
Sadly, Wahloo died at 48 (Larsson died at 50), without getting to see his work turned into films and a successful long-running television series.
The Beck books were greatly admired, but Wahloo's two novels featuring Chief Inspector Jensen are more intellectually intriguing, even if politics drowns the suspense. Jensen lives in a soulless futuristic dystopia where Wahloo's worst fears have come to pass. Drunkenness has been criminalised, city centres have been destroyed by highways, and the population is kept sedated with junk entertainment.
In Murder on the Thirty First Floor, Jensen investigates a Murdoch-like corporation facing bomb threats, and discovers an enemy deeply rooted in a fascistic society. In The Steel Spring, he returns from hospital to find streets eerily empty and homes barricaded as an engineered epidemic conveniently purges dissenters. Jensen is no liberal hero but a puritanical conformist, and we never know if he learns from what he discovers.
Vintage has reissued both volumes. | ||||
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7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 53 | http://authorscalendar.info/wahloo.htm | en | Per Wahlöö | [
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] | null | [] | null | null | Swedish writer and journalist, who published with his wife Maj Sjöwall the widely translated books of Martin Beck and his colleagues at the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm. The series was an attempt to take a critical, Marxian look at the Swedish society within the framework of a detective novel. The critic and awarded mystery writer H.R.F. Keating selected the first volume, Roseanna (1965), in 1987 for his list of the one hundred best crime and mystery novels. All of the Martin Beck books have been filmed. In addtion, a number TV films have been based on the characters the couple created.
"Elofsson was following the normal procedure. He had grabbed the boy's jacket with both hands. The next step was to pull the victim closer and drive his right knee into the man's groin. And that would take care of that. The same way he had done it so many times before. Without firearms." (from Cop Killer, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, 1975)
Per Wahlöö was born in Göteborg, the son of Waldemar and Karin (Svensson) Wahlöö. After graduating from the University of Lund in 1946, he worked as a journalist, covering criminal and social issues for a number of newspapers and magazines. In the 1950s Wahlöö was engaged in radical political causes, activities that resulted in his deportation from Franco's Spain in 1957. Before becoming a full-time writer, he wrote a number of television and radio plays, and was managing editor of several magazines.
As a novelist Wahlöö made his debut with Himmelsgeten (1959), which was followed by others dealing with abuses of power and the dark side of the society.
Wahlöö's science fiction thrillers include Mord på 31 (1965, The Thirty-first Floor), which was filmed as Kamikaze 1989, starring the director Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his final screen role. The story was set in a futuristic Germany. Stälspranget (1968, Steep Spring) depicted a deadly plague in an unnamed European country. The protagonist in these both novels was Chief Inspector Jensen. Generalerna (1965), a trial novel set in a military state, reflected Wahlöö's views on dictatorship. Lastbilen (1962) was published in the United States as A Necessary Action and in Britain as The Lorry. Uppdraget (1963), set in a Latin American country, gained an international success. It was translated into English under the title The Assignment.
Wahlöö's first work as a scriptwriter was Flygplan saknas (1965, Aircraft Missing), co-written with Arvid Rundberg, directed by Per Gunvall, and starring Olle Johansson, Birgit Nordin and Runar Martholm. With the veteran film director Arne Mattsson he made three films between 1965 and 1967, beginning from an adaptation of Jan Ekström's crime novel Morianerna. British censors cut two minutes from the original release, which contains nudity, voyerism, a psychopath, and a rape of maid.
In 1961 Wahlöö met Maj Sjöwall when they were working for magazines published by the same company. At that time Wahlöö was married, Sjöwall was a single parent of a daughter and already twice divorced. Both were members of the Communist Party. Although Wahlöö didn't want to cheat his wife, they began to meet after work, and eventually became lovers, but never officially married. Until 1969, the couple lived in Stockholm, but they kept contact with the KRW (Kronkvist-Rooke-Wahlöö) group from Malmö, where they lived and worked from 1969.
Their carefully planned crime novel series, with the undertitle "roman om ett brott" (the story of a crime), was created in the evenings, after the children had been put to bed. Starting from Roseanna (1965), the project ended ten years and ten books later with Terroristerna (1975). According to Wahlöö, their intention was to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of the ideological pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois type." ('Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly, 1985, p. 947) The narrative focused on realistic police routine and teamwork.
The first three novels, Roseanna, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966), and The Man on the Balcony (1967), were straightforward police procedural novels, written in reportal, spare style, similar to that of Georges Simenon. They introduced the central characters – the solid, methodical detective Martin Beck with failing marriage, ex-paratrooper Lennart Kollberg, who hates violence and refuses to carry a gun, Gunvald Larsson, a Mike Hammer-type in police forces and a drop-out from high society – Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat"– Einar Rönn from the rural north of Sweden, and patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvant, the necessary comic pair.
Beck considers himself "stubborn and logical, and completely calm". He lives in a small apartment in Stockholm with his wife, Inga, and two children. In the following books Beck's relationship with his wife deteriorates, and he begins an affair with the liberal Rhea Nilsen. Larsson's character, played by Mikael Persbrandt in TV films, made a gradual change from a misogynist into a sensitive man with a heart of gold deep down.
Roseanna, a story of rape-murder of an American girl, Roseanna Mc Graw, whose body in found in a Swedish canal, was not an immediate success. Some reviewers felt that the novel was too dark and brutal, but its publication in English translation in 1967 sparked the interest of a worldwide audience. "A fine example of the police procedural," said H.R.F. Keating. "So, as one puts the book down, one is apt to think a good story, and interesting, but also, in the words of the newspaper advertisement, 'all human life is there'." ('Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: Roseanna,' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating, 1987, p. 138)
Until The Story of a Crimeseries Swedish detective novels had been apolitical, conservative or occasionally liberal, but Sjöwall and Wahlöö managed to revive interest in a genre generally overlooked by leftist intellectuals. Readers were ready to accept their new approach, the introduction of political ideas as part of crime fiction. The theme of class conflict was not defined right from the beginning, but its weight grew step-by-step, in the context of social problems the novel exposed.In the final volume the foundations of the welfare state start to shake. The murder of the prime minister signals the end of the Social-Democratic project of Folkhemmet (the people's home).
The Laughing Policeman (1968), about the investigation of the murder of eight occupants of a Stockholm bus, was adapted to screen in 1973, directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, and Lou Gossett. "Police movies so often depend on sheer escapist action that it's fun to find a good one," said Roger Ebert in his review. ('The Laughing Policeman' by Roger Ebert, December 24, 1973, RogerEbert.com) Swedish critics were unanimous in that the film had very little to do with the novel, and there was little left of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's original point of view. The story, set in San Francisco, shared its Bay area locale with Dirty Harry (1971), but was otherwise more downbeat.
By coincidence, Bo Widerberg, who made a film adaptation of the novel The Abominable Man, entitled Mannen på taket (1976), had lived in Malmö in the same building than Wahlöö's first wife Inger Wahlöö. The large-scale action scenes were shot in everyday settings, to illuminate what it means when violence takes place in the midst of a supposedly safe community "A little boy riding a creaking bicycle approaches two gunned-down police officers and asks why they are lying in the steet. A girl screams in terror when she catches sight of a couple of wounded policemen. Were it not for one of their blood-soaked hands gleaming scarlet red in the sunshine, one could think they were resting." ('The Criminal and Society in Mannen på taket' by Daniel Brodén, in Swedish Film: An Introduction and a Reader, edited by Mariah Larsson & Anders Marklund, 2005, p. 203) The killer is a former police officer, himself a victim of the conditions of the society. Politically, Widerberg was a social democrat, and his view of the society was not as acid as it was in the book.
At the end of The Locked Room (1972), Sjöwall and Wahlöö show their sympathy towards a bank robber; however, they abhor sexual violence. The novel nods to the puzzles of John Dickson Carr. In Cop Killer (1974) Lennart Kollberg writes his resignation: a socialist, he don't want to work for the system anymore. The suspected cop killer of the title, a teenager in a stolen car, is chased across Sweden.
Especially in the last novel, The Terrorists, police officers, and criminals doing their own thing, at the mercy of forces they cannot control. – Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. . . . All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."– The authors openly side with Rebecka Lind, "the novel's holy fool and sacrifical lamb, cast adrift by a society that proclaims to care for her then preys upon her as soon as her isolation leads to financial need." ('Introduction' by Denis Lehane, The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2010, p. vii) Rebecka kills the book's Swedish prime minister – this is passed shortly, perhaps a statement in itself. "No one in the novel is greatly affected by the death of the prime minister. There is no suggestion of the convulsion of grief and self-reproach that affected the country when Palme was assassinated." (Fishing In Utopia: Sweden And The Future That Disappeared by Andrew Brown, 2009, p. 128)
Beck feels alienated from his work and doubts about staying in the police force. His unhappy marriage is over. On the other hand, Beck don't have any more stomach aches. – Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?"– A telling sign of times: Chairman Mao poster get mentioned in the text. The novel ends with the lines:
"The trouble with you, Martin, is just that you've got the wrong job, At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system."
"Is that all?"
"Roghly," said Kollberg. "My turn to start? The I say X—X as in Marx."
(The Terrorists, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, 2010, p. 280)
The novel was published after Wahlöö's death in Stockholm on June 23, 1975. Though a joint venture, this volume was mostly written by Wahlöö, who was already very ill and knew he was going to die. Doctors had said that his lungs were full of water, before realizing that his pancreas had burst. After returning from Màlaga, Wahlöö took very strong morphin tablets, fell into coma, and never woke up again.
Wahlöö's other works include translations into Swedish of some Ed McBain's 87th Precinct procedural novels and Noel Behn's political thriller The Kremlin Letter, filmed by John Huston in 1970. With Sjöwall he also edited the literature magazine Peripeo, and wrote a comparative study of police methods in Sweden, the United States, Russia, and England.
The English mystery writer Julian Symons recalled Wahlöö as an extrme Left-winger whose interest in British foorball was passionate. "He wrote two novels which combine the moral symbolism of Dürrenmatt with a flavour of Orwellian fantasy. Murder on the Thirty-first Floor (1966) and The Steel Spring (1970) make their points about dictatorship and paternalism through the medium of crime. . . . The books that Wahlöö, as Per and not Peter, wrote in collabaration with Maj Sjöwall (1935-) were less ambitious and more successful." (Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History by Julian Symons, 1985, p. 182)
For further reading: 'Roman om en forbrydelse' - Sjöwall/Wahlöö's verk og virkelighed by Ejgil Søholm (1976); Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, edited by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler (1976); 'The Police in Society: The Novels of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Frank Occhiogrosso, in The Armchair Detective, no. 2 (1979); The Police Procedural by George Dove (1982); Lystmord, edited by Jørgen Holmgaard and Bo Tao Michaëlis (1984); Polemical Pulps by J. Kenneth Van Dover (1993); 'Wahlöö, Per (1926-75 and Maj Sjövall (1935-)' by Bo Lundin, in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, second edition, edited by John M. Reilly (1985); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: Roseanna,' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating (1987); 'Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö' by Nancy C. Mellerski and Robert P. Winston, in Mystery and Suspense Writers, edited by Robin W. Winks (1998); 'Sjöwall, Maj (b. 1935) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975' by J.K. Van Dover, in Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert (2003); 'Introduction' by Liza Marklund, in Cop Killer: A Martin Beck Mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'Introduction' by Dennis Lehane, The Terrorists: A Martin Beck Novel by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (2010); 'From National Authority to Urban Underbelly: Negotiations of Power in Stockholm Crime Fiction' by Kerstin Bergman, in Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes, edited by Lucy Andrew and Catherine Phelps (2013); Swedish Cops: From Sjöwall & Wahlöö to Stieg Larsson by Michael Tapper (2014); Swedish Marxist Noir: The Dark Wave of Crime Writers and the Influence of Raymond Chandler by Per Hellgren (2019); Boken om Beck: och Sjöwall Wahlöö och tiden som for by Johan Erlandsson (2020); Dictionnaire Sjöwall et Wahlöö: les pionniers du polar nordique by Yann Liotard (2020); Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser (2020) - Note: The Laughing Policeman won the best novel Edgar Award in 1971 from the Mystery Writers of America. - See also: Lawrence Treat, the creator of modern police procedural novels.
Selected works:
Himmelsgeten, 1959 (reprinted as Hövdingen in 1967)
- TV mini-series 1986, prod. Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. Lars-Göran Pettersson, starring Sten Ljunggren, Göran Engman, Gösta Engström, Lisa Hugoson, Bo Lindström, Tomas Nordström, Bert-Åke Varg
Vinden och regnet, 1961
Lastbilen, 1962
- The Lorry (UK title; translated by Joan Tate, 1968) / A Necessary Action (US title; translated by Joan Tate, 1969)
- film: Mannen i skuggan, 1978, prod. Jadran Film, Stockholm Film, dir. Arne Mattson, starring Helmut Griem, Slobodan Dimitrijevic and Gunnel Fred
Uppdraget, 1963
- The Assignment (translated by Joan Tate, 1966)
- film 1977, prod. by Nordisk Tonefilm, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), dir. by Mats Arehn, starring Christopher Plummer, Thomas Hellberg, Fernando Rey, Carolyn Seymour
Mord på 31:a våningen, 1964
- The Thirty-first Floor (US title; translated by Joan Tate, 1967) / Murder on the Thirty-First Floor (Pantheon Books; translated by Joan Tate, 1982; translated by Sarah Death, 2013)
- films: 31. osakonna hukk, 1980, prod. Gosteleradio, Tallinnfilm, dir. Peeter Urbla, starring Lembit Ulfsak (as Jensen), Ivan Krasko and Enn Klooren; Kamikaze 1989, 1982, prod. Oase Filmproduktion, Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion, Trio Film, dir. by Wolf Gremm, starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder (as Polizeileutnant Jansen), Günther Kaufmann, Boy Gobert, Arnold Marquis
Det växer inga rosor på Odenplan, 1964
Idole, 1965 (TV play, with Arvid Rundberg)
- dir. by Håkan Ersgård, starring Erik Hell, Lars Passgård, Inga Gill, Elsa Textorius, Fritz Svanberg
Generalerna, 1965
- The Generals (translated by Joan Tate, 1974)
Flygplan saknas, 1965 (screenplay (with Arvid Rundberg)
- film prod. by Nordik Tonefilm, dir. by Per Gunvall, starring Olle Johansson, Birgit Nordin and Runar Martholm
Morianerna, 1965 (screenplay with Jan Ekström, Arne Mattsson)
- film prod. Bison Film, dir. by Arne Mattsson, starring Anders Henrikson, Eva Dahlbeck, Heinz Hopf, Elsa Prawitz
Nattmara, 1965 (screenplay with Arne Mattson)
- film prod. Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. by Arne Mattson, starring Ulla Jacobsson, Gunnar Hellström, Sven Lindberg, Mimi Pollak
Mördaren - en helt vanlig person, 1967 (screenplay with Arne Mattson, Maj Sjöwall)
- film prod. by A-Produktion, dir. by Arne Mattson, starring Allan Edwall, Lars Ekborg, Britta Pettersson, Karl-Arne Holmsten, Erik Hell, Heinz Hopf
Stålsprånget, 1968
- The Steel Spring (translated by Joan Tate, 1970)
With Maj Sjöwall:
Roseanna, 1965
- Roseanna (translated by Lois Roth, 1967)
- Roseanna: romaani rikoksesta (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1969)
- film adaptations: 1967, prod. Independent film, dir. Hans Abramson, starring Keve Hjelm (as Martin Beck), Hans Ernback, Tor Isedal, Gio Petré, Hans Bendrik; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Anna Helena Bergendal
Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966
- The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (translated by Joan Tate, 1969)
- Mies joka hävisi savuna ilmaan (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1967)
- film adaptation:Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste, 1980, prod. Andre Libik, Europa Film, Mafilm 'Dialog' Studio, dir. Péter Bacsó, starring Derek Jacobi (as Martin Beck), Judy Winter, Tomas Bolme, Lasse Strömstedt, Sándor Szabó
Mannen på balkongen, 1967
- The Man on the Balcony (translated by Alan Blair, 1968)
- Mies parvekkeella (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Mannen på balkongen, 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), dir. by Daniel Alfredson, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Bernt Ström
Den skrattande polisen, 1968
- The Laughing Policeman (translated by Alan Blair, 1970)
- Bussimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1972)
- film adaptation in 1973, prod. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, dir. by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Louis Gossett Jr., Albert Paulsen. Note: the locale was shifted from Sweden to San Francisco when it was filmed.
Brandbilen som försvann, 1969
- The Fire Engine That Disappeared (translated by Joan Tate, 1970)
- Kadonnut paloauto (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation:1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, RTL, Rialto Film, dir. by Hajo Gies, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Holger Kunkel
Polis, polis, potatismos!, 1970
- Murder at the Savoy (translated by Amy and Ken Knoespel, 1971)
- Missä viipyy poliisi (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- films: Nezakonchennyy uzhin, 1980, dir. Janis Streics, starring Romualds Ancans (as Martin Beck), Ingrid Andrina, Lilita Berzina, Ivars Kalnis; 1993, prod. Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond, Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF) dir. Per Berglund, starring Gösta Ekman, Kjell Bergqvist and Rolf Lassgård
Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle, 1971
- The Abominable Man (translated by Thomas Teal, 1972)
- Komisario Beck tähtäimessä (suom. Marja-Riitta Ritanoro ja Kari Jalonen, 1974)
- film adaptation: Mannen på taket, 1976, prod. Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), dir. by Bo Widerberg, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg, Håkan Serner, Ingvar Hirdwall
Det slutna rummet, 1972
- The Locked Room (translated by Paul Britten Austin, 1973)
- Suljettu huone (suom. Kari Jalonen)
- film adaptation: De gesloten kamer, 1993, prod. Filmcase, Prime Time, dir. by Jacob Bijl, starring Jan Decleir (as Martin Beck), Els Dottermans, Warre Borgmans, Jakob Beks
Polismördaren, 1974
- Cop Killer (ttranslated by Thomas Teal, 1975; introduction by Liza Marklund, 2010)
- Poliisimurha (suom. Kari Jalonen, 1978)
- film adaptation in 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Tomas Norström, Johan Widerberg
Terroristerna, 1975
- The Terrorists (translated by Joan Tate, 1976)
- Terroristit (suom. Margit Salmenoja, 1980)
- film adaptation: Stockholm Marathon, 1993, prod. Rialto Film, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), Sveriges Television (SVT), dir. by Peter Keglevic, starring Gösta Ekman (as Martin Beck), Kjell Bergqvist, Rolf Lassgård, Niklas Hjulström, Corinna Harfouch
Sista resan och andra berättelser, 2007
Roseanna, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 1; translated from the Swedish by Lois Roth; with a new introduction by Henning Mankell)
The Man Who Went up in Smoke, 2008 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 2; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Val McDermid)
The Man on the Balcony, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 3; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; with an introduction by Jo Nesbø)
The Laughing Policeman, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 4; translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair; introduction by Jonathan Franzen)
The Fire Engine That Disappeared, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 5; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; with an introduction by Colin Dexter)
Murder at the Savoy, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 6; translated from the Swedish by Amy Knoespel; introduction by Arne Dahl)
The Abominable Man, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 7; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; with an introduction by Jens Lapidus)
The Locked Room, 2009 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 8; translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin; with an introduction by Michael Connelly)
Cop Killer, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 9; translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; introduction by Liza Marklund)
The Terrorists, 2010 (A Martin Beck Mystery: 10; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate; introduction by Dennis Lehane)
Translator with Maj Sjöwall:
Ed McBain: Hämnden, 1968 (original title: Killer's Payoff)
Ed McBain: Hotet, 1968 (original title: King's Ransom)
Ed McBain: Hatet, 1968 (original title: 'Til Death)
Ed McBain: Handen, 1968 (original title: Give the Boys a Great Big Hand)
Ed McBain: Dröjaren, 1969 (original title: He Who Hesitates)
Ed McBain: Dråpet, 1969 (original title: Ax)
Ed McBain: Deckarna, 1969 (original title: Fuzz)
Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. 2008-2024. | ||||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 51 | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/books/maj-sjowall-godmother-of-nordic-noir-dies-at-84.html | en | Maj Sjowall, Godmother of Nordic Noir, Dies at 84 | [
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] | 2020-05-04T00:00:00 | With her companion, Per Wahloo, Ms. Sjowall wrote 10 books starring Martin Beck, a laconic, flawed Swedish detective. | en | /vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/books/maj-sjowall-godmother-of-nordic-noir-dies-at-84.html | Maj Sjowall, a Swedish novelist who collaborated with her companion on a series of celebrated police procedurals that heralded the crime-fiction genre of Nordic Noir (including the wildly successful books of Stieg Larsson), died on Wednesday in a hospital in Landskrona, Sweden. She was 84.
The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Ann-Marie Skarp, chief executive of Piratforlaget, the books’ Swedish publisher. In recent years Ms. Sjowall lived on Ven, a small island off the southwestern coast of Sweden.
With their first novel, “Roseanna” (1965), about the strangling death of a young tourist, Ms. Sjowall and Per Wahloo, her writing and domestic partner, introduced Martin Beck, an indefatigable, taciturn homicide detective in Stockholm.
“He is not a heroic person,” Ms. Sjowall (pronounced SHO-vall) told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2015. “He is like James Stewart in some American films, just a nice guy trying to do his job.”
In terse, fast-moving prose, the couple wrote nine more Beck books, including “The Laughing Policeman,” which won the Edgar Award in 1971 for best mystery novel and was made into a film in 1973 starring Walter Matthau, with its setting moved from Stockholm to San Francisco. Several Swedish movies and a TV series, “Beck,” have been made based on the novels.
Mr. Wahloo died shortly before their 10th Beck mystery, “The Terrorists,” was published in 1975, and Ms. Sjowall never revisited the detective again.
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7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 66 | https://bookwitch.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | en | The Occasional Bookwitch | [
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] | null | [] | null | Posts about Per Wahlöö written by bookwitch | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | The Occasional Bookwitch | https://bookwitch.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | Except I read it in the original, so it’s really Den Osynlige Mannen Från Salem. But at least this way you know that you, too, can access Christoffer Carlsson’s award-winning first crime novel featuring Leo Junker. Because I think you might want to.
Admittedly, I hate the kind of society he’s writing about, but firmly believe that this is what people in other countries find so charming about Swedish noir. Life is dark and dismal, but because it’s not your dark and dismal, it’s all right.
This is an adult crime novel, but with enough flashbacks to Leo’s youth in a concrete-covered Stockholm suburb in the mid-1990s, that it can almost double as YA. Almost.
Leo has been relieved of his police badge after some dubious goings-on on Gotland. Not his fault, but a scapegoat was needed. And now a woman has been murdered in the flat below his, and he feels he could do with something to occupy himself with, in his half-drugged, sad state. And then it turns out it’s all much closer to home than he thought.
Maybe something to do with his friends from sixth form college? The police don’t like him much, nor do people from his past private life. It’s been tough, and the drugs are just about understandable.
There are no charming vicarages here. Very little that is nice at all, in fact. There is so little hope, even. I was glad I’d got out. Despite this being set 30 years after I was that age, it felt as if nothing had changed. I could have gone to that school. Those teenagers could have been my classmates.
It’s awful.
And it’s also very well written, and after a while I sort of liked Leo. A little. When I reached the end I did what any sane person would do and started on the attached sample chapter for the second book. Apart from having other books to read too, there is the slight conundrum of me only having the fourth, and last, book to hand. On Christoffer’s advice.
What to do?
(There are more than a few nods to Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s Martin Beck series.)
Woke too early yesterday, but saw the light – literally – from the dining room, so breakfasted while watching Son writing his thesis. Not all of it, obviously, but some of the bit of it that hadn’t got written the day before. Deadline is looming.
Over my yoghurt I was asked what I did on 23rd April 2000. I couldn’t remember, but said I’d not been invited to Shakespeare’s party, and suggested I might have been looking forward to Harry Potter no. 4. You need perspective.
Was also asked if I had a copy of Barry Forshaw’s Nordic Noir, but as I was trying to work out where I had hidden it, Son realised he’d already borrowed it and had left it at the office, which was not at all useful…
We talked about Marcel Berlins, and his fondness for the Famous Five, and about someone else I’d not even heard of. I’m flexible that way; don’t need to know what I am talking about.
I could recall when I first heard of Henning Mankell, and Son knew when the first translation into English appeared (surprisingly recently). I also knew roughly how ancient Maj Sjöwall must be and that Per Wahlöö had been older.
At some point Son was showing off his chapter pages, and Daughter admired the look until she found out it was in Word. Seems scientists don’t believe in Word.
Despite not wanting to upset Son’s proofreader with this tardiness, we all eventually took to the very snowy roads and went for brunch. There are times when I feel studded tyres would be quite welcome. This was one such time.
And despite it being intended as a [rare] weekend off, there was more thesis-ing between brunch and birthday cake and a Burns supper. Laziness must skip a generation every now and then.
‘Who’s giving Son this money then?’ the Retired Children’s Librarian asked. On being told it was SWEA she turned out to be better informed than I’d assumed (it’s a women’s organisation) and asked if they’d made a mistake. Haha. As if male candidates can’t receive a stipend from them. They can. And Son did.
Seeing as SWEA International were to hand over his prize at a ceremony in Helsingborg last night and we were actually not too far away, the Resident IT Consultant and I decided to invite ourselves to this mingling with the Mayor, followed by speeches and the handing over of flowers and pretend cheques.
Earlier in the day I’d walked past the Town Hall and noticed that the main entrance was closed, wondering if I’d not be able to make a grand entrance after all. But by the time the mingling commenced it was open and we all trotted up those imposing stairs.
The Mayor spoke about his town and then he took selfies with the assembled ladies (and three gentlemen). From there we moved into the room where the serious town hall stuff happens, and the four recipients of the prizes were introduced.
The dentist was out first; the beautiful Iranian Nikoo Bazsefidpay who has started up a Swedish Dentists sans frontieres, if you can imagine, which made her Swedish Woman of the Year (Årets Svenska Kvinna). Young children in Zimbabwe now go to school more happily in the mornings, because they get to brush their teeth there…
Next came Son for research into the Swedish language, literature and society, and even though I’d already read his speech, I found it interesting. But then I would. Son even included a photo of our bookshelves, from before he ‘borrowed’ our Martin Beck novels. We’ve not seen them since.
Third was Sami Elin Marakatt in full national dress, who taught us to say hello in North Sami (very different from South Sami, apparently). She will use her Intercultural Relations money to study cross border movements of reindeer in Tromsø. I find the way some people feel so definitely belonging in a certain geographical spot in this world so very reassuring, somehow.
Last but not least was 16-year-old ballet dancer Agnes Rosendahl, who dances all day long, and who will go to school in Copenhagen where she will dance even more. She showed us her toe-dancing shoes which, if I understood her correctly, have concrete in the tips.
After much photographing, the SWEA ladies and their winning guests walked off to Dunkers Kulturhus for a well deserved dinner. The Resident IT Consultant and I wolfed down some sandwiches in the car before driving north with Son’s flowers.
Hopefully they will not be dead when he shows up next week. Although it won’t matter; he’ll be so sleep deprived by then that he won’t see them.
I have a certain bias, but I felt that the Translation studies research seminar at the University of Edinburgh yesterday afternoon was pretty good, and really interesting. Even for me, with some prior knowledge as well as interest in the subject of Nordic Noir.
The talk by Ian Giles, aka as Son, was part of a series of seminars in the next few months, and it was merely a happy coincidence that they kicked off on what was International Translation Day.
The Resident IT Consultant and I both went. We were pleasantly surprised to find Helen Grant there too, but shouldn’t have been, as she’s both a linguist and proficient translator, when she’s not simply killing people. I introduced her to Peter Graves, making rather a hash of it. Translator Kari Dickson was also in the audience, as were other Scandinavian studies people and aspiring translators. And I was surrounded by a whole lot of Chinese whispers. Literally.
Nordic Noir didn’t begin with something on television five years ago. It’s been coming a long time, and Ian is on its trail, trying to determine where and when we first met ‘dark storylines and bleak urban settings.’ It’s more than Sarah Lund’s jumpers or Lisbeth Salander’s hacking skills.
The trail might begin (or do I mean end?) with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, via Peter Høeg to Sjöwall and Wahlöö. But that list is not complete without mentioning the murder of Olof Palme or Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater. And apparently some critic recently accused the new Martin Beck on television of imitating itself.
Here there was a slight sidetrack to a Turkish writer, translated twice in the last twelve years, long after his death, and only because his compatriot, Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk said he liked him. Knut Hamsun had something similar happen to him.
Because yes, the trail goes a long way back. Before Sjöwall and Wahlöö we had Maria Lang and Stieg Trenter, for instance. Earlier still, Hjalmar Söderberg’s Doktor Glas would have qualified, as would Norwegian Mauritz Hansen. And maybe even Carl Jonas Love Almqvist and Zacharias Topelius.
And when it comes to the crunch, Peter Høeg’s Miss Milla’s Feeling For Snow is not a true progenitor of Nordic Noir. It seems to be, but isn’t. People would have read the book no matter what. Hindsight tells us Peter Høeg doesn’t belong to the origin story.
Anyway, there are many more books translated into English than there used to be. The 3% of translated books has recently become more like 4 or even 5%. Swedish books come sixth if you look at language of origin, but make that Scandinavian books and they end up in third place, and if you count all the Nordic languages, they are the second most translated.
So, it’s not all jumpers, and Scotland has just claimed to have more words for snow than the cold Nordic countries. The latest idea for selling books on the international market is to translate the whole book into English, rather than a few sample chapters, making it possible to offer an almost finished product, as well as facilitating sales to countries where they don’t have a steady supply of translators from Scandinavian languages.
As I said, I found this interesting. And Ian’s a tolerable speaker, too. The right amount of jokes, and a good selection of slides and videos to show what he’s on about. The beard, however, was rather a surprise.
I’d – almost – concluded I have no friends, but before you gallantly cry that I have you, I realised how wrong I was. Today is School Friend’s birthday. (Her 60th, but don’t tell anyone. She looks like 29.) And I’m not there. I suppose that’s what I meant, really. I’m not physically surrounded by friends, but I know they are out there, at various inconvenient distances for birthday parties and the like.
I could have gone. But with a future kitchen having just arrived, sitting in the hall (which has not had book boxes stored in it for maybe as long as a couple of weeks, and was beginning to look almost normal), and a sink that needed to be crowbarred free by Son, now seems an unwise time for me to up and frolic.
I typed ’tile’ instead of ‘time’ and that was most certainly a Freudian slip. I’m not 60, nor do I look like 29, but feel rather like 79 sometimes. The Resident IT Consultant and I went shopping for tiles last week. As we walked towards the entrance to the DIY emporium I halted and nearly asked him what we’d come for. Good thing I didn’t, as he beat me to it by a split second. We managed to remember why we’d come (I did have a list in my bag, but you feel that one item should be possible to keep in your brain and not have it slosh around uncontrollably) and the outing was a relative success. I mean, only the day before, we’d also ventured out for tiles but ended up eyeing raspberry bushes at the local nursery, where we’d gone for coffee, instead.
Speaking of gardens, we made some discoveries in ours. The Grandmother found we had a pond. Well, we knew that. But once the weeds went, we realised we have dependants. One duck. Plastic. An otter. Stone. A tortoise. Also stone. Frog. Real. Frogspawn. Also real, and watched over by the parental frog. And some days later, after all that unexpected light and air, we have ‘watery’ flowers as well.
As I said, Son and Dodo were here, carrying kitchens and liberating sinks. And stuff. Then they had to go home again, partly because Son is off to the London Book Fair this week. (It’s unfair! I still haven’t been. And I had to decline an invitation to Canada House. Again.) You can tell it’s that time of year, by how many publicists are already ‘out of office’ in their emails. (So, basically, I can blog as I like, and I am, as you can see.)
Before he left, Son borrowed the complete set of Martin Beck by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, and Barry Forshaw’s Nordic Noir. Seems he’s going to need the books for some paper or other. (Someone’s been getting their translators wrong…) He asked if we wanted anything from London, and you know, I am sure I was thinking just the other day that there was something. But what?
For a while there I lost my entire teen years. I read the interview with Maj Sjöwall in the Observer at breakfast, and after my first incredulous thought that ‘It can’t have been that long ago!’ I threw myself over Wikipedia to check my facts. And theirs.
I was right. It was a relief to find I hadn’t imagined Per Wahlöö alive – if not well – when I was a teenager. I remembered him dying, and the nine-year-old me wouldn’t have. So the Observer writer making him out to have died 44 years ago was wrong.
Typo, I thought charitably. Well, fairly charitably. I’m a mean old witch, although not as old as they tried to make me. No, I don’t think it was a typo, because the number 44 is repeated in the text, and elsewhere the writer states it’s over forty years since Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote together. Make that over thirty years, please. And 34 since he died.
I was looking at the photo of them, with their children, in typical 1970s clothes and hairstyles. Is it the case that not only is it a little hard to deduct 1975 from 2009 and end up with the correct answer, but that if you’re young enough you can’t tell the difference between 1960s ‘fashion’ and ten years later?
It was in ‘sixth form’ that I heard of Sjöwall and Wahlöö, during those radical years in the mid seventies, taking for granted the hopes and the ideals, which we now wonder where on earth they went. When Per died I was a callous teenager who felt that dying was what old people did, and he seemed old to me.
Wikipedia at breakfast is unusual in these parts, so it’s sign of how worked up I became at the thought that all this happened in the mid sixties. Illogical that it should have, as the ten years of writing about Beck would have had to have started in the 1950s to make this possible.
I know, it’s uncharitable to complain, but it really distressed me to think I was ten years out in my own life.
We have actually paid for some books! Persuaded the Resident IT Consultant that he could do with the complete Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, so he sent off for them. We now have a tottering pile of ten books sitting around. They look good, with new and matching covers.
They have been translated by about four different people, so I have no idea how they compare. The books also come with introductions by ‘proper’ people, as Son put it. Proper like Colin Dexter, Val McDermid and Henning Mankell.
It’s funny how this growing wave of interest for Nordic crime works. Never thought these crime novels from my past, read by all my leftist friends, would re-surface. But it’s good.
What we shall do with the two or three old Sjöwall & Wahlöö novels remains to be seen. Keep them because they are the real thing, or get rid of non-matching duplicates? | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 3 | https://www.lunabooks.in/post/maj-sj%25C3%25B6wall-and-per-wahl%25C3%25B6%25C3%25B6-the-martin-beck-series | en | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: The Martin Beck Series | [
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] | 2023-08-02T08:34:59.657000+00:00 | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, are widely regarded as the pioneers of Scandinavian crime fiction. Both left-wing journalists, they met in 1962 and fell in love. While they never married, they lived together, with the children from their previous marriages. Over the decade that followed, they collaborated on a unique writing project. 10 novels written over ten years, each with 30 chapters, and focused on the National Homicide Bureau in Sweden - the Martin Beck series. The Story of a Crime, they call | en | https://static.parastorage.com/client/pfavico.ico | Luna Books | https://www.lunabooks.in/post/maj-sjöwall-and-per-wahlöö-the-martin-beck-series | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, are widely regarded as the pioneers of Scandinavian crime fiction. Both left-wing journalists, they met in 1962 and fell in love. While they never married, they lived together, with the children from their previous marriages. Over the decade that followed, they collaborated on a unique writing project. 10 novels written over ten years, each with 30 chapters, and focused on the National Homicide Bureau in Sweden - the Martin Beck series. The Story of a Crime, they called it.
The couple would write alternate chapters, mostly at the kitchen table at night, after putting their children to bed. They would then swap chapters the next day and edit each other's work before moving on. They found and agreed on a tone and style that worked for them both and were consistent with it. It's impossible to tell them apart on the page. In an interview Sjowall said “We worked a lot with the style. We wanted to find a style which was not personally his, or not personally mine, but a style that was good for the books."
Mere entertainment was not their purpose though. What they wanted to do was to use crime and criminal investigations to hold up a mirror to Swedish society. They believed that crime novels could effectively include social criticism. Each of their ten novels was based on painstaking research, the crimes were fairly gruesome, and through each story, they tried to highlight what they saw as the increasingly materialistic culture they saw around them.
"We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society, where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer.” (Sjöwall, in an interview with the Guardian, Nov 22, 2009)
Their influences included crime writers such as Ed MacBain, Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett.
With the ten novels comprising the Martin Beck series, Sjöwall and Wahlöö are credited with introducing the 'police procedural'. Criminal investigation in their books is not heroic or thrilling. It is long hours and days and weeks of dogged police work, many times leading nowhere. But Beck and his colleagues keep at it. Beck as a character is dour and dyspeptic, not a hero by any standards. But he is a committed policeman and a patient one. The characters are all ordinary. There is no genius at work here who can see what no one else can. They look at everything together and painstakingly piece together a solution. And this is in the age before mobile phones, DNA testing and the internet. An age when everyone smoked all the time. Today most cops or detectives in books or on TV shows are dour and cheerless and we are used to this, but Beck was the prototype for this sort of detective.
The books are international bestsellers, with over 10 million copies sold so far. They’ve been made into films and adapted for television. Sjowall and Wahloo’s work has inspired crime writers such as Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Michael Connelly, and many others. Established now as classics of the genre, readers of any generation can appreciate the meticulous procedurals stitched together by this couple. Per Wahlöö died at the age of 49 shortly before the final book in the series was published. Sjöwall declined to continue or expand the series without her partner.
Here are the ten books in the Martin Beck series:
Roseanna (1965)
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966)
The Man on the Balcony (1967)
The Laughing Policeman (1968)
The Fire Engine that Disappeared (1969)
Murder at The Savoy (1970)
The Abominable Man (1972)
The Locked Room (1973)
Cop Killer (1975)
The Terrorists) (1976)
Sources include: | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 89 | http://paradise-mysteries.blogspot.com/2011/12/review-roseanna-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo.html | en | MYSTERIES in PARADISE: Review: ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo | https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vouxF05lDq8KxH9TyCTYZdM-ZwcePDPh7vbA1ZeR0STK-8CfJLPQL7Wvvmn4ifLNjAfxjrgWYlS917rnJ4L_hNLzwH6qJCiD4XlG3stFFhuLxquIYgPdk_QIRvrEpju74=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu | https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vouxF05lDq8KxH9TyCTYZdM-ZwcePDPh7vbA1ZeR0STK-8CfJLPQL7Wvvmn4ifLNjAfxjrgWYlS917rnJ4L_hNLzwH6qJCiD4XlG3stFFhuLxquIYgPdk_QIRvrEpju74=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu | [
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] | null | available from Audible.com Narrated by Tom Weiner and translated from Swedish by Lois Roth length: 6 hours 35 mins source: I bou... | en | http://paradise-mysteries.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | http://paradise-mysteries.blogspot.com/2011/12/review-roseanna-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo.html | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 8 | https://www.mysteriousbookshop.com/products/sjowall-maj-roseanna | en | Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö - Roseanna | [
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] | null | [] | null | With a New Introduction by Henning Mankell.The masterful first novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writin... | en | //www.mysteriousbookshop.com/cdn/shop/t/4/assets/favicon.ico?v=83685581664704013481505763419 | The Mysterious Bookshop | https://www.mysteriousbookshop.com/products/sjowall-maj-roseanna | With a New Introduction by Henning Mankell.
The masterful first novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö ("the best writers of police procedurals in the world"), finds Beck hunting for the murderer of a lonely traveler.
On a July afternoon, a young woman's body is dredged from Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. With no clues Beck begins an investigation not only to uncover a murderer but also to discover who the victim was. Three months later, all Beck knows is that her name was Roseanna and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people on a cruise. As the melancholic Beck narrows the list of suspects, he is drawn increasingly to the enigma of the victim, a free-spirited traveler with a penchant for casual sex, and to the psychopathology of a murderer with a distinctive--indeed, terrifying--sense of propriety. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 31 | https://dcairns.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | en | Per Wahloo | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/ada5916c65f2dab20a31d3f487766a5644e5bf039fb0fa89afc63854b2cae197?s=200&ts=1724975464 | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/ada5916c65f2dab20a31d3f487766a5644e5bf039fb0fa89afc63854b2cae197?s=200&ts=1724975464 | [
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] | null | [] | null | Posts about Per Wahloo written by dcairns | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/ada5916c65f2dab20a31d3f487766a5644e5bf039fb0fa89afc63854b2cae197?s=32 | shadowplay | https://dcairns.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | STOCKHOLM MARATHON begins with a tense scene of a clearly traumatised girl escaping from a window and walking across the roof of a glasshouse… the glass starts to crack…
It’s effective, though it doesn’t extend itself to breaking point and the music is unhelpful, and then the inevitable slomo… it also has nothing to do with the supposed source novel, The Terrorists, the final installment of The Story of a Crime, the ten-volume adventures of Martin Beck by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö. Start as you mean to go on. The entire movie has nothing to do with the book, despite a Stan Lee type cameo by Sjöwall.
Somebody in charge of this series of (straight-to-video?) Martin Beck films, starring Gosta Ekman, made the decision to strip out the CONTENT, the political attitude underpinning the detective story. No doubt the filmmakers weren’t Marxists. But you don’t have to be a communist to agree with a lot of the authors’ critique of Swedish society and western civilisation in general. In fact, rather than pushing their own worldview (Wahlöö “a little bit Stalinist” according to his partner), the authors mostly confine themselves to taking satiric/despairing potshots at the status quo, only offering a solution in the last word of the last book, in the form of a crossword puzzle solution, the single word “Marxism.”
Like most of the books after the first three, The Terrorists hares off in various narrative directions, splitting up the protagonists and assigning many of the key scenes to characters other than Beck. This apparently seems like a problem to those adapting them, but needn’t be: the most faithful films seem to be the most successful.
One strand omitted by screenwriters Rainer Berg & Beate Langmaack is the story of the naive girl done in by society. It’s central to the novel, showing how social services, the police, the justice system, can conspire to destroy one powerless individual. The heart of the book. Parallel to that is the story of the terrorist gang, the only thing retained by the moviemakers, though in fact their story about a threat to the Stockholm Marathon (shades of FOUR LIONS) is nothing to do with the novel’s scheme about assassinating a controversial American politician.
The big ironic twist in the book — spoiler alert — is that after Beck and his team manage to thwart the highly-trained assassins, a lone nut — the girl whose life has been ruined — slips past them and murders, not their right-wing yank, but the Swedish prime minister.
I can see how, just eight years after the real assassination of Olof Palme, the real Swedish prime minister, as he exited a middlebrow Swedish comic film, THE MOZART SISTERS, Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s childish glee at offing the country’s leader might have seemed in poor taste. All the more reason to do it!
The filmmakers double down on the “lone nut” approach in order to deliberately rob their story of any political significance. They really have a genius for finding the least interesting direction at any turn. Since there’s not much of value that can be said about an artefact like SWEDISH MARATHON, there now follows a short disquisition on the dramatic vs. the interesting.
“Many things in life are interesting; not many things are dramatic,” said Dan O’Bannon in an interview for, I think, Screenwriter or Screenplay magazine which condensed all the insights from all the screenwriting books on the market into a few short paragraphs. O’Bannon promised that by following the principles of dramatic structure, pretty much any chump could write an entirely worthless script which the reader would nevertheless feel compelled to finish, or at any rate were the atrocity to be committed to celluloid, the viewer would find themself watching to the end (and probably cursing themself for it).
Raul Ruiz, meanwhile, asked why only a three-act structure based around a central conflict could be interesting? Why couldn’t a film detailing all the activity in a Brueghel painting be interesting, for instance? O’Bannon has the answer: interesting, yes, but not necessarily dramatic.
Ruiz is not primarily a dramatic filmmaker, I’d say: he does something harder, I think, because he has to sustain the audience’s interest with less obvious hooks. Where he does detail dramatic problems, there are likely to be lots of small ones rather than one big dumb one. There are plots, often quite complex — related events unfolding sequentially, but a synopsis of a Ruiz film might indeed end up sounding more like a description of a huge, detailed painting.
We’ve all seen too many films where the filmmaker hooked us and reeled us in, but offered no reward for the journey. Since the three-act structure is a boringly familiar trope (one reason it works so well may just be that we’re subconsciously familiar with it, so that it’s comforting to know where we are in the story), it’s incumbent upon anyone using it to offer some Ruizian INTEREST — in the form of psychological or social insight, ideas of any kind, aesthetic surprise, behavioural authenticity, something thematic or stylistic out of the ordinary run, possibly connected to but extending beyond mere PLOT, which E.M. Forster, citing the example of Scheherezade, justly defined as a trap for brutes.
Sjöwall & Wahlöö obviously used their narratives for a sociopolitical purpose, which seems one of the most suitable uses for a detective story. Psychology is certainly possible, but the Mechano-set construction of a cop story can get in the way of that. Which makes it an even better trick if you can do it. These Martin Beck movies offer plots which, fascinating on the page, become sterile when rendered on the screen with the INTEREST strip-mined away, cardboard characters moving along the string of a murderboard without a centre.
I’m sorry but the Martin Beck adaptations with Gosta Ekman are just NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO WATCH.
Apparently original co-author Maj Sjowall appears in all of them, like Stan Lee, but I haven’t spotted her. I don’t really know what she looked like in the nineties but she was cute as a button when the books were being written.
POLISMORDAREN aka THE POLICE MURDERER, adapted from the novel generally translated as Cop Killer, is completely without interest, except where it’s purely incompetent. The novels mix tones quite freely, but Sjöwall and partner Per Wahlöö always know what effect they’re after, even when mingling violence with humour. But this straight-to-video yawn, directed by Peter Keglevic, stages a key shooting incident with both tragic flute and slomo for epic tragedy, and slapstick pratfalls for farce. There might be a way to make that work, but not here.
One good thing: this geezer looks exactly the way I pictured him in the novel.
The book has some fun stuff — the killers from the first two novels in the series reappear. One is chief suspect in a sex killing in an out-of-the-way village. He’s done it before, served his time, but due to Sweden’s forgiving laws, been released as no longer a threat to society. Now, that book has been filmed as ROSEANNA in 1967, but it had also been adapted as an Ekman vehicle in 1993. But they could hardly feature the same killer in this piece, made a year later. Swedish justice isn’t THAT lax. The journalist killer from the second novel, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, also appears, still working for the press, under a new identity. Both characters really do seem to have settled down, though “the man called Folke Bengtsson” is still deeply weird.
So, none of that features in this adaptation, and I guess it couldn’t. What’s left? There’s a petty crime spree that ends in fatalities, and it’s tied in a coincidental way to the initial sex murder (staged with an unwelcome lasciviousness). One crime provides a clue to the other, a trick Sjöwall & Wahlöö were very keen on, as in The Man on the Balcony, where the witness who can identify a child killer is himself a violent robber.
This isn’t the strongest of the novels — the series is probably at its best from around volumes three to seven. But it’s very engaging. The film version, not so much. It reminds me way too much of nineties episodes of Taggart, Scotland’s own cop show, which outlasted its leading man, who was visibly dying of alcoholism onscreen (his afternoon closeups were rumoured to be filmed with a crewman on each side holding him up by the arms). The show went from dingy video in its early days to a glossier preudo-cinematic look which never achieved actual style or scale: much like this.
Also, we say “Polis” in Scotland too. Pronounced “Poe-liss.” So the cop cars in Beck are strangely amusing.
Michael Tapper’s book Swedish Cops dishes up an impressive amount of backstory — the various true crimes that inspired Sjöwall & Wahlöö, including the case that gave us the concept of Stockholm Syndrome, though the book and the show never get as far as a hostage situation.
“More than in the novels,” Tapper writes, “the films linger on Beck as a tragic hero, living the lonely, heartbroken and empty life of an inspector. Only his daughter comforts him from time to time. Repeatedly, we see images of Beck’s sad face accompanied by a melancholy piano score, in hindsight almost a blueprint for the sad, lonely and frequently ill Swedish inspector in innumerable novels and films. During the completion of the films, a statue called Det svenska tungsinnet (“Swedish Melancholia”) with actor Gosta Ekman’s features was completed by the actor’s wife, director and artist Marie-Louise Ekman. It is installed in the Altona Park in Malmö.”
Perhaps worth mentioning: the eighth Beck novel, The Locked Room, was adapted for Czech TV as Záhada zamčeného pokoje in 1986. I don’t think it looks very interesting — people in rooms talking in flat, uninflected shots — but you could argue that’s a decent approximation of the novels’ prose style and their dour hero. Anyhow, it’s here if you want to try it. Let me know if it turns out to be gripping.
One more to go!
The history of BECK – THE LOCKED ROOM (BECK – DE GESLOTEN KAMER, 1992) is given on the IMDb in a comment by one Joyce Hauchart:
Directors are human too. This movie was first planned to be filmed in Scandinavia, after fund problems it was relocated to Belgium in a Dutch-Belgian co-production. The new producer, Ralf Boumans, died during pre-production. A third producer was found, Antonino Lombardo. Meanwhile Jacob Bijl, director, was trying to contract good actors and technicians. He found the best actor in Belgium, Jan Decleir to play Martin Beck.
Finally there was a release date, which unfortunately coincided with the movie Daens. This film was Oscar nominated for best foreign movie and shown in every theater.(Best movie the Belgians ever made) But what about Bijl’s ambitions? His release date was postponed, then the cinema proprietor, almost bankrupt, was not allowed to show the movie due to debts. The film was finally shown. It played non advertised for one week at 10 PM at night during two weeks in Belgium.
Jacob Bijl worked 10 years on this project, to see it flop, due to circumstances beyond his control. People who have seen this picture on TV say, great movie. It’s true. It is perfect for people who like plain detective stories and show us the ambitions of Martin Beck in the best atmosphere Sjöwall and Wahlöö could have wished. I’m not saying this, Maj Sjöwall did.
One advice: rent his movie and enjoy great acting, also by Dottermans. Afterwards remember how this film came to your screen.
Whew. It’s a hair-raising, heart-breaking story. Do I agree that the film is great? I have reservations, but I have to give Bijl credit — he’s faithful to the book, sometimes maybe even TOO faithful, and all his changes make sense. I wish Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö had always had such sensitive adaptors.
The film, like the book, picks up from the events in the previous volume, so that you can read this as a sequel to Bo Widerberg’s MAN ON THE ROOF, only one in which the hero’s near-fatal shooting has caused him to get younger, thinner, and transferred him and everyone he knows to Belgium. No wonder they all look puzzled.
Another reason for the general befuddlement is the case Beck is assigned as “occupational therapy” as he tentatively returns to detective work. A badly decomposed ex-warehouseman has been found, shot dead in a sealed room, with no weapon present. An impossible crime, and possibly a perfect murder, since it went undetected for smelly weeks. Can Beck, who doesn’t read John Dickson Carr mysteries, crack the case?
Sjöwall & Wahlöö make Bijl’s job harder — I’m pronouncing his name “Bill” until someone tells me otherwise and I suggest you do the same unless you know better — as usual, there are subplots woven through the story to the point where we can’t really call them “subplots” — more like interplots. Anyone converting book to film would have to remove SOME of the connective tissue, probably strive to make Beck more central to the action, and cover those parts of the story that the authors tell you about but don’t actually dramatise in SCENES. Bijl does pretty well with all this. I’ll just give a few examples:
The book begins excitingly with a bank robbery in which a have-a-go hero fitness instructor is fatally shot. The robber turns out to be an otherwise sympathetic character just trying to survive and raise a tiny daughter — there’s a whole spate of bank robberies in progress, and a new character, Bulldozer, a moronic DA, has commandeered most of Beck’s murder squad to investigate — the principle robbers are planning one big heist so they can retire — the guy who supplies them with groceries while they’re holed up, is involved with the lady heister without knowing of her larcenous tendencies — Beck, finally extricated from his loveless marriage, meets the locked room corpse’s former landlady — Beck is being threatened with promotion, a prospect he fears since the last thing he wants is a desk job that’ll bring him into even closer contact with the managerial idiots he most dislikes.
Bijl manages to weave all of the above elements into his story. To make it work in a linear fashion without the flashback info Sjöwall & Wahlöö occasionally drop in, he has to move the initial bank shot to much later in the story, which gives his film a slower, less dramatic start, though the creeping camera moves inside the hermetically sealed room with the foul flyblown corpse, looking like a claymation cast-off, are maybe the film’s most stylish bit.
Beck’s injury was sustained in an earlier film and so isn’t much help in screen terms. Sjöwall & Wahlöö give Beck a bizarre and ludicrous series of nightmares about presidential assassinations, which would really play on screen but I wish they’d been adapted into something comparable. Film noir and dream sequences go hand in hand. When the back procedurals fail on the screen it’s either because they’ve been miscast and chopped up, or rendered too flat, tending to plod. This movie is a bit ploddy. The nightmares could compensate for the low-key start, and weave Beck’s psychological recovery through the story more.
Beck is Jan Decleir, heavy-set, bearish, yet sensitive. Els Dottermans is intriguing and self-contained as the stick-up girl, and unlike in the book Beck is drawn to her rather than the landlady. This is out of character for Beck, I feel, but then the movie character is never going to be an exact reproduction of the book and it does make the character’s relationship MUCH more central to the narrative. However, it seems less likely that she’d embark on a bank robbery AFTER meeting cute with a detective who (unlike in the novel) has been seconded to the special robbery unity.
Making our heroine also a killer is an odd choice — in the novel, it’s even odder. It raises the stakes for her, and pays off in the ironic conclusion, in which a killer will escape punishment for the murder he committed, but be punished instead for one he DIDN’T. But in the moment, it’s odd. Sjöwall & Wahlöö are either displaying their contempt for have-a-go hero types who would risk their lives to protect a bank’s money, or for fitness instructors.
In the movie, the slain man works not in a gym, but in some kind of organized crime, so that his murder is actually doing society a good deed, thereby supposedly excusing our heroine. This won’t do — she didn’t know who he was when she shot him. It’s too convenient, morally, it’s special pleading, and it doesn’t really get her off the hook.
Bijl also devises a climax where the girl is in jeopardy, a conventional trope but one that creates a more somewhat satisfying dramatic spike, something the book doesn’t bother with.
Stand-out performance is from Warre Borgmans as the crim type who acts as grocery boy for the bank robbers and is also romantically involved — HE thinks it’s romantic, anyway — with Dotterman. Borgmans is sleek, shiny, mild-mannered, and a little on-edge — tipping over into Peter Lorre -style shrieking histrionics and panic-sweat as events move, a touch laboriously, towards their climax.
A little more money to splash around, a better score (everyone was too in love with the way synths could sorta sound like real instruments in the early nineties, myself included), and a little more fearless flamboyance could have tipped THE LOCKED ROOM over into being the minor masterpiece it needed to be. It’s still a creditable piece of work. Possibly the last really worthwhile Beck adaptation to date — meaning I have two more of those damn Gosta Ekman telefilms to sit through. Will they finally get good? I will also probably watch an episode or two of the insanely long-running TV show.
One more thing: Bijl omits the lesson on locked rooms from the novel, In my opinion, it’s not as helpful a text as the chapter in John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Men, in which colossally fat sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell expounds on all the possible solutions available to a locked room. There are surprisingly few, but somehow they rarely help a reader solve a whodunnit. But, in case you want to enhance your armchair detection skills (though I usually find it easy to detect my own armchair), here are the only possible tricks, in generic form:
The room isn’t truly sealed: some hidden egress allowed the killer to either get in, or to reach in (by hand or using a weapon) to do the deed.
The room IS truly sealed, but DESPITE APPEARANCES the killer is STILL INSIDE IT.
The crime was committed before the room was sealed, DESPITE APPEARANCES. In The Mystery of the Yellow Chamber, named by Fell as the greatest mystery ever written, [MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT] the heroine receives a beating, then locks herself in her room, has a nightmare about it, and cries aloud. When the door is broken in, nobody can work out how the bruises could have been administered in an empty, locked room, and the girl is too traumatised to explain.
The crime was committed after the room was UNsealed, despite appearances. I forget which Poirot it is in which the victim has some kind of attack in a locked room, they break in, and the culprit, pretending to nurse the fallen man, falsely declares “He’s been stabbed!” then DOES stab him when everyone else has gone to get help.
I think that’s it. Just four. And of course I’m not going to reveal which one it is in this case. Reading the book, I contrived a harebrained notion, which was wrong in every detail, but did actually fall under the right general heading (ie the right number from the list above). Although, come to think of it, the solution combines elements of TWO of the methods above… | ||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 28 | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/30/maj-sjowall-obituary | en | Maj Sjöwall obituary | [
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] | 2020-04-30T00:00:00 | Co-author with Per Wahlöö of the Martin Beck crime series that blazed a trail for Scandinavian crime fiction | en | the Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/30/maj-sjowall-obituary | Widely regarded as the godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction, Maj Sjöwall, who has died aged 84, was the co-author of 10 detective stories featuring the Swedish policeman Martin Beck – a series remarkable as much for the way it was written as for its impact on crime-writing internationally.
Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö met in 1962 while working as magazine journalists and translators in Stockholm. She was 27, twice divorced and a single mother; he was 36, married with one child. They were instantly attracted to each other, shared a love of leftwing politics and detective stories, and soon decided to live together.
Influenced by the crime novels of Georges Simenon and Ed McBain, they developed a “project” to do something different: they conceived a series of 10 books, with each of them writing alternate chapters (30 in each book), which when completed could be seen as a single, Marxist critique of Swedish society. They wrote in the evenings after work, sometimes throughout the night, passing drafts across the kitchen table. The spare, pared-down style they developed garnered rave reviews in the UK and the US when the books began to appear in translation in 1968.
The pair had produced a new style of detective story from the start. In Roseanna (1965), the first Beck novel, a naked body is dredged out of a canal. It takes Beck and his colleagues, in the days before DNA, computers and mobile phones, seven months of methodical, unglamorous police work to snare the killer. As the series continued, recognition grew. The Guardian’s reviewer Matthew Coady noted in 1970 that “for Beck as with Maigret, each investigation is less a riddle to be answered than a human situation to be understood”.
Not only were the novels painstakingly researched and unflinching in their descriptions of horrific crimes, but each chipped away at an aspect of contemporary Swedish life to reveal (as the authors saw it) a growing materialism and heartlessness. In the character of Martin Beck, their dogged, dyspeptic, chain-smoking policeman, with a gloomy marriage and a son he admits he doesn’t like, Sjöwall and Wahlöö set a new template for fictional detectives, and not just Swedish ones. A DNA trace on many of today’s troubled detective heroes worldwide, both on page and screen, could well turn up Swedish ancestry.
Sjöwall was born and grew up in Stockholm, where her family lived in one of the hotels her father managed. She described her young self as “rather wild”, rebelling against her middle-class background. Aged 21, and not long launched on a career in journalism, Sjöwall found she was pregnant by a former boyfriend. Under pressure from her father, she married an older colleague, but this, and a second marriage, did not last. Soon afterwards she met Wahlöö.
He had been ill for some years by the time the Martin Beck project was completed with The Terrorists in 1975, and died at the age of 49 shortly before its publication. The books remained in print in Scandinavia and numerous television incarnations eventually followed in Sweden, but Sjöwall resisted the temptation to continue or expand the series, claiming that it would feel “too lonely” to do so without her partner.
She returned to the bohemian life she had always favoured, writing for magazines, co-authoring a number of books and translating the American private eye novels of Robert B Parker into Swedish. She also began to appear as an uncredited extra in episodes of the Swedish television series Beck, which ran from 1997 to 2009, and was revived in 2015.
Having won an Edgar award in America in 1971, the Sjöwall-Wahlöö novels were subsequently honoured in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Spain. Sjöwall regularly appeared at literary festivals and crime-writing conventions, including at Crimefest in Bristol in 2015, where she was interviewed as the international guest of honour by Lee Child.
Despite the critical acclaim for and the success of the Martin Beck novels, and the fourth, The Laughing Policeman, being filmed by Hollywood in 1976 (with Stockholm replaced by San Francisco; and Walter Matthau in the lead role), the financial returns for the authors were modest and Sjöwall often said later that the couple had “always had money problems”. While writing them, the pair had continued to work as journalists and translators, producing Swedish versions of Noel Behn’s bestseller The Kremlin Letter in 1967 and their hero McBain’s Killer’s Payoff in 1968.
There was a revival of interest in the Beck books in the 1990s, but there were to be no massive financial rewards for Sjöwall, as rights for the books were still based on contracts signed decades earlier. It was something she seemed to accept phlegmatically in public, and recalling her cold and estranged childhood in an interview in 2009, she said: “You get tough when you grow up unloved.”
It is ironic that the millions generated through the irresistible rise of modern Scandinavian crime fiction should owe so much to a couple of Marxist-leaning Swedish journalists writing at the kitchen table, trying to make ends meet.
Sjöwall is survived by her daughter, Lena, sons, Tetz and Jens, and five grandchildren. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 72 | https://www.crimetime.co.uk/swedish-marxist-noir-by-per-hellgren/ | en | Swedish Marxist Noir by Per Hellgren | [
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] | null | [] | null | en | https://www.crimetime.co.uk/swedish-marxist-noir-by-per-hellgren/ | Even before I started writing my various books on Scandinavian crime fiction, I realised that I would have to deal with the notably left-wing perspective of most of the genre, and I trust that I’ve done my duty in this regard. However, Per Hellgren — in his detailed and informed study — has gone much further in identifying the political perspectives of the genre, invoking the great American hard-boiled writer Raymond Chandler — an approach that is certainly new to me.
Two writers from the left – a crime-writing team with a markedly Marxist perspective – might (without too much argument) be said to have started it all in terms of important Scandinavian crime fiction: the spectacularly talented Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Their continuing influence (since the death of Per Wahlöö) remains prodigious.
It was something of scandal that for some considerable time the complete oeuvre this most influential team of crime writers was not available in translation (certain books – such as The Laughing Policeman (1968) – haunted various publishers’ lists, and then would inexorably melt away). This relative invisibility (until recent – and welcome – reissue programmes remedied this egregious blot on the reputation of publishing) was particularly odd, as the almost viral penetration of the duo’s literary reach was total, with many crime fiction writers citing them as the ne plus ultra of the socially committed crime novel., What’s more, the team has been – in many cases – a source of personal inspiration for the work of contemporary crime writers. The sequence of books featuring their tenacious policeman Martin Beck are shot through with the ideological rigour of his creators; that’s to say: as well as being lean and compelling crime novels, they simultaneously function as an unforgiving leftwing critique of Swedish society (and, inter alia, of Western society in general). But this shouldn’t put off those readers conscious of Marxism’s fall from favour since it first inspired Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö in a very different era; like the elements of Catholicism in Graham Greene’s work (which does not interfere with an appreciation of his peerless skills as novelist), the Marxist underpinnings of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck books may be considered to be less important than the edgy, pared-down prose in which these finely-honed police procedurals trade. By introducing genuinely radical elements into what was at the time an unthreatening form (with, they felt, distinctly bourgeois values), the duo were able to both enrich and re-energise what had become something of a moribund field, with the realism of their work married to its political attitudes. To this end, the characterising of certain elements in the police force as corrupt or totalitarian was part and parcel of the radical political agenda underlying the books, themes that Hellgren examines here. But at no point in any of the Martin Beck novels (thankfully) are such notions allowed to be transformed into simple agitprop.
Marxist theories have influenced the crime field in various ways since the Thirties, and Hellgren (a journalist) cogently analyses the work of relevant Swedish novelists (not just Sjöwall and Wahlöö) and that of the seminal American writer Raymond Chandler, dealing with direct influence and more subtle strains of political philosophy. It’s a provocative study.
Swedish Marxist Noir by Per Hellgren is published by McFarland | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 27 | http://www.ireid.co.uk/Books29.html | en | Iain's Leisure Reading | [
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Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo - the 10 Martin Beck Crime Novels.  
Roseanna,   (1965)
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke,   (1966)
The Man on The Balcony,   (1967)
The Laughing Policeman,   (1968)
The Fire Engine that Disappeared,   (1969)
Murder at the Savoy,   (1970)
The Abominable Man,   (1971)
The Locked Room,   (1972)
Cop Killer,   (1974)
The Terrorists,   (1975)
I really liked Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc), thought Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole was excellent, and I am currently reading Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallander books. So I guess I am a fan of what is called Scandi Noir. Ages ago, I read an article where some famous author said that of all the Scandi Noir books, his favourite was still the original Inspector Martin Beck series written way back in the 1960's. I was intrigued, and thought I would give the books a try - but easier said than done. It has taken me ages to find any of the series in charity shops. I have been looking for years, and have got about five of the ten books, but it was only very recently that I finally got a copy of "Roseanna", book one in the series, and I could at last start to read the books.
Per Wahloo was born in 1926, and his common law wife Maj Sjowall was born 9 years later in 1935. They were both marxists, and earned a living as journalists - Per working as a crime reporter. They wanted to write about what they thought was wrong with Swedish society, but to sugar the pill and make the message one that an audience would want to read, they came up with a ten book police procedure crime series, featuring a strange anti hero - DI Martin Beck. They thought of the series as one complete work of 300 chapters, split into 10 books each 30 chapters long. And extraordinarily they put their children to bed, and then sat up into the night writing away, each doing alternate chapters. I don't know how such a wierd approach is even possible. Sadly Per Wahloo died in 1975, just after the final book was published. Maj Stowall continued as a journalist, doing translations, and jointly wrote another book with another author - not of course about Martin Beck. Sadly Maj died in March, 2020. In August, 2015, when I wrote this introduction, I had read an interview with her in the Daily Telegraph the previous month where she said she didn't care much for Henning Mankell's Wallander books as they were too gloomy. She said you need light and shade. By coincidence, Henning Mankell wrote a very complementary introduction to Roseanna, book one in the series, in the copy I finally obtained.
It's an interesting series, crammed full of police procedural detail. Detection is a long, hard slog, and months can pass with few signs of progress. It's very much a team process, and everyone needs patience and persistence. Martin Beck is an investigating detective inspector in Central Division in Stockholm in Sweden. He is a strange, somewhat cold character, utterly devoted to his police duties to the detriment of any home life. He is married to Inga, but he practically ignores her, and spends little time with her, nor with his children Rolf and Ingrid. I can't see that Inga will put up with this much longer, and doubt that Martin will still be a married at the end of the series. As I write this I have only read book one, but first impressions are that it will be an OK, but not top rate series. It's slow going, and could do with a bit more humour. But I may change my mind as I get into the series - it's early days.
Roseanna,   (1965)
I read this book in August, 2015.
Roseanna is book one of ten in the famous Martin Beck "Scandi Noir" series written way back in 1965 by Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo. I say famous because Stowall and Wahloo are acknowledged as godparents of the dark scandanavian crime series, and most authors of Scandi Noir later series pay due homage. Perhaps it was because it was so famous and so praised, that I had too high expectations. I thought Roseanna was very slow going, and almost boring for about the first half of the book. I thought the translation by Lois Roth used quite a few very dated expressions - we don't talk of villians as "louses" any more, but perhaps we did in 1965. P.D. James was writing the The Adam Dalgleish books about the same time, and I don't recall making similar criticism. However I started to get into the book about the half way mark when I realised that the idea of using people's holiday photos to try to get at a mysterious killer appears here, some 40 years before Larsson used it in "The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo". And of course I did keep turning the pages to see if Martin Beck and his crew could catch a cunning killer.
As it's book one, we are introduced to DI Martin Beck, and his crew. Its quite a big cast. Kollberg is Beck's most trusted colleague, and Melander and Larsson are also to the fore in this book. Beck's boss is Evald Hammar - he seems to trust Beck and leaves him to get on with things. Beck is married to Inga - he was devoted to her early on, but after a year he thought she changed, and now he mostly ignores her - he works long hours, doesn't say when he will be home, and when he is home is is off by himself doing model work, or a jigsaw. He hardly seems to notice his two children - Rolf and Ingrid. I am sure this is his loss, and he is a poorer character for this. Devotion to work can be overdone. Apart from his family failings, Martin Beck seems a decent enough person, and can be very sensitive in interviewing witnesses. He seems excellent as a detective, and has developed sound police instincts - ie a police nose. He is not someone you warm too - but perhaps this may change later on.
It's quite a good story. The body of a naked woman is dredged out of a canal, and soon it is apparent that she had been savagely raped and murdered. Who is the woman, and how did she get dumped in the canal? There is a search among the missing persons files - locally first, and then intenationally. Eventually, after quite some time, a police inspector in America puts a name to the body - Roseanna McGraw. The trail has gone cold, but Martin Beck is persistent and keeps working at it, and we follow the case to the end. There is also quite a climax at the end - will the killer strike again and succeed before Beck and crew get there.
Overall I was slightly underimpressed - certainly initially, less so in the second half of the book. I think the series has potential, and I'll read on, and reserve judgment.
Links to author index and home page
Sjowall & Wahloo Heading Author Index   Go to Home Page
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke,   (1966)
I read this book in November, 2015.
This is the second book in Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series of books. I started reading them when some authors said how good the original of the Scandi Noir genre was. I was a little disappointed with book one - OK, but nothing special. However, once again, I have found the second book of a series better than book one .
It's a terrific little story, very finely paced. Not much happens, and there is a puzzle as to what it is all about, and what Beck is doing where he is. Martin was only a few hours into a long deserved holiday, when he was summoned back to take over the case of a disappeared journalist Alf Matsson. He was in Hungary on businees, and just disappeared - had he been murdered or kidnapped ? He could not have just gone up in smoke, could he ?
The story is set two years after book one. In Roseanna, Martin Beck was obsessed with the case. Here he can barely summon up a modicom of interest. It's all being done "semi" officially at the non request of a nameless politician anxious to keep in with the journalist's employers. It's not really a good reason for Martin to have to interrupt his holidays, but of course, we suspect that things at home are not "rosie", and Beck is quite pleased to abandon his family. Failing marriages seem an occupational hazard for police detectives .
Beck is an astute detective. He goes to Hungary, doesn't seem to be making any headway, but then almost gets himself killed. So he must be making some sort of progress. And yet, the Hungary story is just an aside - once solved the disappeared Alf Matsson is still disappeared. It's a strange case, and the strangeness goads Beck on to solve the mystery.
It's a gentle little story that I enjoyed reading. There is quite a lot of understated humour too. I think the quality of the series is starting to appear, and I look forward to book three. Will Martin still have a marriage ? His wife is bound to leave him soon - if not in the next book, surely in the one after that.
How can Beck be such a conscientious / sympathetic policeman, but so crass and careless of his wife and family ? Interesting characters are full of flaws and contradictions.
Links to author index and home page
Sjowall & Wahloo Heading Author Index   Go to Home Page
The Man on the Balcony,   (1967)
I read this book in November, 2015.
This is book three in the highly acclaimed Martin Beck Swedish series, and it's a terrific story - an excellent blend of despair / futility / world weariness / and humour. Unusually, the book is exactly about what it says in the title.
Martin Beck is now a superintendent. The story is about a mugger in the town parks who seems to know his way around the parks, and has escaped many times, and a sexual deviant who attacks and molests / kills young girls. Martin and the crew throw everything into catching the child molester - each time that he strikes brings despair to the team.
It's an excellent police team procedural story - we follow the man hunt from start to finsh. Sjowall and Wahloo are both Marxists, and use this book to comment on a rotten society, as they see it. They paint a bleak picture of the "swinging sixties" in Sweden - sexual freedom, free love are misnomers - it's all described as a failed society. This message is clearly there, but it's not overdone. Kollberg and Beck make a good team. Of the rest, Beck doesn't like DI Larsson, nor pipe smoking Menander with his photographic memory (cf Beate Lonn in Joe Nesbo's Inspector Harry Hole books), Ronn is the dimmest of policeman, and its left to chance and Kristansson and Kvant, bone-headed patrolmen, to catch the molester.
Martin is still married to Inga, but there is no mention of his two children. It's not a happy marriage, doomed to failure.
I like the world weariness of the book. Beck doesn't think much of his colleagues abilities, but he doesn't think much of his own either. It's definitely a series worth reading.
Links to author index and home page
Sjowall & Wahloo Heading Author Index   Go to Home Page
The Laughing Policeman,   (1968)
I read this book in August, 2016.
This is book four in the highly regarded Martin Beck Swedish series. I am reading this series because I read in some interview that of all the "scandi noir" series, the original one was never bettered. I am not sure that I fully agree with that, but I do agree that it is a good, interesting series. It was written in the 1960s, some 30 to 40 years before Wallander or Harry Hole , or Stieg Larsson's The Millennium Trilogy. And it does have all the features that we see being copied later - Beck a disfunctional team leader with a temper, a brilliant forensic analyst, Larsson, a giant of a man, and one with a brilliant memory (Melander).
Martin Beck is still a detective superintendent in the Swedish central homicide squad - a division called on to help the municipal police in major incidents. Martin is still married to Inga, but he sleeps on the couch in the living room. They have two children - a daughter Ingrid (16), his favourite, and a son, Rolf. Beck works for Chief Superintendent Hammar, and the team also include Beck's colleague and friend Lennart Kollberg who is happily married to Gun, Gunvald Larsson, Ronn, and Melander. Beck usually phones Kollberg before he sets out to work each morning, and they take the same train in together. Failing that, they always travel in the last coach, and so meet that way. Strangely, the team all seem to be friends, but there is a lot of bitching between them at work, and they almost converse in snarls. It all seems a bit strange.
There is a new member in the team, the young Ake Stenstrom, married to Asa. He has been there for some 18 months, a raw recruit lacking self confidence, and is trying hard to win his colleagues respect. This is the background to the story. An apparent madman on a double decker bus shoots and kills all 8 passengers at a quiet place near the bus terminus, and disappears unseen into the night, leaving no clues whatsoever. But there is one clue - one of the passengers on the bus was a policeman. At first Beck is fearful as he cannot contact his friend Kollberg - was he the victim ? We soon learn that the dead policeman was Stenstrom, and the clue lies in answering the question - what was Stenstrom doing on the bus ?
It's quite a good, original story that I don't want to spoil, but behind the slaughter on the bus is an unsolved case from about 11 years earlier. This was the Teressa killing - a very high profile case that got massive national cover and resources, but could not be solved. Any detective managing to solve such a case years later would earn a formidable reputation. So Beck and his colleagues must solve an old mystery, and at each stage of their investigation they find that Stenstrom got there before them!
Beck's daughter Ingrid gives her dad a copy of "The Laughing Policeman" record for his Christmas, and a lot later Beck cannot help but laugh out loud at the very end of the book, when a missing page from Stenstom's notes is finally found. Hence the title, I supose ? Mostly, though, its a good, well written, police procedural story, and we have all got to know Beck and his team a bit better. I look forward to reading the next installment.
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The Fire Engine that Disappeared,   (1969)
I read this book in September, 2016.
This is book five in the Martin Beck Swedish, police procedural series that lead the way and inspired so many of the later "Scandi Noir" writers. With hindsight, it's a pity that I didn't read this series first, because I am getting it all back to front. I keep thinking Beck is just like Wallander or Harry Hole , but of course they are the ones that came 40 odd years later, and they are the ones that are just like Beck.
The book I read had an introduction by Colin Dexter , who admitted that whilst, of course, he knew of Sjowell and Wahloo by reputation, he had never read any of their 10 famous Martin Beck books, rather put off by by the authors' Marxist leanings, and the strange Swedish place and people names. Having read this book, he was a convert, and was going to read the rest of the series. I agree with both Colin's points, but the Marxist slant is not overdone, and there is lots of humour to offset this. But I too do struggle with the strange names, and can't remember who is who, of the incidental cast. The book I read had a good definition of what a police procedural novel comprised. Such books first appeared about the end of the second world war, and the American author Lawrence Treat's "V as in Victim" of 1945 is said to be the first. But the actual term was not used until 1956. Generally you have a bigger cast of people, and follow the detailed procedures as they do their best to go about their difficult tasks solving major crimes at the same time as working of all sorts of other cases. We follow the fortunes of the main characters as they develop from book to book.
In this book, all the main characters are here again, but there is a new recruit in detective Skacke, a replacement for Stenstrom. He is rather looked down upon, especially by Kollberg and Larsson, and given trivial tasks to do to keep him out the way, but he seems an able enough detective. How fitting that he saves Kollberg's life at the end of the book.
The story opens with two separate events that happen on the same day - someone commits suicide, but leaves a note with Martin Beck's name written on it, and Larsson is helping out with a bit of serveillance work, when the house he is studying suddenly explodes. Larsson manages to rescue most the people in the house, is a hero, is on sick leave and to be awarded a medal. Melander convinces everyone that the house gas explosion was caused by a man called Malm also committing suicide, but Larsson returns to work, does not accept this explanation, and digs and digs to prove otherwise. Both Melander and Larsson are correct - it was both attempted murder and suicide. We follow the story as the team keep at it, and eventually most of the breakthrough comes from Mansson, a detective in another district. Beck himself plays mostly a background role. The part about the fire engine that disappeared is a bit contrived. Ronn has bought his young son, a large, expensive toy fire engine, and this disappears from their flat. Ronn obsesses about it - and the real fire engine that should have attended the house explosion also disappeared. Why this happened is a clue. At the end of book, Ronn is very impressed by Mansson's skills, and he invites him home for a home cooked meal - and casually mentions that they still cannot find the missing toy !
Beck's marriage is all but over - he and his wife simply live in the same house. Daughter Ingrid is 17, and leaves home for a flat of her own. She asks her dad, why doesn't he leave as well ?
All in all, an interesting read, and yes it's a good series.
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Murder at the Savoy,   (1970)
I read this book in November, 2016.
This is book six of ten in the Martin Beck Swedish, police procedural series. It's a series that seems to get better and better, and it's certainly one that I enjoy. I don't even mind the Marxist authors' on going comments about all that is wrong in the Welfare state in Sweden - very much a theme with them, but not yet overdone. I just let them have their say, and then we all get on with the story.
The book opens with Martin, a DCI in charge of Sweden's national murder squad, in his new flat in Stockholm. He has finally left his wife, but they had been leading separate lives for years. Divorce and mild depression is par for the course for crime fiction detectives - our heros are brilliant sleuths, but disfunctional, troubled men. As I've mentioned before, Wallander seems a later carbon copy of Martin Beck.
We now switch to the story proper. Victor Palmgren is a powerful, but ruthless industrialist, who cares nothing for the feelings of others, for the conditions of his employees, etc. All he wants to do is maximise profit. We later learn that some of his companies are shady enterprises dealing in arms with countries on the Swedish blacklist. He is clever, powerful, covers his tracks well, and plenty people seem very willing to turn a blind eye. Anyway, he is giving a speach at a small group gathering at the Savoy Hotel in Malmo - just his young trophy wife there, and MD's of some of his companies. A man walks in to the room, draws a pistol, shoots Palmgren in the head, and escapes through an open window at the side of the room. Is it a political assassination, or the work of a madman ? Mansson is the detective in charge in Malmo, but the national police chief calls in Beck to take charge of the case. Martin is under pressure to solve the case quickly. I say under pressure, but he seem remarkably immune to this pressure. We then follow the story as Beck and Mansson work steadily to chase up leads. Some days nothing happens, other days some progress is made. Some times Beck in Malmo calls his friend and colleague Kollberg to do some work for him in Stockholm. Eventually there is a stroke of luck, a posible name for the murderer is discovered, and the case is solved quite simply without any climactic shoot out. I guess it's all very realistic. A beginning, a middle and an end, and all very beleivable.
There is quite a bit of humour in this story. The two dumb cops in Stockolm, Kriastansson and Kvant, make an appearance and a mess of picking up a suspect - distracted by a story involving the three little piggies. We met Asa Torell before, a young vice squad policewoman and widow. She also is in Malmo, and is booked into the same hotel as Martin Beck. Martin is old enough to be her father, but both are lonely, lost souls, and so they find themselves in bed together, perhaps for the first and only time, but who knows. When Asa is asked if she is now returning to Stockholm, she says yes, she has "accomplished all she wanted to do in Malmo" and looks at Martin with bright innocent eyes. The book is full of super little touches.
I thought this book series started off slowly, and perhaps I wondered if it was as good as it's reputation, but I have no doubts now. As an extra bonus there were extra sections to the book, essays on the authors and notes about some other writing partnerships - and these I found very interesting.
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The Abominable Man,   (1971)
I read this book in November, 2016.
This is book seven of the ten part series featuring DCI Martin Beck, now head of Sweden's murder squad. The authors of this series are a husband and wife team Sjowall and Wahloo, who are Marxist leftist communists. They seem to be writing a sustained attack on what they describe as an attempt to find a middle way between communism and capitalism - namely the welfare state, and specifically the welfare state in Sweden. They paint a bleak, gloomy picture of a country in a terrible state, and a disillusioned, jaundiced, politicised police force fighting a losing battle to maintain law and order, but being vilified in the process.
Put like that, who would want to read such a series - but it's well written, Martin Beck is an interesting character, there are some good stories, and there are touches of humour. I didn't enjoy reading this book, but I don't regret reading it, and I can see why the series is so respected.
As always, there are two parts to the story. Part one is the plot, and part two is another instalment in the private lives of Beck and his colleagues - but I am not going to say too much here in case it might be a spoiler. As for Asa Torrell and Martin, there is no further mention ?
First to the plot. The book opens with a high ranking policeman ill in hospital, weak, and unable to defend himself. A madman comes in through the window, attacks the policeman with a bayonet with brutal efficiency, and escapes. It's a revenge killing on a beast of a man who almost deserved to die, but feelings for revenge poison the killer's mind, and soon he is at war against the whole police force. All our heroes, Beck, Kollberg, Larsson, and Ronn come under attack, and the book climaxes with a mass shooting. Who will survive to the next book ?
It's a sad, bleak world. Who would want to be a policeman ? No one seems to be happy with his work, and they don't seem to like each other, and don't really mix socially. But when the chips are down, and a police colleague is injured, his colleagues are not slow in puting their own lives at risk. It's not team spirit as such, but it's something.
These books seem to be getting gloomier and more political as the series progresses. It's not a book to be read for enjoyment, but it's a series deservedly praised, and of course I'll read on. But I don't expect any happy endings.
I'm going to read Hamish Macbeth next to cheer myself up.
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The Locked Room,   (1972)
I read this book in January, 2017.
This is book 8 in the excellent Martin Beck series - the series that lead the way for Scandi Noir, e.g. Jo Nesbo , and Henning Mankell. This isn't the best book in he series, but it's good enough. I read it quickly, which is always a good sign.
Beck has been on sick leave for 15 month recovering from a near fatal shooting. Now he is back at work as the DCI in charge of the Swedish National Murder Squad. All the usual characters are back, but now they are no longer working for Martin Beck. They have been seconded to the Robbery Section and are working for a public prosecutor, Bulldozer Olsson. Olsson is a strange character. He is clever, but unfortunately not clever enough. From paid informants, he knows the names of the mastermind and the two major criminals behind a series of bank robberies, but he cannot get any proof. In spite of this, though, he is constantly 100% confident - but falsely confident. Really this Bulldozer should not be in charge of anything. Morale in the police force is at rock bottom. Most police are either stupid, or, if detectives, massively overworked. Another bank robbery takes place, and this time an innocent bystander is killed. Through bad luck a criminal by the name of Mauritzon finds himself in police custody. He is guilty of many things, but not this latest bank robbery, for which he is eventually convicted. Strangely and wrongly, this is regarded as fair enough, because there is insufficient evidence to get a conviction for the things (including murders ) that he did do. Beck had managed to get him to confess to a murder that he did do, and had secretely taped this confession, but it turned out that the tape recorder was broken. Nothing in Sweden seems to work, in the sad, jaundiced picture of Sweden painted by Sjowall and Wahloo.
On his return to work, Beck had been given an apparent suicide case to work on - the Svad case, who was found dead in a 'locked room'. Beck worries at the case, and as part of a comprehensive investigation tracks down Svad's former landlady, Rhea. Martin and Rhea like each other, and sort of start seeing each other regularly. Beck is almost a happy man, for once.
I'm sure as the authors intended, I worked out who the real bank robbers were. Apparently, it's only the stupid police who cant follow the clues. Whilst Beck had not been involved in the bank robberies investigation, he had found that his Svad case and the robberies were linked. Martin solves his 'locked room' case, but cannot prove it - so his bosses think he has lost his touch, and decide to sit on their earlier decision to promote Beck to Commissioner. Martin is delighted at this - he likes murder solving, not pen pushing.
I thought there was the usual surfeit of Marxist opinion as to the dire state of Swedish society. Also there didn't seem to be enough of Martin Beck in this book - hence my opinion that this is not the best in the series. Also there was nothing about Beck's children.
I have only got books 9 and 10 to read, and hopefully book 9 will have more of Martin Beck in it, and I hope the series ends in some fitting a way in book 10. All in all though, this is a worthy member of a classic series.
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Cop Killer,   (1974)
I read this book in February, 2017.
This is book 9 in the excellent Martin Beck series set in Stockholm, and written by Marxist husband and wife Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. They paint a terrible picture of 1960s Sweden. Sadly I have no idea if there is any truth in this picture, but surely I can't be true, can it ?
They write of a politicised police force in a country where the welfare state approach has failed society. The police don't like their fellow colleagues, are ruled by incompetent chiefs, and half the force have insufficient intelligence to do their job. And life is getting worse instead of better.
Our hero, Martin Beck, is in a better place himself in his private life. Not only is he still seeing Rhea, but he and Rhea have fallen in love, and very importantly, there is someone for Martin to return home to.
As part of a sense of a series coming to an end, we meet up with a lot of Martin's old colleagues again - only they are scatterd throughout various branches of the police force, and no longer concentrated in a special team under Beck. Martin is still head of Sweden's Murder Squad, and does have his collegue Lennart Kollberg still working alongside him, but like everyone else, with integrity, Kollberg is fed up being a policeman under the current set up. By the end of the book he has typed his letter of resignation - and this letter is a good summing up of what has gone wrong ( in the author's somewhat biased opinion). Will Martin Beck be the next one to resign in the final book, I wonder - but what else could he do?
We also meet once again two criminals put away by Beck in previous books, but now released. Folke Bengtson was the murderer of book 1 - an insane sex maniac, who should never have been released from prison. Folke is blamed when his female neighbour, Sigbrit Mard, goes missing, presumed murdered. Beck's boss, Malm, orders Beck to arrest Folke, even though there is only circumstantial evidence. The papers are braying for an arrest, and Malm is governed by what the papers say. The papers usually get things wrong, but this is ignored. And so the plot is set up - did Folke kill his neighbour Sigbrit?
The local police officer where Folke and Sigbrit lived is Hergott Allwright, and Martin likes the decent, honest Allwright. Not all police officers are incompetent, it's just that the system eventually conspires against them.
It's a well written series, highly praised, and I can see why. There is quite a lot of humour too, mostly in describing the police raids that go wrong, and the all too persistent bungling by the Swedish police. This is course a work of fiction, and hopefully things were not as bad as described by Sjowall and Wahloo.
I look forward to concluding the series with the next and last book. I wonder what will happen to Martin, and did Kollberg really resign ? However, I think my conclusion will probably be that 10 books is probably sufficient, and I doubt that I will long for a book 11. It's all really quite depressing, and enough is enough.
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The Terrorists,   (1975)
I read this book in February, 2017.
I started reading this excellent Martin Beck series in August, 2015, and now I have come to book 10, the final in the series. As I started to read it, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was intended for Martin Beck. Was it to be a hero's death, or could Martin and Rhea have a happy ending? Usually when we read a series we know that, no matter what dangers the hero faces, if there is another book in the series, the hero will survive. Well that doesn't apply here. The authors intended to write only 10 books, and this is the last. I usually try not to spoil the story for anyone else by giving away endings, and I'm not going to do that here. But I thought it was a good, appropriate ending - and I'll leave you to work out what that means.
It's a good story, and as appropriate for a final book, we get to meet once again a lot of the characters from books 1 to 9. So we have Martin Beck and his girlfriend Rhea, Kollberg who really did resign in book 9 and his wife Gun, Benny Skacke, Kollberg's replacement, Gunvald Larsson, a giant of a man, Melander with the good memory, and Ronn, a fine policeman, Mansson in Malmo, Bulldozer the public prosecutor, Malm, Martin's boss, and even Hergott Allwright from book 9. It's a stellar cast of strong characters.
There are several smaller stories - eg Rebecka Lind is an 18 year old single mother who finds herself in court as a bank robber simply for asking to borrow money - Rebecka is ground down by the system, and surprisingly appears again at the end of the book. The main story that gives the book it's title concerns 4 of the frighteningly efficient and deadly ULAG terrorist group, in Sweden to assassinate a visiting American senator, and former presidential candidate. Martin Beck is in charge of long range security and planning to protect the visitor - its a formidable task, but who better? We don't share all of Martin's plan and so we get surprises as it unfolds. I am not sure the trick he devises to outwit the terrorists would work nowadays - he would never get 100% co-operation from the media. The story has two parts - can the senator be protected, and then can the terrorists be captured. The main terrorist is Reinhard Heydt -as formidable a foe as any - but two of his companions, Japanese martial art experts are also lethal. Can Martin and his colleagues win through ?
As usual we get the Marxist propaganda throughout the book, but allowing Sjowall and Wahloo their say is the price we have to pay in return for this cracking series. Overall I would say the series is as good as its reputation - not the best ever series, but an excellent one nevertheless. I think 10 books are sufficient - I think the tale has been told, I am satisfied and I don't long for more.
This series led the way for the later Wallander series, and at the time of writing I still have two Wallander books to read. I wonder what sort of ending Wallander will have ?
All in all, a thoroughly recommended series.
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] | null | [] | 2015-10-09T00:00:00 | I chose this book as part of Past Offences’ blog monthly Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge. I found it interesting that the introduction to this novel was written by Colin Dexter, who before writing the introduction, had never read any of the Martin Beck novels. Aside from thinking it a little odd to choose… | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | crossexaminingcrime | https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/a-lacklustre-outing-for-martin-beck-in-the-fire-engine-that-disappeared-1969-by-maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo/ | I chose this book as part of Past Offences’ blog monthly Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge. I found it interesting that the introduction to this novel was written by Colin Dexter, who before writing the introduction, had never read any of the Martin Beck novels. Aside from thinking it a little odd to choose a novice reader of the series to introduce this novel, I did find it interesting to read as Dexter is incredibly honest in his novice status and the introduction is more an opportunity for him to address his preconceptions concerning the series, some justified, others not.
The novel opens with rather dry humour which is reinforced by the matter of fact tone of the narrative, such as when in the first paragraph a man’s suicide is built up to, emphasising how tidy he is. Once he has shot himself, the narrative merely notes that, ‘That did not look quite so tidy.’ What makes this simple case of suicide mysterious is that Martin Beck’s name is written on a piece of paper near the telephone. But our series’ sleuth does not know this man and the opening of the novel concentrates more on Beck’s life outside of his work such as visiting his mother who is keen that her grandson should not also become a policeman. This makes Beck reflect on his choice of career and it seems it was influenced by wanting to avoid military service. Some of the stronger parts in this novel are Beck’s moments of self-reflection, as they enable us as readers to get know Beck much more clearly and sympathetically in a way you can’t with the other members of the detective team. These moments also allow the writers of this novel to voice some of their own ideas about the state and the individual:
‘That ought to mean that he was a good policeman, but he was not so sure… He was not even certain he wanted to be a good policeman, if that involved being a dutiful person who never deviated one iota from the regulations.’
But this novel is not all self-reflection and analysis and very early on in the book the plot literally explodes in the form of a block of flats bursting into flames. The building was being observed by the police, as one of the occupants, Göran Malm, is being watched to see if he will lead the police to another man who is also involved in a car stealing racket in Stockholm. Gunvald Larsson, who has organised the stakeout witnesses the fire and is quite heroic in his attempts to save as many of the occupants as he can, getting injured in the process. This is possibly the nicest moment he has in the novel, as subsequently his behaviour and attitudes are not particularly likeable. A key question for a significant amount of the story is whether the fire was an accident or arson, with forensics playing an important role in answering this question. Another question is whether Malm committed suicide or was murdered before the fire started as early on it is deduced that he died before the fire started.
This novel is a police procedural so therefore we are introduced to many different officers with different roles and temperaments such as Melander who is in charge of assessing the crime scene and is similar to the British TV character Brian Lane in New Tricks, as they both have exceptional memories which they use for remembering details about lots of cases. There is also Kolberg, but I found I couldn’t really like him. There are also some new young recruits who are forever getting teased and assigned mind numbingly boring jobs, though one of these jobs does lead to an important break in the case. Unsurprisingly there are different tensions and animosities within the group, though Beck seems to be detached and uninvolved in them. The investigation does not have a closed set of suspects and much of the novel involves the various policemen trying to track down Malm’s partner in crime. But will doing so provide more questions than answers? And one question which keeps bugging Larsson is why did the fire engine take so long to get to the scene? The investigation culminates in an action filled, yet not particularly tense or dramatic ending, which to be honest was rather a damp squib.
It is evident that the novel is well-written and it is an easy read, but for me I just can’t get into Martin Beck’s world (as this is my third Beck novel), which presents not particularly likeable characters, in rather primitive and raw ways at times. Furthermore I did feel women were objectified in comparison to the male characters, as when even minor characters such as policemen’s wives were being physically described, for no obvious value or reason, the focus seemed to be on how sexually attractive they were or were not. The same oddly enough does not happen to the male characters and I felt this presentation of women unnecessary as it didn’t add to the novel. It may be that the authors are trying to create a male dominated atmosphere/ society through the third person narration, as well as the thoughts and dialogue of the characters, but I don’t find such an atmosphere appealing. In addition, the plot was not particularly remarkable, the killer not very interesting, being rather elusive and shadowy and the investigation itself doesn’t really hook you. I think I have to come to the conclusion that these are perhaps not my sort of books.
Rating: 2.5/5
See what others thought: | ||||
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] | null | [] | 2012-03-27T00:00:00 | Murder Among Friends’ overall reaction to this first book in the Martin Beck/Story of a Crime series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo was overwhelmingly positive! Members enjoyed the depth of detail both in the realistic depiction of the daily work of the Swedish police and in the authors’ tracking of the parts of Sweden… | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/a14bf5c0f403c93c6a297ef9b09daf950bea80efcf066df626688136c077c3d7?s=32 | Murder Among Friends -- Lisle Library's Mystery Book Group | https://murderamongfriends.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/discussion-book-summary-roseanna-by-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo/ | Murder Among Friends’ overall reaction to this first book in the Martin Beck/Story of a Crime series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo was overwhelmingly positive! Members enjoyed the depth of detail both in the realistic depiction of the daily work of the Swedish police and in the authors’ tracking of the parts of Sweden that the investigation covered. One member even pulled out her maps to track where they were going to interview suspects, go to the crime scene, and follow the trail of the murderer back to Stockholm itself. One member was so kind as to bring pictures of Lake Vattern and the actual passenger ship (Diana) which was the site of the victim’s murder in the story! There were other handouts of places that were key to the novel, and that Patti will add to the upcoming MAF website. (She’s also hoping to get the link for the Diana etc. too!)
Another member particularly enjoyed the way the authors had the police first hunting down the Diana’s passengers, and then combing through the passengers’ travel pictures to find the killer. The way they painstakingly follow all the phases it takes to solve the crime adds to the realism and believability for the reader. A couple of members had some difficulty getting into the story initially, and one member had stopped reading it, due to the pacing and its focus on the daily activities that often did nothing to advance the story. In talking about how this deliberate approach was used by the authors to build the readers’ belief in the authenticity of how an investigation would run, all the members came to appreciate what the authors were trying to do, especially when the reader who had put it down was told how gripping the final resolution was in catching the killer.
A major point of discussion was just how differently the police in Sweden are shown to act – particularly with suspects and each other – than we see in American police procedurals. Their focus on needing to help the murderer with his problem, instead of “getting the bad guy” and punishing him for the crime itself. We also talked about how the time frame of the 1960s is also reflected in the attitudes and issues of the characters. (In the introduction, Wallander author Henning Mankell even points out how the authors even place a Vietnamese tourist on the shoreline, probably in acknowledgement of the Vietnam War and the raising of the western world’s consciousness of that part of the world.)
Raising consciousness is the overall aim that Sjowall and Wahloo had in writing this series. They saw the crime novel as a perfect vehicle for making social commentary that expressed their concerns for the increasingly capitalistic pitfalls that Sweden was starting to encounter, along with the rest of the world. The books were very deliberately thought out to be a 10 book series they thought of as “The Story of a Crime”. One article that was shared about how they came to write the series mentioned that they had been talking about doing a series of crime novels , and one day they observed a dark-haired woman leaning on the rail of a passing passenger boat and Maj said to Per “What if we killed her?”. The rest is history, and the influence of it on other mystery writers has been powerful.
In sharing background about the authors we also mentioned that the authors had met, and courted, by writing pieces, articles, etc. and leaving them for each other. This was echoed in the way they wrote the Martin Beck stories. They would each write one chapter, and the next night swap them and edit them. We felt that along with the plot and themes that the books reflect the two of them as soul mates as well. We rounded out the evening with a special Swedish “Fish” cake that was “For Maj and Per” — in the colors of the Swedish Flag. 😉 | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 26 | http://www.crimesegments.com/2011/03/terrorists-by-maj-sjowall-and-per.html | en | the crime segments: The Terrorists, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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"View my complete profile"
] | null | 9780307390882 Vintage Crime/Black Lizard 2010 280 pp translated by Joan Tate originally published 1975 as Terroristerna The Terrori... | en | http://www.crimesegments.com/favicon.ico | http://www.crimesegments.com/2011/03/terrorists-by-maj-sjowall-and-per.html | 9780307390882
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
2010
280 pp
translated by Joan Tate
originally published 1975 as Terroristerna
The Terrorists is the tenth and final book in Sjöwall and Wahlöö's series featuring Martin Beck. In this installment, an unpopular American senator has planned a visit to Sweden, and Beck is chosen as head of the security team for the duration. The biggest worry is terrorist activity, and as Gunvald Larsson finds out while observing in a Latin American country, the terrorists do not play nice. While Beck is busy with trying to keep the would-be assassins from killing the Senator, he is also investigating a case dealing with pornography, drugs, and murder. Although the main focus of this novels is the measures put into place to prevent the death of the senator from a group who kill, get out and go on to their next job, the authors also reveal that there are other forms of terrorism that exist beyond the political -- and that they exist in every society.
Excellent book, especially the scene when Larsson is in Latin America, but consistently good throughout. My only problem was this nit-picky thing: in the Vintage/Black Lizard edition of Cop Killer, Martin Beck's friend and fellow detective inspector had the last name of "Allwright," where in The Terrorists, his name was changed to "Content." I know exactly what happened and that each translator does things differently to try to fully convey the nuances of a language, but at the same time, it should be more consistent in a series of editions. I spent a few minutes puzzled, but it dawned on me that the name change was in the translation.
Now that this series is over and my Vintage/Black Lizard Crime editions are all neatly shelved together, it's sort of a bittersweet kind of moment. I'm rather sad that I've finished all of the books, but the getting there was great. These authors have put together an outstanding set of novels that no readers of crime fiction should miss, even if you do not agree with the authors' political statements. The series was launched when Wahlöö sold only a minimal amount of copies of a book of his own political philosophy, and the two authors came to the realization that although no one was paying to read what Wahloo wrote, they would pay to read crime fiction. Thus began the Martin Beck series, collectively known as "The Story of a Crime." Actually, they managed to get their various points across quite effectively, and there are some truths to what they say. On the other hand, as Dennis Lehane points out in the introduction to this particular edition,
One wonders how Sjöwall and Wahlöö managed to live there through the writing of the ten Martin Beck novels, so negative is their depiction of not just the failed welfare state but the physical landscape as well ...The courts don't work, the schools produce little but rot, and the ruling class skims the cream off the top and turns its back as the poor fight over the coffee grounds.
They've also commented on the state of the police force since it was nationalized, the treatment of the elderly, and a host of other issues that they felt arose as a result of what they saw as the failure of the Swedish welfare state to take care of its people, setting aside the interests of regular citizens for the interests of those most actively involved in capitalism.
But politics aside, Sjöwall and Wahlöö gave us Martin Beck, the detective who started out on a patrol beat and became good at his job on the way up, and all of his co-workers, friends and associates whose lives we've followed throughout all of the books. And there are many humorous moments throughout the series as well -- the Keystone cop-like antics of some of the patrolmen, the inept Stig Malm, Beck's boss whose job includes a great deal of toadying to his superiors, and there are many standing examples of Sjöwall and Perlöö's wry humor that run throughout all of the novels. But the best part of these books lie in the authors' ability to create believable plots, to come up with ever-developing characters who often become frustrated to the point where they want to chuck it all but inevitably show up the next day for work (if they go home to sleep at all), and then they throw all of that in with their political opinions, and still manage to create a crime fiction series that stays on task, never getting excessive. The bottom line is that Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö began these books as their personal mission, but the series stayed consistently excellent, and it has entertained and will continue to satisfy millions of crime fiction enthusiasts around the world. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 85 | https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/wahloop/generals.htm | en | The Generals | [
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The Generals
by
Per Wahlöö
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
Title: The Generals Author: Per Wahlöö Genre: Novel Written: 1965 (Eng. 1974) Length: 278 pages Original in: Swedish Availability: The Generals - US The Generals - UK The Generals - Canada Die Generale - Deutschland
Swedish title: Generalerna
Translated by Joan Tate
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Our Assessment:
B- : good idea, but doesn't do enough with it
See our review for fuller assessment.
Review Summaries Source Rating Date Reviewer Sunday Times . 24/2/1974 Godfrey Smith TLS . 19/4/1974 .
From the Reviews:
"But at a time when Solzhenitsyn's exile has reminded us so vividly of the reality, this satire on the wanton abuse of ultimate power seems hamfisted where it seeks to be serious, and unfunny where it tries to be comic." - Godfrey Smith, Sunday Times
"The shape taken by the novel is original, but it is an originality which works against narrative pace and interests. (...) Mr Wahloo's thriller-writer skill injects some tension into the situation, yet such a method would have hampered the most ingenious and economical of writers." - Times Literary Supplement
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
The Generals is a novel entirely in dialogue, presented as the transcript of the sixteen days (spread over several months) of a court martial (though including much of the incidental chit-chat as well as the official proceedings). Erwin Velder is charged with 127 offences, but one can hardly say he's accused of them: there's no doubt about his guilt in this kangaroo-court, and the purpose of these proceedings is to serve as a sort of show trial (though, in fact, almost none of it takes place in front of an audience).
The current head of state, under whom Velder served in the local armed forces, has a special interest in the case, as the participants are reminded:
I must repeat that the Chief of State demands all possible care in this investigation. We may not avoid any truths or facts. Neither must we forget that Velder as a phenomenon is unique. he is now the only living person who has survived all the phases in our national development from anarchy to model state.
The testimony in the 'trial' then reveals the history of the island-state where the action takes (and took) place -- and, of course, it turns out that the so-called anarchic state was much more idyllic than what proves to be a totalitarian horror right now.
The island was, for a while, a sort of utopia, a country with: "no official standpoints, either in matters of belief or any other matters". There are no laws, and the only punishment is deportation. But economically the country fares very well, living off of carefully controlled tourism -- as visitors are drawn to the place because of the brothels (staffed by foreign recruits) and gambling opportunities. For a while, it's a sort of mini-paradise -- until one of the locals thinks things aren't going well and tries to shake things up, demanding a referendum be held on how the country is to be governed in future, arguing for the build-up of an army and for recovering those "spiritual values that have been dragged through the mud and which will soon be irretrievably lost". And, of course, he volunteers to be the one to lead the country down this necessary new path.
The proposition for change is overwhelmingly defeated -- though as one of the local leaders points out, the victory is not as clear-cut as the vote-tally itself suggests: anyone who even bothered to vote is already on the wrong side: if so many (seventeen per cent of the population) allowed themselves: "to be duped into partaking in a meaningless referendum" they already had a big problem. The bigger problem turns out to be that the General Oswald behind the referendum wasn't going to accept defeat, and launched a coup instead. He can't take over the country entirely, immediately, and a protracted civil war breaks out, with the violent unrest and insecurity continuing to this day. Among the amusing asides during the hearings are the absences of various members, as they are involved in the power struggles still going on on the island.
Even as the court tries to re-write history -- as: what General Oswald did was glorious, saving the country from decadent collapse and protecting it from foreign hostility -- enough is revealed in the day-to-day proceedings to show that the country has collapsed completely. It goes as far as the simple trial-conditions, the constant complaints about the non-functioning heating and cooling systems in the room (which no one can repair).
Velder is a broken man, willing to go along with everything that's required of him; revealingly, even that is barely enough here, so obvious is it that the current regime is entirely in the wrong. In preparation for his trial Velder has been 'softened up' -- and, indeed, one of the problems they have is keeping him alive for the duration of the proceedings. His interrogator insists he hasn't been tortured -- but does admit there was some "surgical intervention" to help "stimulate the effort of will". So Velder is literally a broken man, as he has endured:
Five amputations, one eye operation, and partial castration.
They have a go at him during a break in the proceedings as well, and by the end he's barely able to function any longer, tending towards collapse -- slowing things down again. As one participant asks at one point, with considerable irritation:
What's the matter with Velder now ? Same old coma ?
All of this is the stuff of decent political satire, but, despite some inspired touches, Wahlöö doesn't run with it nearly as much as he could. Instead, he bogs things down in the accounts of the military conflicts on the island, dragging the whole story down with it.
It's not easy to write a novel just in dialogue, and Wahlöö does do a solid job of bringing some of the characters and events to life despite that (with the to-be-expected tricks of letters and other accounts being read into testimony), but it's the basic story, the contrast of utopia and military nightmare, that he doesn't elaborate nearly enough on.
The Generals is of some, but ultimately very limited interest.
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:
The Generals:
Black Lizard publicity page
Piratförlaget AB publicity page
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews
Per Wahlöö:
Per Wahlöö at the Salomonsson Agency
Books by Per Wahlöö under review:
Murder on the Thirty-First Floor
The Steel Spring
Books by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö under review:
The Martin Beck Mysteries:
1. Roseanna
2. The Man who went up in Smoke
Other books of interest under review:
See Index of Scandinavian literature
See Index of Interviews, conversations, and dialogues
- Return to top of the page -
About the Author:
Swedish author Per Wahlöö (1926-1975) is best known for the Martin Beck-series he co-authored with his wife, Maj Sjöwall.
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© 2008-2015 the complete review
Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links | ||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 30 | https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Martin-Beck-Stories-Audiobook/B074N5N5D4 | en | The Martin Beck Stories | [
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The reality of this drama is very good. But 11 stories are bit too long. Maybe three to five episode is good enough for my concentration.
Highly Recommended. Compelling stories
Superb cast and orchestration of these compelling stories. Seeking out more of Maj Sjowall and Petr Wahloo! Wonderful works.
Reminiscent
Be clear that these are short adaptations of short novels. I read the books many years ago as they came out in English. I loved them and was primed for dozens more from Scandinavia. These abbreviated radio adaptations do not permit full development of all characters or the interplay of culture, politics, and individual personality. However, the dramatizations offer strong flavors of these facets of the originals, and they are lovely procedurals as they stand. If you like old-fashioned radio dramas you will be pleased to experience these excellent productions, beautifully enacted.
Fantastic stories. I hope this whetted your appetite for the actual books!
These are great stories and a time capsule of a period of time. The authors were genius using these stories to illustrate their society. BUT, did we have to listen to people eating. Aren’t Swedish folks taught not to talk with their mouths full? This is minor but is in every story .
I urge you to invest in the actual books. They are marvelous.
Really good
Loved the books and here they are fully dramatized! Two thumbs up on this collection.
the grandparents of the swedish murder mystery
very enjoyable! flashes of humor and cynicism. my favorite character was Larsson, played by Ralph Inerson. this was my first foray into BBC radio plays, and I'm definitely going to listen to many more!
great swedish cop series with characters you 💘
martin beck and his Stockholm come alive and transports the listener to the place and time with intriguing characters and crimes...a great series!
Very entertaining.
Well presented with a full cast. All 10 of the novels included. I enjoyed this title very much. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 29 | http://www.crimesegments.com/2011/03/terrorists-by-maj-sjowall-and-per.html | en | the crime segments: The Terrorists, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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"View my complete profile"
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Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
2010
280 pp
translated by Joan Tate
originally published 1975 as Terroristerna
The Terrorists is the tenth and final book in Sjöwall and Wahlöö's series featuring Martin Beck. In this installment, an unpopular American senator has planned a visit to Sweden, and Beck is chosen as head of the security team for the duration. The biggest worry is terrorist activity, and as Gunvald Larsson finds out while observing in a Latin American country, the terrorists do not play nice. While Beck is busy with trying to keep the would-be assassins from killing the Senator, he is also investigating a case dealing with pornography, drugs, and murder. Although the main focus of this novels is the measures put into place to prevent the death of the senator from a group who kill, get out and go on to their next job, the authors also reveal that there are other forms of terrorism that exist beyond the political -- and that they exist in every society.
Excellent book, especially the scene when Larsson is in Latin America, but consistently good throughout. My only problem was this nit-picky thing: in the Vintage/Black Lizard edition of Cop Killer, Martin Beck's friend and fellow detective inspector had the last name of "Allwright," where in The Terrorists, his name was changed to "Content." I know exactly what happened and that each translator does things differently to try to fully convey the nuances of a language, but at the same time, it should be more consistent in a series of editions. I spent a few minutes puzzled, but it dawned on me that the name change was in the translation.
Now that this series is over and my Vintage/Black Lizard Crime editions are all neatly shelved together, it's sort of a bittersweet kind of moment. I'm rather sad that I've finished all of the books, but the getting there was great. These authors have put together an outstanding set of novels that no readers of crime fiction should miss, even if you do not agree with the authors' political statements. The series was launched when Wahlöö sold only a minimal amount of copies of a book of his own political philosophy, and the two authors came to the realization that although no one was paying to read what Wahloo wrote, they would pay to read crime fiction. Thus began the Martin Beck series, collectively known as "The Story of a Crime." Actually, they managed to get their various points across quite effectively, and there are some truths to what they say. On the other hand, as Dennis Lehane points out in the introduction to this particular edition,
One wonders how Sjöwall and Wahlöö managed to live there through the writing of the ten Martin Beck novels, so negative is their depiction of not just the failed welfare state but the physical landscape as well ...The courts don't work, the schools produce little but rot, and the ruling class skims the cream off the top and turns its back as the poor fight over the coffee grounds.
They've also commented on the state of the police force since it was nationalized, the treatment of the elderly, and a host of other issues that they felt arose as a result of what they saw as the failure of the Swedish welfare state to take care of its people, setting aside the interests of regular citizens for the interests of those most actively involved in capitalism.
But politics aside, Sjöwall and Wahlöö gave us Martin Beck, the detective who started out on a patrol beat and became good at his job on the way up, and all of his co-workers, friends and associates whose lives we've followed throughout all of the books. And there are many humorous moments throughout the series as well -- the Keystone cop-like antics of some of the patrolmen, the inept Stig Malm, Beck's boss whose job includes a great deal of toadying to his superiors, and there are many standing examples of Sjöwall and Perlöö's wry humor that run throughout all of the novels. But the best part of these books lie in the authors' ability to create believable plots, to come up with ever-developing characters who often become frustrated to the point where they want to chuck it all but inevitably show up the next day for work (if they go home to sleep at all), and then they throw all of that in with their political opinions, and still manage to create a crime fiction series that stays on task, never getting excessive. The bottom line is that Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö began these books as their personal mission, but the series stayed consistently excellent, and it has entertained and will continue to satisfy millions of crime fiction enthusiasts around the world. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 9 | https://crimethrillerfella.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo-maj-sjowall/ | en | Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall | [
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] | null | [] | 2014-09-24T07:41:46+00:00 | Posts about Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall written by SSA1 | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | Crime Thriller Fella | https://crimethrillerfella.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo-maj-sjowall/ | DA Mishani was destined to be a crime novelist. A literary scholar specializing in the history of detective literature, he worked as an editor of fiction and international crime literature before hitting it big with the publication of his first novel. The Missing File was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger Award.
Now the second in his Inspector Avraham Avraham series, A Possibility Of Violence, has been translated – it won the prestigious Bernstein prize for best Hebrew novel in 2014 – and is getting all sorts of acclaim. In the novel, a suspicious device is found inside a suitcase near a nursery in Tel Aviv. The children are taken to safety; a man is caught fleeing the scene. Then comes the phone call: ‘the suitcase is only the beginning.’
Both A Possibility of Violence and The Missing File were shortlisted for the Sapir Award, the Israeli equivalent of the Man Booker Prize.
Where did the inspiration for A Possibility of Violence come from?
A Possibility Of Violence was born from an uncanny conversation I had with my 4-year-old son Benjamin. One day he suddenly asked me, “Do you know I had a father before you?” I looked at him, shocked by what he had just said, and then he added, “But he’s already dead.” This conversation haunted me – and finally inspired a similar scene in the novel I started writing.
What kind of man is Avraham?
Unlike most literary detectives, probably, he’s a trusting man, somewhat naïve maybe, and also partly insecure. But he’s passionate and truly caring for the lives of people he meets during his investigations, and he’s imaginative – and when he believes he knows the truth he doesn’t let go.
Your crime novels have won and been shortlisted for numerous awards – do you feel the weight of expectation on your shoulders when you sit down to write?
I think that on the contrary, the fact that my novels have gained some appreciation from readers and critics, helps me keep going, avoiding the voices most writers probably hear around them, whispering, “is that really any good?”
You’re a scholar specializing in the history of crime literature – do you find that a help or a hindrance when you came to write your first Inspector Avraham novel?
A huge help. I believe you can’t be a good crime writer without being first a good crime reader, because writing a good crime novel is initiating yourself to a glorious literary tradition that you have to respect and follow, while betraying it, but just a bit, in order to speak with a voice that is also your own.
You have probably read more detective novels than most people. What are the traits of personality that link fictional detectives down the decades and across the continents, do you think?
Most of the literary detectives that made the genre’s history were vain but their vanity was just a cover for their deep insecurity and solitude, traits that I really like about them. Most of them pretended to be genius but only in order to hide their blindness, which is what I find fascinating about them. And some of them were the most humane characters ever written in literature, faithful witnesses for human sufferings and pain.
Who are your own favourite crime writers?
Henning Mankell. Fred Vargas. P.D. James. Karin Fossum. Hakan Nesser. Jan Costin Wagner. Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. Georges Simenon. And many more.
We’re familiar with the political situation in Israel, but Tel Aviv, like any other city, must have its share of social and domestic crime – how important is it to you to accurately portray this aspect of the city?
I don’t believe that writers are, generally speaking, good sociologists (apart from Balzac, maybe?) I’m definitely not sitting down to write in order to describe a society or denounce its problems. But I do believe that we are all social-beings and so in a way complex “products” of the societies we live in – and that when you write well a personal story you always write a social story too.
Take us through a typical writing day for you?
Oh, they can be so painful sometimes. I go to my office early in the morning, after leaving my children in school, and then I sit for hours in front of the computer, sometimes four hours and sometimes even eight. The hardest part is that you can never know how well you’ll do today and that weeks can pass without a truly good page…
What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?
That you can’t rush it.
How do you deal with feedback?
I love good feedback and I find it very helpful to my writing. Bad reviews I pretend not to read.
Give me some advice about writing…
Me? I can maybe try and give advice about writing crime: start from feeling a certain proximity and even intimacy with your criminal and your crime.
What’s next for you?
I’m about to write the last pages of the third Avraham novel, The Policeman Who Went Down The Stairs And Disappeared. And then, who knows? But I guess Avraham and I will not separate for long… | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 67 | http://www.crimesegments.com/2011/03/ | en | the crime segments | http://www.crimesegments.com/favicon.ico | http://www.crimesegments.com/favicon.ico | [
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7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Per-Wahloo | en | Per Wahlöö | Swedish journalist and author | [
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As a team, Per Wahlöö and his wife, Maj Sjöwall (married in 1962), wrote a series of detective stories in which Martin Beck and his colleagues at the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm were the main characters. From Roseanna (1965) to Terroristerna (1975; “The Terrorists”), the series…
Read More | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 88 | https://simonpetrie.wordpress.com/tag/maj-sjowall/ | en | Simon Petrie | [
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] | null | [] | null | Posts about Maj Sjöwall written by simonpetrie | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | Simon Petrie | https://simonpetrie.wordpress.com/tag/maj-sjowall/ | Swedish authors (and de facto couple) Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are pivotal figures in the development of Scandinavian crime fiction as a distinct subgenre, with their critically-acclaimed ten-volume series of ‘Martin Beck’ police procedurals mapping out a then-contemporary panorama of Swedish society from the mid sixties to the mid seventies.
The Laughing Policeman (Den skrattande polisen, 1968, translated by Alan Blair), the fourth in the ‘Martin Beck’ sequence, won the Edgar Allan Poe award for Best Novel in 1971. Set in Stockholm’s miserable winter slush at the end of 1967, it concerns the mass murder of a busload of passengers, late at night, by an unknown assailant armed with a submachine gun. The police investigation has its hands full merely determining the identities of the driver and eight passengers slain in the attack; the crime scene was left badly messed up by the well-meaning first responders to the incident, so the hopes of Beck and his team for clues to the killer’s identity rest with the critically-wounded sole survivor, and with the discovery that one of the bodies on the bus is that of Åke Stenström, a young policeman known to Beck and his associates. But, since it seems that Stenström was off duty at the time of the attack, it’s not clear whether his presence at the scene was intended or merely due to random chance…
As with all of the books in the sequence, this is presented as a ‘Martin Beck’ novel, though it could more justifiably be described as a novel of Lennart Kollberg, Beck’s closest associate and a distinctly more sympathetic character. Unlike Beck, Kollberg does not merely run the gamut of emotions from ‘gruff’ to ‘taciturn’: his personality displays genuine growth within the book’s pages and his interactions with others, particularly Stenström’s bereaved partner Åsa Torell, are moving and memorable.
The writing is detached, distant, consistently downplaying, the setting a half-century past (with its student unrest and massed Vietnam War demonstrations), yet the scenes described are vivid and the sense of involvement immediate. There are aspects to the text which now appear somewhat dated (its examination of sexuality, for example); it’s also interesting to contrast the police response to the atrocity with what the present-day response would most likely entail. In these respects, it’s unavoidable that the book is seen as a document of its times. (I was intrigued to note that the book contains what might be the earliest pop-culture reference to Ronald Reagan, politician—as opposed to Ronald Reagan, actor—beating out Creedence Clearawater Revival’s ‘It Came Out Of The Sky’ by a year or more.) Also as with all of the Beck books, it’s highly class-conscious and—more through Kollberg’s perspective than that of the consistently sour Beck—does not hide its authors’ openly-declared socialist sympathies, with commentary on wealth inequality, police brutality, corruption, journalistic sensationalism, and the prevalence of gun crime in the USA. (Perhaps this contributes to the books’ air of continuing relevance?) At its heart, however, it remains an expertly-told police procedural, with a well-constructed crime and a realistically-frustrated investigation progressing not-quite-blindly towards the revelation of a concealed truth.
Though Maj Sjöwall and the late Per Wahlöö both also wrote novels individually, this Swedish duo is best know as the authors of the ten-volume ‘Martin Beck’ series, a set of police procedurals charting crime and societal change across the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. I’ve previously reviewed the first two books in the series, Roseanna and The Man Who Went Up In Smoke.
The Man on the Balcony (Mannen på balkongen, 1967, translated by Alan Blair) details the investigation of a sequence of shocking fatal attacks on preteen girls by an unknown assailant, in public parks across Stockholm. With no reliable witnesses (the only people thought to have seen the attacker are a mugger and a three-year-old boy), and with two fatalities only days apart, the police are under extreme pressure to solve a series of crimes almost completely devoid of useful clues. The taciturn Beck (whom I’ve discovered, three books in, that I visualise as actor Martin Clunes—perhaps it’s a first-name thing) leads an investigation which, by necessity, repeatedly clutches at straws and repeatedly ends up down blind alleys but which, finally, starts to crystallise into a case with one suspect …
The Beck novels have a distinct flavour of ‘time capsule’ about them: they’re very plainly not of the modern world of smartphones, the internet, and magically-powerful forensic analysis. This means they have a particular charm which more recent procedurals, seeking to capture our present day, lack; yet the Beck novels’ setting was the present day of its time, the background issues—mismanaged urbanisation, societal unrest, the uptake in hallucinogenic substances etc—were very much concerns of the time. And insofar as human nature seems to necessitate never properly solving any of its problems, but merely compounding them in unexpected ways, it’s fair to say that the society of these novels (and that society is a reasonably subtle but nonetheless enduring focus of the series) is distinctly recognisable to the modern-day reader, for all that it differs in some details.
The above may make The Man on the Balcony sound dry and sombre, and yet it’s not. It’s low-key, certainly, expressed in clipped, efficient prose that lends the story immediacy. The characterisation is effective but largely undemonstrative; there are no larger-than-life crises designed to throw characters into an emotional or physical maelstrom, merely the plodding routine of the long and poorly-focussed search for the killer, punctuated by fresh clues, fresh red herrings, and fresh attacks. The book doesn’t even aim at catharsis, as if acknowledging that the ultimate result of all of this can never be a resolution, merely an end of sorts. It’s all surprisingly immersive, and quietly intriguing. If you haven’t yet read Sjöwall & Wahlöö, you should.
The ‘Martin Beck’ series of police procedurals, written across the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies by Swedish ex-journalists Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (the latter of whom died shortly after publication of the series’ final instalment The Terrorists), have exerted a major influence on the subgenre of Scandinavian crime fiction—Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander, written with a similarly laconic and closely-focussed style, can be reductively viewed as Beck’s direct descendant—and have earned a substantial following elsewhere. Forty to fifty years on, the books are now somewhat dated (which isn’t necessarily a failing: they’re very much a product of their times, and the times have moved on), but it’d be wrong to view them as merely historical documents: those I’ve read are genuinely, if quietly, intriguing, and the crimes remain topical even if the methods of investigation and communication now appear quite old-fashioned. I’ve previously reviewed the first of the Beck novels, Roseanna, here.
The Man Who Went Up In Smoke (Mannen som gick upp i rök, 1966, translated by Joan Tate) opens with the scene of a murder, but it’s not one with any direct connection to the mystery at the novel’s centre, which is the disappearance, in Budapest, of Swedish journalist Alf Matsson. Concerned that Matsson’s employer is not above exploiting his disappearance as some kind of made-in-house scoop—an eventuality which, with its expected trappings of jingoism and paranoia, would have troubling implications for relations between Sweden and the countries of communist Eastern Europe—the Foreign Office asks the police to investigate, and the police, in turn, assign the task to Martin Beck, the day after he has embarked on a month-long vacation with his family on one of the islands of the Stockholm archipelago. Beck is free to refuse the assignment, but he takes it on. He’s never heard of the journalist and disapproves of the paper for which Matsson writes. The details surrounding Matsson’s disappearance are sparse, a situation that doesn’t change much with Beck’s relocation to Budapest, where he stays in the same hotel room into which the journalist had been booked, but had apparently not occupied for longer than about a half hour two weeks previously. Beck has Matsson’s passport, a few eyewitness accounts of questionable reliability from hotel workers and taxi drivers, and that’s about it. Even the woman on whom Matsson had apparently been planning to call—his romantic interest, Ari Bökk, a former East German athlete—turns out to be someone who claims no knowledge of the missing Swede. And yet, incrementally, a case emerges from the heat haze …
We’re given little direct access to Beck’s thoughts and feelings, except as they impinge upon his investigation, and all of the novel’s other participants are viewed entirely through his eyes. Despite this, Beck, his colleagues Kollberg and Melander, Major Szluka of the Budapest police force, and a swathe of witnesses and suspects are clearly, almost intimately drawn before the reader’s eyes. The settings, too, are described with often-affectionate detail, and help to place the reader in the midst of the action.
One of the things that’s most striking about Beck’s characterisation is that, in this book, he eats well. This is notable chiefly because in the book’s predecessor, Roseanna, he’s starkly dyspeptic, as is the protagonist Inspector Jensen in Wahlöö’s solo crime-fiction effort Murder on the Thirty-first Floor (published in the same year, 1966, as The Man Who Went Up In Smoke and similarly concerned with the intersection between journalism and crime). That two of the three books I’ve read for which Wahlöö was an author, all of them ostensibly written within a two-year timespan, have protagonists for whom digestion is an often-agonising ordeal has me wondering whether this is in some sense mirroring the then-current state of health of Wahlöö, who would die in 1975 from a disease, pancreatic cancer, for which digestive difficulties and loss of appetite are apparently frequent early symptoms. I mention this solely because Beck’s reported eating habits in Roseanna, and Jensen’s in Thirty-first floor, are so appalling that it is, at times, quite confronting despite the distance and emotionlessness of the tone with which they’re described. Whether the oncology stacks up, and whether there is any broader scope for the application of the reported ailments of fictional detectives as a diagnosis for the physical condition of their creators, I leave as an exercise for the interested reader.
With its internationality, intrigue, and subterfuge, The Man Who Went Up In Smoke invites comparison with the books and movies featuring James Bond; and indeed, the text deliberately references Bond in a couple of places. But it would be wrong to view TMWWUIS through the same prism as Fleming’s tales of high-vis spycraft: Beck’s a plodder, a rather taciturn (though generally polite) grump with no fighting skills to speak of, without any particular tickets on himself beyond a (sometimes wavering) belief that his work is important, and he gets results because of his persistence and his capacity to take pains with the details. The detection that solves the mystery at the core of TMWWUIS is quite marvellous, and I’m looking forward to what happens in the subsequent instalments.
The series of ten ‘Martin Beck’ police procedurals written, in the sixties and seventies, by Swedish duo Sjöwall and (the late) Wahlöö is their most widely-known and influential creation; these works have a reputation as the wellspring from which every subsequent Scandinavian crime novel (and many a non-Scandinavian one also) has either directly or indirectly drawn inspiration. They’ve also given rise to an enviable total of 46 movies, with the role of Beck taken by actors including Derek Jacobi and Walter Matthau.
The books are known for their careful construction, for their deliberate social realism, and for the quantity of preparation with which the series was planned: published one per year from 1965, each novel progresses the circumstances of Beck and those around him by one year, so the series maps out—in background—a decade of social development in Sweden.
Both Sjöwall and Wahlöö also wrote separately (indeed, I think Sjöwall is still active as a writer, as well as a translator), though little of their individual output has seen English translation. There are a few Wahlöö titles in English (I’ve reviewed Murder on the Thirty-First Floor here), but I’m not aware of any of Sjöwall’s work (including Danish Incident, coauthored with Bjarne Nielsen, and The Woman Who Resembled Greta Garbo, coauthored with Tomas Ross) that has yet appeared in English.
Roseanna (Roseanna, 1965, translated by Lois Roth) is the first book in the Martin Beck series. It opens with the discovery, during dredging of the Göta Canal at Borenshult in the summer of 1964, of the waterlogged, unclothed body of a young woman, dead some two or three days. The local police in Motala open an investigation into the woman’s death, but after two weeks no headway has been made by Gunnar Ahlberg and his associates, and the assistance of the Stockholm homicide bureau is sought. When Detective Inspector Martin Beck and his colleagues Kollberg and Mellander arrive on the scene, the woman’s identity remains unknown; there are no suspects; there are no clues as to any motive for her death; all that is known, beyond the contents of her last meal and the approximate time of death, is that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled. The practical, dyspeptic Beck sets about attempting to elucidate further information about a murder for which, it seems, no clues exist. Very gradually, during the next half year, the crime emerges from a fog of near-total uncertainty.
The pacing of this crime novel is, by more modern standards, somewhat slow, but this shouldn’t be seen as a negative: it allows space for the calm, undemonstrative characterisation to take hold as the story unfolds. And though the novel does not conceal the sense of often-directionless ennui that must accompany a six-month-long investigation, it also provides definite flashes of humour and of heightening tension along the way. The prose has the same sense of quietly ironic detachment as is a feature of Wahlöö’s Murder on the Thirty-First Floor, though Roseanna feels richer, busier, more sharply defined by place (because it is, after all, a novel inhabiting a specified and recognisable set of localities within Sweden rather than within an effectively-allegorical futuristic mid-European state). And the pacing and plotting also make plain, by comparison with a society now half a century newer, just how much difference is made by the technological furniture of the time. This is an investigation conducted by typewriter and mail delivery, at a time before the fax machine, a time when telephones were inevitably-deskbound devices for the sole purpose of verbal communication. (The past is a different country, etc.)
This is an effective, ingenious, and detailed novel; it’ll be interesting to see how its nine successors compare with it. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 11 | https://www.crimethrillerhound.co.uk/roseanna-review | en | Roseanna, Review | [
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"5 star crime thriller reads",
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] | null | [] | null | Roseanna, Review. Crime Thriller Hound. | en | https://static.wixstatic.com/ficons/431b42_34632bda0edb471c864609d49132f198_fi.ico | hotfootcrime | https://www.crimethrillerhound.co.uk/roseanna-review | When the body appears in the dredging bucket, no-one seems to be able to identify her. The woman’s description doesn’t match that of any missing person, and there’s no identification on the body. Stockholm homicide investigator Martin Beck and his team-mates Kollberg and Melander go to Motala, where the investigation is centered, and begin working to identify the woman and find out who killed her and why.
With patient, thorough police work, the team finds out that the victim’s name was Roseanna McGraw, and that she was a visitor to Sweden from the United States. Slowly, over the next several months, the team finds out the kind of person she was, why she was visiting Sweden, and how she came to meet her killer.
One of the most important elements in this novel is the realistic depiction of the patient, sometimes difficult work that’s involved in solving a murder, especially the murder of an unidentified person. The novel takes place before the days of DNA testing, electronic communication and other modern technology, so there’s a real emphasis on interviews, photographs and coroner and police reports. We follow Beck and the team as they narrow down the myriad possibilities to one cruise ship – the ship on which Roseanna was traveling. Then, we “listen in” as passengers and crew members are interviewed. At the same time, we follow a parallel investigation in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the missing Roseanna McGraw lived. Throughout the investigation, we’re privy to the long hours, frustrations and painstaking work that go into solving this kind of crime. In this sense, Roseanna is a clear example of the police procedural, with a real focus on what police do to solve cases. The novel isn’t a thriller – most police work isn’t like that. Instead, it’s a “behind-the-scenes” portrayal of a police unit at work.Another element that runs through the novel is the slowly unfolding character of Roseanna McGraw. At the beginning of the novel, she doesn’t exist yet as a personality. But bit by bit, as Martin Beck and his team gather the threads of their case, we learn more and more about her.
Teamwork also plays an important role in this novel. The case is not solved by Martin Beck’s brilliant ideas alone (although he is a highly talented and intuitive investigator). Instead, he, Kollberg, Melander, Detective Sonja Hansson and Inspector Ahlberg from Motala work together with Detective Kafka from Lincoln, Nebraska. They pool their resources and talents and it’s really their combined efforts that catch the killer. In this use of teamwork, the novel is quite realistic. In real life, it’s rarely only one police detective who has all of the good ideas and does all of the work. Almost always, police work together, especially on a difficult, complicated murder case like this one.The character of Martin Beck himself is another important thread in this novel. Many people have argued that he’s the forerunner of several modern Swedish detectives: hard-working, somewhat pessimistic, dedicated to his job and with a less-than-perfect home life. In those senses, Beck is similar to Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander and other Swedish detectives (although of course, there are differences among them). Beck’s haunted by Roseanna McGraw’s murder, and is obsessed with finding her killer.
The sense of place is also an important element in this novel. As the detectives pursue the leads, interview witnesses and slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together, we get a sense of what Stockholm, Motala, Gothenburg and other places in Sweden are like. Sjöwall and Wahlöö place the reader unmistakably, and although it may sound trite, one really can say that the place and its climate almost become characters in the novel.Roseanna is first and foremost a police procedural that focuses on what the police do to solve their cases, and how they go about it. It’s also, in many ways, the forerunner of more modern Swedish crime fiction, tied together with a flawed, complex, but highly talented lead detective, teamwork, a sense of place and the gradually evolving character of the victim. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 13 | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13131579-the-assignment | en | The Assignment (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) | [
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"Per Wahlöö"
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for readers. From Per Wahlöö—co-author with his wife, Maj Sjöwall, of the internationally bestselling Ma… | en | /favicon.ico | Goodreads | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13131579-the-assignment | June 22, 2024
This is a truly fabulous book — a political thriller, of sorts — but much more. Possibly the best thing Wahlöö ever wrote. Can’t recommend this enough.
July 27, 2018
Per Wahlöö, co-author of the remarkable Martin Beck series of Swedish detective novels, here takes a solo outing, departing from the crime novel genre into that of diplomatic intrigue. In THE ASSIGNMENT, a South American diplomat, Manuel Ortega, is ordered to replace a provincial official after the man's assassination. Ortega must try to establish peace, or at least an end to violence, between the wealthy white population of the province and the Indian peasants who have united against them in hopes of liberating themselves from oppression. Much of the novel depicts Ortega waiting tensely and tediously for events to occur, yet there is nothing tedious for the reader. When events do break, what happens is both exciting and intelligent, with turns and intrigue accelerating the tension. There is a strong philosophical debate at play between Ortega and the police commander who is both his political opponent and his greatest source of security, and Wahlöö, a deeply political writer even in his most commercial works, makes no secret of where he stands on the issues at play in the story. At times deceptively even-paced, THE ASSIGNMENT turns out to be a sturdy exploration of the lifelong fight between true good and true evil and the grey areas where so much of life exists. A highly engaging book.
November 26, 2019
Eski mardinde gezerken denk geldiğim bir sahafın raflarını karıştırırken karşılaştığım güzel kitap. Şuanki bulunduğum durum ve konum itibarıyla kitabı rahatça bitirmek pek kolay olmasa da neyse ki kimse elimde görüp neyden bahsediyor bu diye sormadı. Kitapla alakası olmayan insanların arasında zaman geçirmenin faydalarından biri de bu olsa gerek .
May 12, 2022
A serious book that, sadly, could have easily shifted into a farcical lampoon.
There is no doubt that the petty diplomat protagonist is trying to improve the world and "do good things," but where Wahloo lets us get closer to the oppositional figures, most notably in the police chief, we get mired in the complexity of their being no real "bad guys," or at least none among the people who are themselves close to the action.
The sex in the book is an intersting reflection on this. The happily married diplomat moves easily into an affair with his secretary, and he barely reflects back on his family even when faced with death, those particular mores when being in a difficult situation changing for him easily.
Or it could be just what is needed to sell a pop novel.
Still, an interesting study of whether or not (or how much) one should stand up to the "inevitable" forces.
July 15, 2018
Having finished the complete Martin Beck series by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall, I f0und and read this page turning solely authored Wahloo novel set in a bleak unnamed South American country--so a hotter, and bleaker, world than Sweden. Left a similar sadness than in spite of good efforts and human foibles, things don't work and and perhaps not only stay the same but are worse. I do like the writing.
May 27, 2022
This is undoubtedly the best of Wahlöö's non-mystery novels. Something of a political thriller, which I'm shocked I even condescended to glance through. Psycholically taut, philosophically terse (and realistic). I think Wahlöö was a member of the Communist Party, but you really wouldn't know it by his books. And that is great.
October 29, 2021
I don't know exactly when I read this book but it's a powerful political thriller that I'd heartily recommend.
I've been a ghost member of Goodreads for ages but am intending, who knows if successfully?, to become a more active member.
June 24, 2020
Started out as a fairly interesting story but quickly became predictable and comes with a ridiculous ending.
December 30, 2022
Manuel Ortega accepts the position of the head of local administration in a region plagued by horrible inequality, social injustice, and civil war violence. His decision to serve his country in such an agonizing capacity stems from his good intentions to support the new government that seeks peace and progress. However, he soon realizes that the local well-to-dos are the fascists ready to sabotage his efforts and even endanger his life. He gets to know revolutionaries who fight for the liberation of the oppressed local people. Still, he also meets counter-revolutionaries with their hypocrisy and appalling brutality. In days full of doubts and struggle, he detaches from his past uneventful life and his trivial marital relationship. He finds love that helps him develop his determination. Still, he eventually loses everything, unable to fully face malicious deception, astonishing violence, and fear that prevents him from acting right. In some way, this is an Attic tragedy without catharsis and purification that would bring pity and fear into their proper balance. There is no corrective experience in this tragedy, just the feelings of remaining hopelessness and powerlessness in facing evil.
October 24, 2015
3.5 stars : Wahloo's first novel (with an acknowledgment to Maj Sjöwall, his future partner) is dark, brooding and fatalistic. Politics and power trump moral considerations and betrayal and the willingness to allow it to happen is central to this character study of a bland bureaucrat. All through one hopes for redemptive action, but it ends with what has always been inevitable.
November 16, 2014
Just eh, didn't like the subject matter nor the characters. Should try another by the author sometime. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 0 | https://crimereads.com/maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo-a-crime-readers-guide-to-the-classics/ | en | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics | [
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"Neil Nyren"
] | 2021-01-22T09:10:46+00:00 | “One of the most authentic, gripping, and profound collection of police procedurals ever accomplished.” – Michael Connelly Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were pioneers. First of all, they virtually cre… | en | CrimeReads | https://crimereads.com/maj-sjowall-and-per-wahloo-a-crime-readers-guide-to-the-classics/ | “One of the most authentic, gripping, and profound collection of police procedurals ever accomplished.” – Michael Connelly
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Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were pioneers. First of all, they virtually created Scandinavian noir, and all the giants who followed them happily admit it. Second, with Ed McBain, they revolutionized the police procedural, emphasizing the squad as a whole, people who sometimes argued and fought and failed again and again, but who ultimately complemented one another as a team: “normal people with normal lots, normal thoughts, problems, and pleasures, people who are not larger than life, though not any smaller either,” in the words of Jo Nesbø
Third, and just as important, they took those normal people and used their cases as a way to shine a light on the world as it really is. Any reader of crime fiction today knows that the genre not only entertains, but often acts as a mirror to society; crime does not exist in a vacuum, the books say, it grows out of our systemic flaws. Sjöwall and Wahlöö blazed that trail.
All of that was accomplished with a minimum of preaching (well…usually); a remarkable gift for plotting; lean, propulsive prose that could hit like a gut punch; and bursts of humor that erupted when you least expected it, from sly, dark wit to outright slapstick.
They wrote ten books in all, one a year from 1965 to 1975, but they envisioned them not as individual volumes, but as one long story, thirty chapters each, a three-hundred-chapter saga called “The Story of a Crime.” In it, they tackled pedophilia, serial killers, suicide, drug-smuggling, pornography, arms-dealing, and madness; their characters aged, married, divorced, retired; died; and the country of Sweden itself, as they saw it, veered more and more to the right, the cracks in its “social utopia” growing ever wider, its institutions more geared to the well-off.
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At the books’ heart are the men (only men at that time, though a key woman officer is introduced later) of the National Homicide Squad. The central figure is Martin Beck, whom we see progress from first deputy inspector to detective superintendent to chief. He is dyspeptic and dogged; his stomach is bad; and his marriage disintegrating—it is moribund even in the first book, Roseanna (1965), and during the series we see him move from his bedroom to the living room couch to an apartment of his own. He is intelligent, but no super-detective; systematic, but open to sudden inspiration; solitary, but able to talk easily to people; quiet, but with an excellent sense of humor, which he often uses to mock himself:
“Martin Beck, the born detective and famous observer, constantly occupied making useless observations and storing them away for future use. Doesn’t even have bats in his belfry—they wouldn’t get in for all the crap in the way” (The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, 1966).
Also among Martin Beck’s qualities (and the narrator always refers to him as “Martin Beck,” never “Martin,” never “Beck,” unless it’s in dialogue): his good memory; his obstinacy, which is occasionally mule-like; and his capacity for logical thought. Another is that he usually finds the time for everything that has anything to do with a case, even if this means following up on small details that later turn out to be of no significance—because sometimes they are significant. In one case, a two-week-old overheard phone call proves key; in another, the mention of a lost toy; in a third, a sheet of paper overlooked on a desk; in a fourth, a shared name in separate cases which suddenly tie the two together.
Beck also sometimes gets, well, “feelings”—a sense of danger, that something is about to happen. His colleagues call it his intuition, but he hates that word. “Police work is built on realism, routine, stubbornness and system,” he says in The Abominable Man (1971). “Intuition has no place in practical police work. Intuition is not even a quality, any more than astrology or phrenology are sciences. And still it was there, however reluctant he was to admit it.”
Beck is a policeman’s policeman, through and through. That doesn’t mean that he’s happy with the way the police force has been going lately. In 1965, the old local police system in Sweden was utterly changed—nationalized into “a centrally directed, paramilitary force with frightening technical resources” (The Terrorists, 1975). It also significantly coarsened the kind of man recruited into the ranks. As his colleague Lennart Kollberg tells him, “There are lots of good cops around. Dumb guys who are good cops. Inflexible, limited, tough, self-satisfied types who are all good cops. It would be better if there were a few more good guys who were cops” (The Fire Engine That Disappeared, 1969).
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Kollberg is not only his colleague, but his best friend, a former paratrooper with a sarcastic manner who refuses to carry a gun after, as a young cop, he accidentally shot and killed a fellow policeman. “Imaginative, systematic, and implacably logical” (Murder at the Savoy, 1970), Kollberg has worked with Beck so long that they know each other’s thoughts without talking. There is no one Beck trusts more, and it is reciprocated: “If you weren’t there, God only knows whether I’d stay on the force,” he tells Beck in The Laughing Policeman (1968). Ultimately, even that is not enough. In the second to last novel, Cop Killer (1974), citing the way the police force has changed, he writes a letter of resignation, and in the last book, The Terrorists, the final words are his: “The trouble with you, Martin, is just that you’ve got the wrong job. At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system.”
Kollberg’s antagonist on the force is Gunvald Larsson, a bull of a man, lacking in social niceties, impatient with human weakness, and capable of striking terror in criminals and subordinates alike. He is not popular among his colleagues, but when a house explodes in the early pages of The Fire Engine That Disappeared, it is Larsson who singlehandedly saves the lives of eight people: “Blood-stained, soot-streaked, drenched with sweat and his clothes torn, he stood among the hysterical, shocked, screaming, unconscious, weeping and dying people. As if on a battlefield.”
The only colleague that Larsson actually gets along with, even vacations with, though no one knows why, is Einar Rönn, “a mediocre policeman with mediocre imagination and a mediocre sense of humor” (The Man on the Balcony, 1967). He is a very calm person, however, and hard-working, with a simple, straightforward attitude and “no talent for creating problems and difficulties which did not exist” (The Laughing Policeman), which makes him a valuable member of the team.
Another calming detective with his own unique abilities is Fredrik Melander. The veteran of hundreds of difficult cases, he is a very modest man, even dull, who never gets a brilliant idea but does have a remarkable capacity for always being in the toilet when anyone wants to get hold of him. What makes him singularly valuable, though, is his legendary memory: “In the course of a few minutes, Melander could sort out everything of importance he’d ever heard, seen or read about some particular person or some particular subject and then present it clearly and lucidly in narrative form. There wasn’t a computer in the world that could do the same” (The Abominable Man).
Other colleagues come and go, grow, mature, transfer, retire. They even die: Åke Stenström, the youngest on the squad, is murdered in The Laughing Policeman, causing his widow, Åsa Torell, to pick up the torch and become a police officer herself, to notable effect in the later books (and a one-night stand with Beck himself). So does Kurt Kvant. Kvant and Karl Kristiansson are two spectacularly, often hilariously, inept patrolmen—“Kvant almost always reported whatever he happened to see and hear, but he managed to see and hear exceedingly little, Kristiansson was more an out-and-out slacker who simply ignored everything that might cause complications or unnecessary trouble” (The Abominable Man)—who, despite mucking up any crime scene they’re at, manage to be on the spot for some of the most dramatic events and set pieces in the series. Kvant dies in one of them, only to be replaced by Kenneth Kvastmo, just as inept, though a bit more gung-ho.
And then there are the squad’s superiors, always to be viewed with exasperation or dismay: Chief Superintendent Evald Hammar, an inveterate slinger of cliches and truisms, is counting the days until his retirement “and regarded every serious crime of violence as persecution of himself personally” (The Fire Engine That Disappeared); the man who replaces him, Stig Malm, is even worse—rigid, officious, ignorant of practical police work, his rise due solely to political powers-that-be, to whom he is invariably obsequious, even when they kick him in the teeth; and worst of all, the unnamed National Commissioner of Police, a preening speechifyer whose bright ideas, especially those involving excessive force, inevitably end in disaster and fatalities.
The crimes that face all these policemen, both good and bad, range from the smallest—drunks, break-ins, petty larceny—to monumental—mass murder, serial murder, and political assassination. It is here that Sjöwall and Wahlöö demonstrate their plotting prowess in several different ways:
A book begins with a small, eccentric moment that leaps into something much bigger, as when a comedy of bureaucratic buck-passing over the dredging of a canal in Roseanna turns into a worldwide hunt for a sadistic killer;
A storyline that is clearly going in one direction suddenly veers off into something else entirely, catching the reader on the back foot—in The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, Beck is sent to Hungary to search for a missing journalist, but that becomes a plot about international drug-smuggling, and that becomes…well, I won’t tell you.
A book begins slowly, agonizingly, adding small detail upon small detail, building tension as the notes become more and more discordant, and you know that something dreadful is in store and that it is only a matter of time before things explode. The Man on the Balcony is a masterful example of this. For several pages in the very first scene, we’re with a man on his balcony looking out over the city in the early morning: “The man was nondescript and he was dressed in a white shirt with no tie, unpressed brown gabardine trousers, gray socks and black shoes. His hair was thin and brushed straight back, he had a big nose and gray-blue eyes.” The man is smoking—ten butts are already in a saucer—we see street sweepers, pedestrians, a police car glide silently past, there’s the tinkle of a shop window breaking, then running footsteps. A lone figure walks in the distance, perhaps a policeman. An ambulance goes by. Then the door of an apartment building opens, and a little girl comes out. The man on the balcony stands quite still and watches her until she turns the corner, then he drinks a glass of water, sits down, and lights another cigarette.Oh, you know this is going to be bad, don’t you? And it is.
The book opens with exactly the opposite, a shocking set piece and tour de force of mayhem, which then leads into many complicated directions. In The Fire Engine That Disappeared, that would be the exploding house and Larsson’s extraordinary heroism. In The Laughing Policeman, it is the discovery of a busful of machine-gunned passengers.
Two entirely different cases intertwine, seeming to have nothing to do with one another—until they do. In The Locked Room (1972), a task force is trying, not always competently, to solve a rash of bank robberies, while Beck, recovering from a near-fatal wound, is given an abandoned case to keep him occupied, that of a badly decomposed corpse found in a room locked and bolted from the inside. The man died of a gunshot wound, but there is no gun. Watching Beck slowly work out such a classic puzzle during the course of the book is a pure delight. Finding out how it intersects with the other plotline will make you break out into a grin—Sjöwall and Wahlöö have gotten you again.
All of this Sjöwall and Wahlöö limn with impeccable prose—direct, evocative, and effective:
Beck contemplating the details of a case:
“Unpleasant. Very unpleasant. Singularly unpleasant. Damned unpleasant. Blasted unpleasant. Almost painfully so” (The Man Who Went Up in Smoke).
Beck encountering an unlikely counterpart:
“He was a rather young, corpulent man, dressed in a houndstooth-checked suit of modern, youthful cut, a striped shirt, yellow shoes and socks of the same fierce color. His hair was wavy and shiny; he also had an upturned mustache, no doubt waxed and prepared with a mustache form. The man was leaning nonchalantly on the reception desk. He had a flower in his buttonhole and was carrying a copy of Esquire magazine rolled up under his arm.
“He looked like a model out of a discotheque advertisement…
“The secret police were on the scene.” (Murder at the Savoy)
Gunvald Larsson observing anti-assassination security techniques in an unnamed Latin American country:
“The motorcade was moving very quickly. The first of the Security Service cars was already below the balcony. The security expert smiled at Gunvald Larsson, nodded assuring and began to fold up his papers.
“At that moment, the ground opened, almost directly beneath the bulletproof Cadillac.
“The pressure waves flung both men backward, but if Gunvald Larsson was nothing else, he was strong. He grabbed the balustrade with both hands and looked upward.
“The roadway had opened like a volcano from which smoking pillars of fire were rising to a height of a hundred and fifty feet. Atop the flaming pillars were diverse objects. The most prominent were the rear section of the bulletproof Cadillac, an overturned black cab with a blue line along its side, half a horse with black and yellow plumes in the band round its forehead, a leg in a black boot and green uniform material, and an arm with a long cigar between the fingers” (The Terrorists).
And throughout, Sjöwall and Wahlöö keep an unwavering eye on why they created “The Story of a Crime” in the first place—to hold up the crime novel as a mirror to society. Here are only two examples, and they are scorching:
“Stockholm has one of the highest suicide rates in the world—something everyone carefully avoids talking about or which, when put on the spot, they attempt to conceal by means of variously manipulated and untruthful statistics. For some years now, however, not even members of the government had dared to say this aloud or in public, perhaps from the feeling that, in spite of everything, people tend to rely more on the evidence of their own eyes than on political explanations. And if, after all, this should turn out not to be so, it only made the matter still more embarrassing. For the fact of the matter is that the so-called Welfare State abounds with sick, poor, and lonely people, living at best on dog food, who are left uncared for until they waste away and die in their rat-hole apartments. No, this was nothing for the public” (The Locked Room).
From a young woman lost in the cracks, who has committed one last desperate act. “It’s terrible to live in a world where people just tell lies to each other. How can someone who’s a scoundrel and traitor be allowed to make decisions for a whole country? Because that’s what he was. A rotten traitor. Not that I think that whoever takes his place will be any better—I’m not that stupid. But I’d like to show them, all of them who sit there governing and deciding, that they can’t go on cheating people forever. I think lots of people know perfectly well they’re being cheated and betrayed, but most people are too scared or too comfortable to say anything. It doesn’t help to protest or complain, either, because the people in power don’t pay any attention….That’s why I shot him” (The Terrorists).
Phew. So who were Sjöwall and Wahlöö and how did this all come about?
***
Maj Sjöwall was born in Stockholm in 1935. Her father was the manager of a Swedish hotel chain, and she grew up in a top-floor hotel room with round-the-clock room service, a life that she early on came to see as unnaturally privileged. “When I was eleven, I realized that I did not have to live the life my mother had,” she later recalled. The marriage was chilly, and her children unhappy—“I was rather tough. You get tough when you grow up unloved. I had an attitude. I was rather wild.”
At the age of 21, she discovered she was pregnant by a man who had already left her. Refusing the abortion her father insisted on, she accepted the proposal of a family friend twenty years older: “He was nice. I wasn’t very much in love with him, but I admired him.” That did not last. She married again, to another older man—“I think I had a father complex”—who wanted to move her to the suburbs and have more children and—that didn’t work out, either.
Meanwhile, she was making a name for herself as a journalist, art director, and translator for several publications when, a single mother with a six-year-old daughter, she met Per Wahlöö.
Wahlöö, nine years older, was well-known as a journalist covering criminal and social issues, and a committed Marxist, deeply involved in radical political causes, activities that resulted in his being deported from Franco’s Spain (which he no doubt regarded as a badge of honor). He’d also written television and radio plays, as well as several novels dealing with abuses of power and the dark side of society when, working at a magazine in 1962, he met a woman working at another magazine by the same publisher.
The attraction was immediate. “There was a place in town where all the journalists used to go,” she said. “We all went to the same pubs. Then Per and I started to like each other very much, so we started going to other pubs to avoid our friends and be on our own.” He was married, and neither liked the idea of cheating on his wife, but within a year, Per had left her and moved in with Maj and her daughter. Their first son was born nine months later.
It was at one of those pubs that they came up with the idea for the books. They both liked Simenon and Hammett, and realized they could use crime novels to illuminate society from their own point of view. Ten novels, they agreed, thirty chapters each. The first plot came to them on a canal trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. “There was an American woman on the boat, beautiful, with dark hair, always standing alone,” Sjöwall said. “I caught Per looking at her. ‘Why don’t we start the book by killing this woman?’ I said.”
Seven months of research followed, mapping out the geography, the streets, the distances; taking hundreds of pictures—an accumulation of authentic detail that would characterize every one of their books. “If you read of Martin Beck taking off on a certain flight,” Sjöwall said, “there was that flight, at that time, with those same weather conditions.”
They worked at night, after the children were in bed, at opposite ends of a table in their study, writing in longhand from ten or eleven pm until the children woke up. They had a detailed synopsis in front of them—“If Per started with chapter one, I would write chapter two at the same time”—and the next night they edited and typed the other’s work. “We never talked about the story when we were writing it,” said Sjöwall. “The only things we said were, ‘Pass me the cigarettes’ and ‘It’s your turn to make some tea.’” (“I don’t see how you do it,” an American mystery writer told Wahlöö. “My wife and I can’t even collaborate on boiling an egg.”).
They were very conscious of the style. They didn’t want anything that sounded too much like him or like her—just something that would fit the books and their characters and that would appeal to a large audience.
When the first book, Roseanna, was done, Wahlöö took it to his publisher, telling him, “This is by a friend of mine and I just want to hear what you think.” The publisher wasn’t fooled, liked the book, and struck a deal for all ten of the projected series.
The reviews were mixed for Roseanna. It was considered a bit dark and brutal—“Little old ladies took the books back to the shop,” said Sjöwall, “complaining that they were too awful, too realistic”—and the sales were modest, mainly to young left-wing students. It wasn’t really until the fourth book, The Laughing Policeman, won the Edgar Award for best novel, that the market started to wake up. It was about that time, too, that a review compared them to Ed McBain. In fact, they had never heard of McBain before, but they read some of his books, loved them, and urged their publisher to buy the Swedish rights. He did—and asked if they’d like to do the translations. They ended up translating a dozen of the 87th Precinct novels.
They never got rich from their books. “Back then, no one had an agent,” said Sjöwall, and the royalties were small. “We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent.” Eventually, subsidiary rights—foreign and movie/TV deals—would come in, but most of it was too late for Per Wahlöö.
In 1971, he complained of a swelling, then his doctors said his lungs were filled with water, and eventually they realized his pancreas had burst. He was in and out of hospitals all the time, gradually getting thinner and thinner. In 1975, they rented a bungalow in Malaga, and Wahlöö wrote feverishly on what would become the last book, The Terrorists, doing most of the writing while Sjöwall acted as editor. “Sometimes he would just fall off the chair because he couldn’t write any more. In the morning, the words would be illegible.”
They came home from Spain in March, the book was sent to the printer, and Wahlöö died in June, from a morphine overdose: “Either on purpose or because, you know if it didn’t work he took one more, if that didn’t work he’d take another one. He fell into a coma and never came round.”
He was 48, they had been together 13 years, and never married—“We said, well, obviously marriage is not the thing for us,” she said. “We just knew we really loved each other and loved not having the papers to prove it”—although, apparently, their early publishers billed them as a husband-and-wife team on the book jackets of their English-language editions, to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of those perhaps less liberated than the Swedes.
After Wahlöö’s death, Sjöwall admitted she got “kind of wild for a while. With guys, with pubs,” and then settled down with the kids for a “more bohemian” life. She didn’t mind not having money: “Better free than rich.”
Despite offers to continue the Martin Beck books, she never did, though she did try a couple of other collaborative ventures and happily continued her translations, this time of Robert B Parker’s Spenser series.
She died at the age of 84, on April 29, 2020, in her home on Ven, a small island off the southwestern coast of Sweden. She had no regrets. “This is a part of my life that I didn’t expect,” she said. “I never thought the books would last all my life, or that I’d still be thinking about them after all this time. I think Per would be amazed. I always think of him when we get a prize, or when I have to talk in public. I always think, Per would have loved this.”
At Crimefest 2015 in England, she was the guest of honor, interviewed by Lee Child. When she entered the room, she received a standing ovation.
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The Essential Sjöwall and Wahlöö
___________________________________
With any prolific author, readers are likely to have their own particular favorites, which may not be the same as anyone else’s. Your list is likely to be just as good as mine—but here are the ones I recommend.
Roseanna (1965)
“They found the corpse on the eighth of July just after three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Most crimes are a mystery in the beginning,” says the Public Prosecutor at a press conference three days later, but this crime will remain a mystery for far longer than that. The woman’s body lying in the dredger’s bucket is naked, with no jewelry, no identifying characteristics.
“We brought her up eight days ago,” says the local policeman to First Detective Inspector Martin Beck. “We haven’t learned a thing since then. We don’t know who she is, we don’t know the scene of the crime, and we have no suspects. We haven’t found a single thing that could have any real connection with her.”
As the months pass, that’s exactly where things remain, until a chance observation by Beck leads to the first real clue, and then another, and then—to the real enormity of the task in front of them. She was tossed off a tourist boat: “Eighty-five people, one of whom was presumably guilty, and the rest of whom were possible witnesses, each had their small pieces that might fit into the great jigsaw puzzle. Eighty-five people, spread over four different continents. Just to locate them was a Herculean task. He didn’t dare think about the process of getting testimony from all of them and collecting the reports and going through them.”
Yet that is what Beck and his colleagues do, the trail stretching from Ankara to Durban to Copenhagen to Lincoln, Nebraska, the agonizingly slow pace finally quickening, then racing frantically, as it becomes clear who the murderer is—and the drastic measures that will have to be taken to stop him.
The climax to the book is breathtaking, and it shakes Beck to the core. Years later, it will still haunt him. It’ll shake you, too.
The Laughing Policeman (1968)
Stockholm, curtains of rain coming down, and 400 policemen occupied in keeping Vietnam protestors from the American embassy: “The police were equipped with tear gas bombs, pistols, whips, batons, cars, motorcycles, shortwave radios, battery megaphones, riot dogs, and hysterical horses. The demonstrators were armed with a letter and cardboard signs.”
And in another part of the city, somebody boards a red double-decker bus and machine-guns all the passengers.
There is no discernible motive. There is no connection between any of the people on the bus. For weeks, the squad tracks down each victim’s family, friends, and associates, looking for any clues, but always circling back to one victim in particular: a young, ambitious, up-and-coming detective in their own squad named Åke Stenström. Why was he on that bus so late at night? Why was he carrying his service weapon? Why did his fiancé insist that he had been working very long hours, when in fact crime had been slow? Why did Stenström have photos of nude women in his office desk?
And what did all this have to do with a sixteen-year-old cold case, one of the most notorious unsolved murders in Stockholm’s history?
The answers, when they come, will only cause more death. It is a superb police procedural, full of atmosphere, brilliant plotting, and memorable characters, down to the smallest bit players.
The Terrorists (1975)
“Gunvald Larsson ducked as a mass of flammable objects began to rain down on him. He was just thinking about his new suit when something struck him in the chest with great force and hurled him backward onto the marble tiles of the balcony….
“[He] got to his feet, found himself not seriously hurt and looked about to see what it was that had knocked him down. The object lay at his feet. It had a bull neck and a puffy face, and strangely enough, the black enamel steel-framed glasses were still on….
“[He] looked down at his suit. It was ruined. ‘Goddammit,’ he said.
“Then he looked down at the head lying at his feet. ‘Maybe I ought to take it home,’ he said to himself. ‘As a souvenir.’”
International terrorists are at the core of the series’ final volume, and a bad bunch they are, a professional group who work for hire all over the world, the politics irrelevant, their methods carefully planned and varied. It is to guard against their targeting an important U.S. Senator’s visit to Stockholm that Larsson has been sent to Latin America and had his suit ruined, and things will continue to go against plan all the way through the book, not least of all when the self-regarding Eric Möller, head of the Security Police, takes a list prepared by Larsson headed CS, for “Clod Squad,” consisting of those officers who should be allowed nowhere near the assassination detail, and, mistaking it to mean “Commando Section,” places exactly those officers in the most sensitive positions possible.
This is, however, not the only case of importance facing the Homicide Squad. Another concerns the murder of a prominent pornographic film maker, whose favorite m.o. is to get girls hooked on drugs before press-ganging them into his movies. A third case concerns a naïve young woman who thought she could get money from a bank just by going into any one of them and asking for it, which sets off a chain reaction of event that ends up with her on trial for armed robbery. Thanks to a capable court-appointed lawyer and the help of Martin Beck, she is set free, only to tumble quickly down the rabbit hole of the social welfare system, to cataclysmic and tragic effect.
Who are the terrorists in the book? They are everywhere, destroying the innocent and the guilty alike.
A towering achievement, and a fitting end to an extraordinary series.
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Movie and Television Bonus
___________________________________
All of the Martin Beck books have been made into movies, some more than once, mostly in Swedish, but also Danish and Hungarian (starring Derek Jacobi!). They also served as a basis for a Swedish television series that ran for a remarkable 18 years, some of which ran on the BBC in 2015, with subtitles. All ten books also received radio dramatizations on BBC Radio 4 in 2012-2013.
The only English language film ever made was The Laughing Policeman in 1973. It was set in San Francisco and starred Walter Matthau as “Jake Martin” and Bruce Dern as “Leo Larson.” It’s a gritty movie, appropriately gloomy, and is, one might say, “loosely adapted” from the book, though some of the bones remain: the bus massacre, the dead detective, the cold case.
Whenever one of my authors got a movie deal, I always told them just to cash the check, but that if, against all the odds, it actually got made, they should just go to the theater, buy some popcorn, and pretend it was made from someone else’s book entirely. If Sjöwall and Wahlöö ever saw this one, I hope they followed that advice.
___________________________________
Book Bonus
___________________________________
As noted before, after Wahlöö’s death, Sjöwall twice collaborated with other writers on books: in 1989, with Bjarne Nielsen, on Dansk Intermezzo, and in 1990, with Dutch writer Tomas Ross, on The Woman Who Resembled Greta Garbo. The latter was about a visiting governmental minister who turns on a porn movie in his Stockholm hotel, and sees his own daughter. To my knowledge, neither book made much of a splash.
Per Wahlöö wrote eight other, most of them novels before he started with Sjöwall: The Chief (1959), The Wind and Rain (1961), A Necessary Action (1962), The Assignment (1963), Murder on the Thirty-First Floor (1963), No Roses Grow on Odenplan (1964), The Generals (1965), and The Steel Spring (1968). These were mainly suspense novels, sometimes set in the near future, about coups, assassinations, social malaise, and politics, and some of them are still available today in English translations.
___________________________________
American Crime Bonus
___________________________________
Fredrik Melander perusing the report on the bus massacre:
“’We have no Swedish precedents….Unlike us, the American psychologists have no lack of material to write on. The compendium here mentions the Boston strangler; Speck, who murdered eight nurses in Chicago; Whitman, who killed sixteen persons from a tower and wounded many more; Unruh, who rushed out onto a street in New Jersey and shot thirteen people dead in twelve minutes; and one or two more whom you’ve probably read about before.’
“’Mass murder seems to be an American specialty,’ Gunvald Larsson said….
“’I read somewhere that out of every thousand Americans, one or two are potential murderers,’ Kollberg said. ‘Though don’t ask me how they arrived at that conclusion.’
“’Market research,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘It’s another American specialty. They go around from house to house asking people if they could imagine themselves committing a mass murder. Two in a thousand say, ‘Oh yes, that would be nice.’”
The Laughing Policeman
Three policemen puzzle over the small caliber of the bullet used to kill industrialist Viktor Palmgren:
“’A .22,’ Melander said thoughtfully. ‘That seems strange….Who the hell tries to kill somebody with a .22?’
“Martin Beck cleared his throat….’In America it’s almost considered proof that the gunman is a real craftsman,’ he said. ‘A kind of snobbishness. It shows the murderer is a real pro and doesn’t bother to use more than what’s absolutely necessary.’
“’Malmö isn’t Chicago,’ Mansson said laconically.
“’Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy with an Iver Johnson .22,’ said Skacke, who was hanging around in the background.
“’That’s right,’ Martin Beck said, ‘but he was desperate and emptied the whole magazine. Fired like crazy all over the place.’
“’He was an amateur, anyway,’ Skacke said.”
___________________________________
Title Bonus
___________________________________
In Murder at the Savoy, the above Viktor Palmgren is shot in the back of the head while speaking to some dinner companions, and falls face first into his dinner, comprised of “crenelated mashed potatoes around an exquisite fish casserole a la Frans Suell.”
Happening to look at the copyright page, I noticed that the Swedish title of the book was Polis, Polis, Potatismos! Surely, that couldn’t be…I thought, and put it into Google Translate.
Sure enough, the original title of Book Six of “The Story of a Crime” was: Police, Police, Mashed Potatoes!
___________________________________
A Policeman’s Lot Bonus
___________________________________
“Being a policeman is not a profession. And it’s not a vocation, either. It’s a curse.”
Sjöwall and Wahlöö, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
“Why the hell would anyone ever choose police work as his profession, he wondered.”
Ed McBain, ‘Til Death
“When constabulary duty’s to be done, to be done,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” | |||||
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] | null | Swedish Cops - From Sjöwall and Wahlöö to Stieg Larsson; Michael Tapper considers Swedish culture and ideas from the period 1965 to 2012 as expressed in detective fiction and film in the tradition of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Believing the Swedish police narrative tradition to be part and parcel of the European history of ideas and culture, Tapper argues that, from being feared and despised, the police emerged as heroes and part of the modern social project of the welfare state after World War II.
Establishing themselves artistically and commercially in the forefront of the genre, Sjöwall and Wahlöö constructed a model for using the police novel as an instrument for ideological criticism of the social democratic government and its welfare state project. With varying political affiliations, their model has been adapted by authors such as Leif G. W. Persson, Jan Guillou, Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström and Stieg Larsson, and in film series such as Beck and Wallander. The first book of its kind about Swedish crime fiction, Swedish Cops is just as thrilling as the novels and films it analyses. | en | /favicon.ico | Intellect Books | https://www.intellectbooks.com/swedish-cops | Michael Tapper considers Swedish culture and ideas from the period 1965 to 2012 as expressed in detective fiction and film in the tradition of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Believing the Swedish police narrative tradition to be part and parcel of the European history of ideas and culture, Tapper argues that, from being feared and despised, the police emerged as heroes and part of the modern social project of the welfare state after World War II.
Establishing themselves artistically and commercially in the forefront of the genre, Sjowall and Wahloo constructed a model for using the police novel as an instrument for ideological criticism of the social democratic government and its welfare state project. With varying political affiliations, their model has been adapted by authors such as Leif G. W. Persson, Jan Guillou, Henning Mankell, Hakan Nesser, Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom and Stieg Larsson, and in film series such as Beck and Wallander. The first book of its kind about Swedish crime fiction, Swedish Cops is just as thrilling as the novels and films it analyses.
Introduction
Chapter 1 – The Crime Genre
Origins
Crime and the Law
Chapter 2 – Enter the Police
A Genre is Born
The Police and the Welfare State
Backlash
Dirty Harry
Crime and Civilization
Crime Dystopia: The Psychopath and the Serial Killer
Chapter 3 – Crime Scene: Sweden
A Beginning
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft and the Nation
Crime and Nationality
The Young Savages of the Asphalt Jungles
The Hoodlum Film
The Politics of Crime
From Punishment to Reform and Back Again
Moral Panics and Crime Journalism
Print the Faction!
Chapter 4 – The 1960s and 1970s: Sjöwall and Wahlöö
Liberal-Conservative Criticism of the Welfare State
Criticism from within the Labour Movement
New Left Criticism of the Welfare State
Eco-Humanist or Green Criticism of the Welfare State
Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall before Sjöwall and Wahlöö
Story of a Crime: Sjöwall and Wahlöö from Freud to Marx
The Film Adaptations
Chapter 5 – The 1980s: Leif G.W. Persson and Jan Guillou
Leif G.W. Persson
Jan Guillou
Chapter 6 – The 1990s: Henning Mankell and Håkan Nesser
Henning Mankell
Håkan Nesser and the Eurocop from Neverland
Chapter 7 – Millennium Cops
Crime and punishment in the Age of War on Terror
'Europudding' Police
Son of Dirty Harry: Beck and the Iconic Rise of Gunvald Larsson
Roslund and Hellström
Steig Larsson
Leif G.W. Persson: Downfall of the Welfare State
Chapter 8 – Into the Twilight
Cops and the Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft Dichotomy
The Vigilante Cop and Right-wing Extremism
The Vigilante Cop and Fascism
The Challenge of Evil | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 92 | https://abookwormsmusing.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/book-review-the-locked-room-by-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo/ | en | Book Review: The Locked Room, by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö | [
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] | 2018-01-08T00:00:00 | Book review of The Locked Room, crime fiction novel written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. ISBN: 9780007242986 | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/7549a6f9fc61e9bbfd6460be092e215770ddc998789c10a420e50004ac70a2cd?s=32 | A Bookworm's Musing | https://abookwormsmusing.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/book-review-the-locked-room-by-maj-sjowall-per-wahloo/ | Though I love the genre of crime fiction, I only very recently chanced upon the sub-genre of locked room mysteries. When I found this book in a quaint little bookstore, I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. The blurb was quite intriguing.
The Locked Room begins with the woman making her way toward the bank at Hornsgatan. She’s nervous, and with good reason to be. She’s about to rob that bank. Everything seems to be going without a hitch, but someone tries to play the hero, and she shoots him dead. In another part of the city, cops discover a corpse. The victim seems to have been shot through the heart, and the room is locked from within. Did he commit suicide? The cops think so, but Detective Inspector Martin Beck notices something that indicates otherwise. He also feels the two incidents are related. Can he piece the clues together?
This was different from any crime fiction novel I’ve read so far. The authors not only offer an insight into the crime, but also the mindset of the criminals as they approach their task. I liked that descriptive nature of the narration. The level of detailing, however, is constant through the book in all aspects almost. Whereas it is good when it comes to character sketches and crime scenes, it doesn’t feel as necessary with the politics of the country or minor quirks of a character. There was very little pace, and at times it felt quite difficult to persist with. The authors also bring about a third impending crime scene, a robbery, and show how the investigations are focused on that instead. Maybe it’s a very realistic touch, and I admire that, but as a reader, I wished the two cases in focus were kept in focus.
Martin Beck, as an investigator, felt very meticulous, at times a bit distracted by his thoughts or surroundings. He irks his fellow officers, and doesn’t make a good impression on them too. I found the names of the places and the people a bit difficult to keep track of, but it’s not a negative point for the book of course. The reasons why the perpetrators did what they had to do are pieced together close to the end, and I couldn’t predict either reason. So it is quite excellent in that regard.
Would I read this book again? I think so. I liked the plot and its execution in general, and the book is only let down by a few things. Not one of my favorite books in the genre, but I’d still say it’s worth a read.
Book Details Title: The Locked Room Series: Martin Beck #8 Author(s): Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö Genre: Crime Fiction ISBN/ASIN: 9780007242986 Publisher: Harper Perennial
No payment was taken for this review. The views expressed here are mine, and they remain uninfluenced and unbiased. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 66 | https://thenewpress.com/books/faceless-killers | en | The New Press | [
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"Henning Mankell"
] | 2005-10-21T20:04:21+00:00 | Faceless Killers marks the “brilliant US debut” (Library Journal) of Henning Mankell’s highly successful Kurt Wallander detective series. Taut and atmospheric, this winner of Sweden’s Best Mystery Award is a gripping mystery in the classic detective tradition, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “an exquisite novel of mesmerizing depth and suspense.” Early one morning, a | https://thenewpress.com/sites/all/themes/tnpbartik/favicon.ico | The New Press | https://thenewpress.com/books/faceless-killers | Faceless Killers marks the “brilliant US debut” (Library Journal) of Henning Mankell’s highly successful Kurt Wallander detective series. Taut and atmospheric, this winner of Sweden’s Best Mystery Award is a gripping mystery in the classic detective tradition, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “an exquisite novel of mesmerizing depth and suspense.”
Early one morning, a small-town farmer discovers that his neighbors have been victims of a brutal attack during the night: An old man has been bludgeoned to death, and his tortured wife lies dying before the farmer’s eyes. The only clue is the single word she utters before she dies: “foreign.”
In charge of the investigation is Inspector Kurt Wallander, a local detective whose personal life is in a shambles. His family is falling apart, he’s gaining weight, he drinks too much and sleeps too little. Tenacious and levelheaded in his sleuthing, he and his colleagues must contend with a wave of violent xenophobia as they search for the killers.
Faceless Killers is a razor-sharp, stylishly dark combination of police procedural and searing social commentary that reaches beyond its genre to produce “a superior novel—and a harbinger of great things to come” (Booklist). | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 89 | https://saturdayreader.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/closer-than-you-know-by-brad-parks/ | en | “Closer Than You Know” by Brad Parks | [
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] | null | [] | 2018-07-14T00:00:00 | This week, I decided to take a break from the Sjöwall and Wahlöö series and read some contemporary mysteries. The first book I read was awful and I'm not going to say any more than that because while I don't know the author personally, the crime fiction world is a small one (though I was… | en | https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico | The Saturday Reader | https://saturdayreader.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/closer-than-you-know-by-brad-parks/ | This week, I decided to take a break from the Sjöwall and Wahlöö series and read some contemporary mysteries. The first book I read was awful and I’m not going to say any more than that because while I don’t know the author personally, the crime fiction world is a small one (though I was gratified to see a bunch of negative reviews on Goodreads). The second one, though, was a winner: the latest stand-alone novel by Brad Parks, Closer Than You Know.
Parks, best known for his six-novel series about New Jersey investigative reporter Carter Ross, chose to write most of Closer in the first-person voice of his female protagonist, Melanie Barrick. Melanie is also a rape survivor and a new mom. This is tricky territory, but I think Parks did a wonderful job of making her a well-rounded, complex character you want to root for. And oh boy, if the reader wasn’t firmly in Melanie’s corner from the get-go, this book would not work at all, because she goes through some truly horrendous experiences.
Melanie discovered she was pregnant shortly after her rape, but until the baby was born, she wasn’t sure if the biological father was her rapist or her boyfriend Ben. No matter what happened, Ben vowed to raise the child as his own, and the two of them got married. Unfortunately, it was immediately obvious that pale-skinned baby Alex did not share any DNA with African-American Ben Barrick, but the couple worked to get past the trauma and immediately bonded with their newborn—until their nightmare began.
After going to pick up three-month-old Alex from day care after work, Melanie learns that he has been taken by social services. Thanks to a tip from an anonymous source, a large quantity of cocaine and drug paraphernalia were discovered in the Barricks’ home—in Alex’s nursery, no less. That turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg, though, as Melanie, who grew up in foster care and has few resources and little financial stability, gets caught in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic hellscape that seems to presume she’s guilty of all manner of horrible things.
Now, I have to admit that I was pretty certain that Melanie would ultimately be exonerated and get her baby back in the end—it would be too depressing otherwise—so I just kept turning the pages (I did not want to put this book down!), eager to find out what would happen. A couple times, I was pretty certain I had it all figured out, but I turned out to be mistaken. There are a lot of legitimately surprising twists, but none of them seemed gratuitous; if the Gone Girl-inspired domestic suspense craze eventually runs its course, I hope there will always be room on the bookstore shelves for thrillers like Closer Than You Know, which are written with heart and genuinely make you care about the fictional people within their pages. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 33 | https://theperiodicfable.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | en | THE PERIODIC FABLE | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=200&ts=1724975434 | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=200&ts=1724975434 | [
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] | null | [] | null | Posts about Per Wahlöö written by Joe Linton | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=32 | THE PERIODIC FABLE | https://theperiodicfable.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | I recently finished up re-reading the ten Martin Beck novels… which I highly recommend.
These detective stories are funny, poignant, political, and have the some of the best pacing anywhere. Read them. Start with Roseanna and read the series in order. This is the third brief blog article (earier articles: Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Great Martin Beck Series and The tired heroes) where I’ve explored them, and today I’ll focus on solutions, and especially on the character Rhea Nielsen.
(Note that there’s a lot of great great stuff in the series that I haven’t touched on – these blog articles just barely scratch the surface.)
The fictional Martin Beck is the lead detective on a team of Stokholm police detectives. Beck is featured in a ten novel series, collectively known as The Story of Crime, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, dating from the mid-1960s to the mid1970s. These novels are the forerunners for later popular Swedish detective fiction, including work by Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell.
Sjöwall and Wahlöö were a wife and husband team; both journalists with literary aspirations. She, a poet. He, a novelist. Clearly she’s a novelist too! Note that I tracked down his novels without her (translated ones available in English at the L.A. Public Library), and they’re not half as good as the Beck series – sort of Kafka-esque political fantasies – good, but not great. A librarian told me that Sjöwall and Wahlöö plotted the Beck series together, then split up chapters and each of them wrote separately, alternately generating draft chapters, often while on vacation with their kids.
The books are critical of Swedish society. The authors are fairly negative about a lof of things: urban redevelopment, governmental bureaucracy, pollution, noise, traffic, health care (in the form of Beck’s mother’s bleak old folks’ home), and more. Some accounts, for example the Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö Wikipedia’s article, mention how Sjöwall and Wahlöö were socialists and how the books are indeed a socialist critique.
(more…)
I’ve had some sort of cold or flu for a couple days and it’s raining cats and dogs all day, so it’s a perfect setting for reading my way though the Martin Beck series of Swedish police procedural novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
(Beck more often than not has a cold; the weather more often than not is dismal.)
I already wrote about these just over a week ago here – with a longish excerpt from the third book The Man on the Balcony.
Even though I am going to rave about some of the later books momentarily, I really recommend starting with the first, Roseanna, and working one’s way through the full ten books in order. The characters lives develop over the arc of the series. Martin Beck goes from not getting along with his wife, to separating, to divorce. They each read well as a stand-alone detective novel… but there’s a great progression when they’re read together.
When I initially read the series I started with two that I’d found at local used bookstore: The Man Who Went Up In Smoke, then The Abominable Man. The book that really hooked me was The Abominable Man, seventh in the series. I re-read it today.
I think it’s actually the shortest internal-duration book in the series; ie: the whole story takes place in the course of less than two days. In the other books, it often takes the police weeks and months to track things down.
“But many years of experience had taught him [Beck] that most of his work was in fact pointless, and that even the things provided results in the long run almost always looked pointless to begin with.”
The pace of The Abombinable Man is great. It whipsaws from a tense action-standoff (that I don’t want to give too much away on – but it’s great!), to a domestic scene (which informs the standoff – makes the standoff make sense), and back to standoff. This weaving and pace is so skillful that it rivets the reader, building anticipation… a page-turner! (more…)
In the stress of work for the upcoming April 10th 2011 CicLAvia event, I’ve been looking for something easy to read – the literary equivalent of comfort food. So I’ve starting to re-read the series of ten Martin Beck police novels, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. These are a slightly different genre than other P. D. James and Dorothy L. Sayers mystery novels that I sometimes enjoy. The Beck series are police procedurals. It’s less guessing whodunnit, and more watching the police do the research and legwork that it takes to solve a crime.
My mother, who was an exchange student in Stockholm, Sweden, read these back in the 1970’s. She connected with the descriptions of Swedish places, and I can still remember her enjoying them a lot then. I didn’t pick them up until, I think mid-2009… at which point, I a) read them out of order and b) gobbled all ten of them up in about a month and a half – which included tracking down copies of the last two which were then out-of-print. A couple of weeks ago I started re-reading them, in order.
They’re worthwhile, though not incredibly deep. They have great pace, laugh-out-loud humor, and a wonderful dash of politics… and moments of brilliance.
I like the character Martin Beck. He’s a bit plodding, often has a cold, not getting along well with his wife… but he’s observant, thoughtful, hard-working, respectful, and has a strong moral compass – a good sense for justice. He’s a kind of somewhat quiet everyman hero. Beck is only one of a team of policemen, detectives I would call them (though Beck rises above that rank, becoming the superintendent.)
The detective whom I like best, and whom I identify with most, is Lennart Kollberg. He’s a bit overweight, loves eating and sex (reviews call him a sensualist), strongly dislikes guns, gets frustrated by overzealous people in positions of authority… well, that last one is something that Sjöwall and Wahlöö must really believe in, because it comes up a lot.
This week I read one of my favorite passages, which stars Kollberg. I am on the third book now – The Man on the Balcony. It’s the story of the solving of a series of gruesome child rape-murders. Kollberg has the daunting task of notifying a woman whose daughter has been killed.
Kollberg felt slightly sick at the thought of the task ahead of him. It was disagreeable at least. He had been forced into similar tasks before, but now, in the case of a child, the ordeal was worse than ever. If only Martin had been here, he thought; he’s much better at this sort of thing than I am. Then he remember how depressed Martin Beck had always seemed in situations like this, and followed up the train of thought: hah, it’s just as hard for everyone, whoever has to do it.
The apartment house where the dead girl had lived was obliquely opposite Vanadis Park, in the block between Surbrunnsgatan and Frejgatan. The elevator was out of order and he had to walk up the five flights. He stood still for a moment and got his breath before ringing the doorbell.
(more…) | ||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 5 | https://www.salomonssonagency.se/sjowall-wahloo/ | en | Salomonsson Agency | [
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"Sjöwall & Wahlöö"
] | 2020-08-24T16:33:19+00:00 | en | Salomonsson Agency | https://www.salomonssonagency.se/sjowall-wahloo/ | If any crime novels deserve to be called modern classics, it is the ten police procedurals about Martin Beck and his colleagues. With them, the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall (1935-2020) and Per Wahlöö (1926-1975), virtually created the modern detective novel. Written in the 60s and 70s, the decalogue is nothing short of a national literary treasure, with countless contemporary imitators across the world. Together, the ten books chronicle the painful creation of modern society.
“The Godparents of Scandinavian crime fiction. /…/ Sjöwall and Wahlöö, beside writers such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Georges Simenon, have shaped the genre and the readers’ expectations as to what crime fiction should be.”
–Jo Nesbø
“Rendered with crisp, elegant prose and tension so thick the reader could crack a tooth.”
–Dennis Lehane
“One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collection of police procedurals ever accomplished.”
–Michael Connelly
“A superb series of thrillers.”
–Lee Child
“Wherever their plots take us, Sjöwall and Wahlöö find ways to catch the reader on the back foot, making us reassess our take on the world.”
–Val McDermid
“One of the series that most inspired me. /…/ They changed the genre. Whoever is writing crime fiction after these novels is inspired by them in one way or another.”
–Henning Mankell
“The first great series of police thrillers … they caught the colour of the political times and are above all truly exciting.”
–Michael Ondaatje
“[The Martin Beck series is] something very remarkable, a great series of novels about Swedish society which draws a picture of contemporary Swedish life with critical acuity and great force. Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö have provided a multitude of brilliant and vividly human portraits of people in all situations: murderers and police officers, drug addicts and lawyers, car salesmen and heads of state. I believe this album of Swedish crime will live a long time.”
–P.O. Enquist
“Their mysteries don’t just read well; they reread even better. Witness, wife, petty cop or crook — they’re all real characters even if they get just a few sentences. The plots hold, because they’re ingenious but never inhuman. The writing is lean, with mournful undertones.”
New York Times
“Pick up one book and you become unhinged. You want to block out a week of your life, lie to your boss, and stay in bed, gorging on one after another.”
Observer
“If you haven’t come across Beck before, you’re in for a treat.”
Guardian
“The plotting, pacing and characterization are all exquisite.”
Independent on Sunday
“If you haven’t read Sjowall/Wahloo, start now,”
Sunday Telegraph
“The crime novel at its best.”
Irish Times
Per Wahlöö
Born in 1926, Per Wahlöö was a Swedish writer and journalist who, alongside his own novels, collaborated with his partner, Maj Sjöwall, on the bestselling Martin Beck crime series, credited as inspiration for writers as varied as Agatha Christie, Henning Mankell, and Jonathan Franzen. In 1971 the fourth novel in the series, The Laughing Policeman, won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers in America. Per Wahlöö died in 1975.Likened to Franz Kafka, George Orwell and Graham Greene, Per Wahlöö truly stands out as one of Scandinavia’s finest and most controversial writers of the 20th century.
Said about Per Wahlöö and his works:
“Per Wahlöö is the Godfather of Scandinavian crime fiction.”
—Jo Nesbø
“This is black caviar of the finest grade.”
New York Times
“A vigorous and powerful mind /…/ Certainly there is no doubt about the originality of his talent.”
The Sunday Times
Johan Erlandsson | ||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 25 | https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Maj-Sj%25C3%25B6wall-and-Per-Wahl%25C3%25B6%25C3%25B6/336651 | en | Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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] | null | [] | null | (1935–2020 and 1926–75, respectively). The Swedish husband-and-wife team of Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall were journalists and innovative writers of detective fiction. They used… | en | /resources/icons/favicons/bkids/bkids-favicon-57c.png | Britannica Kids | https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Maj-Sjöwall-and-Per-Wahlöö/336651 | (1935–2020 and 1926–75, respectively). The Swedish husband-and-wife team of Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall were journalists and innovative writers of detective fiction. They used the popular form of the detective story as a vehicle for social criticism.
Per Wahlöö was born on August 5, 1926, in Göteborg, Sweden, and Maj Sjöwall was born on September 25, 1935, in Stockholm. They married in 1962. Together they wrote a series of detective stories in which Martin Beck and his colleagues at the Central Bureau of Investigation in Stockholm were the main characters. From Roseanna, published in 1965, to The Terrorists, published in 1975, the series consists of ten novels in which the crime itself is subordinate to social commentary. Both the police force and the criminals mirror the shifting social forces within the Swedish welfare state. The authors strongly criticize abuses of power and the systematic use of propaganda in society. Many of these same motifs appear in Wahlöö’s novels of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Wahlöö died on June 22, 1975, in Malmö, Sweden. Sjöwall died on April 29, 2020. | ||||
7165 | dbpedia | 1 | 45 | https://www.academia.edu/58117900/Scandinavian_Crime_Fiction_and_Popular_Culture_Jo_Nesb%25C3%25B8s_Harry_Hole_Novels | en | Scandinavian Crime Fiction and Popular Culture: Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole Novels | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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] | 2021-10-15T00:00:00 | Jo Nesbø is one of the most important and popular crimefiction writers of today, as well as a typical representative of thecontemporary literary genre known as Scandinavian crime fiction.Within the entire literary opus of this writer, the central | https://www.academia.edu/58117900/Scandinavian_Crime_Fiction_and_Popular_Culture_Jo_Nesb%C3%B8s_Harry_Hole_Novels | The authors analyse the literary roots of Nordic Noir’s spatial logic and link this to the notions of a neo-romantic tendency in local crime fiction and norientalism as a concept. The global reach and bestselling speed of Mai Sjowall/Per Wahloo, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, respectively, are singled out as specific indications of a changed literary market. In this process, especially the Swedish literary market appears to be influential on the world scene of Nordic crime fiction. The authors sum op the development from literature to screened crime fiction based on two different production models: the Beck model and the Danish model, and shed light on the blurred media boundaries in Sweden and the focus on televised crime fiction in Denmark.
Recent Nordic crime fiction contains numerous amateur detectives who are professional journalists. Their presence is partly explained by the shared roots and formal affinities of crime reportage and crime fiction, and by the journalistic backgrounds of many Nordic crime writers. However, the rise of the journalist-investigator as a rival to traditional police detectives is also a mark of growing distrust in the competence of the Nordic welfare state and its officials. Nordic journalist-investigators are typically crusading reporters motivated by a desire to uncover and prevent social injustice, including the neglect and abuse of vulnerable social groups by absent, incompetent or corrupt public officials. In acting as moral guardians of social justice, journalist-investigators carry out the principle of the press as a fourth estate, designed to check state power by publicising abuses of authority, and signal a possible shift from the welfare state towards a civil society. However, th...
Swedish detective stories, despite their international success, have been a marginal area of research. The search words “Nordic noir” give thousands of results indicating the huge international success of Nordic crime fiction. This study examines the reasons for this phenomenon by studying Swedish society from the viewpoint of a particular television show. The aim is to increase the understanding of how crime fiction can be used to take a stance on social issues. This study analyses four Martin Beck television episodes produced between the years 2001 and 2002. These television episodes are based on the ten novels Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote between the years 1965 and 1975. The method used for this study is a thematic analysis, meaning searching for certain themes and similarities within the chosen episodes. One of the aims is to search for social themes that were current in Sweden in the early 2000s. The central research question is: What kind of representations of crime and social tensions in the Swedish society and welfare state does the television series Beck offer? The results of this study suggest that the Beck television episodes are a continuation of the phenomenon Sjöwall and Wahlöö introduced in the 1960s. Hovewer, the crimes are updated to correspond the 2000s though many of the themes are still timeless. Also, the characters appearing in the series, such as Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson provide an interesting perspective to reflect on social inequalities. This study offers a perspective on how the Swedish welfare state appeared in the early 2000s.
Abstract Alexi Sofia, Film Studies, Victoria University of Wellington Abstract of Master’s Thesis, Submitted 10 April 2017: “Investigating Nordic Noir” Scandinavian crime films and television series have become popular in recent years. This thesis explores some of the key texts in ‘Nordic noir’ through a discussion of detectives, the environment, and visual style. The emphasis in the project is on textual analysis. The first chapter examines the figures of Wallander and Lund in Wallander and Forbrydelsen respectively. I argue that the conflicts Nordic detectives often have between work and the domestic sphere are an indication of how gender stereotypes are challenged in the Scandinavian crime genre. The second chapter considers the role of the natural and built environments in Nordic noir. Features such as forests and water play a crucial role in Forbrydelsen because of the ways in which they create uncertainty, anticipation, and suspense. The urban spaces of Bron/Broen develop a sense of anonymity that recalls the function of the city in classic film noir. Rather than developing links between Sweden and Denmark, the series suggests that the Øresund bridge that spans the two countries is ultimately a disconnecting, centrifugal force that functions as what Marc Augé would call a ‘non-place’. The final chapter considers the role of colour and light in the films Insomnia and Jar City. My analysis demonstrates that Nordic noir encompasses more than naturalism and realism. Like classic and neo-noir, it includes a range of expressive aesthetic strategies that serve both narrative and thematic functions.
Nordic noir is a popular crime genre associated with a region (Scandinavia), a narrative style (un-pretentious/socially critical) and a particular aesthetic look (dark/foreboding). Renowned for its psychologically complex characterization and gloomy Mise-en-scène, and spanning best-selling crime fiction, film, and globally successful television drama, Nordic noir has mushroomed from regional niche market to international phenomenon in little more than a decade. A review of both popular and academic accounts of the genre suggest that much of Nordic noir's appeal comes from its supposed 'gritty' or 'realist' account of Scandinavian society. This paper, however, adopts a different perspective. Drawing on cultural criminology, ultra-realism and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, we argue that, rather than accurately reflecting the complex social and political problems currently confronting late modern Scandinavian welfare societies, Nordic noir has lost its grip on realism and any meaningful association with actual/established Scandinavian values. Instead, Nordic noir is now functioning as a displacement narrative, a form of cultural expression that allows artists, producers and their audiences to push the region's social problems outside the realm even of the Imaginary. | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 10 | https://theperiodicfable.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | en | THE PERIODIC FABLE | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=200&ts=1723901417 | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=200&ts=1723901417 | [
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] | null | [] | null | Posts about Per Wahlöö written by Joe Linton | en | https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/753731f678ac55d269993b45ec3138226386edc69bfbf433a93c7ffbaf547b95?s=32 | THE PERIODIC FABLE | https://theperiodicfable.wordpress.com/tag/per-wahloo/ | I recently finished up re-reading the ten Martin Beck novels… which I highly recommend.
These detective stories are funny, poignant, political, and have the some of the best pacing anywhere. Read them. Start with Roseanna and read the series in order. This is the third brief blog article (earier articles: Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Great Martin Beck Series and The tired heroes) where I’ve explored them, and today I’ll focus on solutions, and especially on the character Rhea Nielsen.
(Note that there’s a lot of great great stuff in the series that I haven’t touched on – these blog articles just barely scratch the surface.)
The fictional Martin Beck is the lead detective on a team of Stokholm police detectives. Beck is featured in a ten novel series, collectively known as The Story of Crime, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, dating from the mid-1960s to the mid1970s. These novels are the forerunners for later popular Swedish detective fiction, including work by Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell.
Sjöwall and Wahlöö were a wife and husband team; both journalists with literary aspirations. She, a poet. He, a novelist. Clearly she’s a novelist too! Note that I tracked down his novels without her (translated ones available in English at the L.A. Public Library), and they’re not half as good as the Beck series – sort of Kafka-esque political fantasies – good, but not great. A librarian told me that Sjöwall and Wahlöö plotted the Beck series together, then split up chapters and each of them wrote separately, alternately generating draft chapters, often while on vacation with their kids.
The books are critical of Swedish society. The authors are fairly negative about a lof of things: urban redevelopment, governmental bureaucracy, pollution, noise, traffic, health care (in the form of Beck’s mother’s bleak old folks’ home), and more. Some accounts, for example the Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö Wikipedia’s article, mention how Sjöwall and Wahlöö were socialists and how the books are indeed a socialist critique.
(more…)
I’ve had some sort of cold or flu for a couple days and it’s raining cats and dogs all day, so it’s a perfect setting for reading my way though the Martin Beck series of Swedish police procedural novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
(Beck more often than not has a cold; the weather more often than not is dismal.)
I already wrote about these just over a week ago here – with a longish excerpt from the third book The Man on the Balcony.
Even though I am going to rave about some of the later books momentarily, I really recommend starting with the first, Roseanna, and working one’s way through the full ten books in order. The characters lives develop over the arc of the series. Martin Beck goes from not getting along with his wife, to separating, to divorce. They each read well as a stand-alone detective novel… but there’s a great progression when they’re read together.
When I initially read the series I started with two that I’d found at local used bookstore: The Man Who Went Up In Smoke, then The Abominable Man. The book that really hooked me was The Abominable Man, seventh in the series. I re-read it today.
I think it’s actually the shortest internal-duration book in the series; ie: the whole story takes place in the course of less than two days. In the other books, it often takes the police weeks and months to track things down.
“But many years of experience had taught him [Beck] that most of his work was in fact pointless, and that even the things provided results in the long run almost always looked pointless to begin with.”
The pace of The Abombinable Man is great. It whipsaws from a tense action-standoff (that I don’t want to give too much away on – but it’s great!), to a domestic scene (which informs the standoff – makes the standoff make sense), and back to standoff. This weaving and pace is so skillful that it rivets the reader, building anticipation… a page-turner! (more…)
In the stress of work for the upcoming April 10th 2011 CicLAvia event, I’ve been looking for something easy to read – the literary equivalent of comfort food. So I’ve starting to re-read the series of ten Martin Beck police novels, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. These are a slightly different genre than other P. D. James and Dorothy L. Sayers mystery novels that I sometimes enjoy. The Beck series are police procedurals. It’s less guessing whodunnit, and more watching the police do the research and legwork that it takes to solve a crime.
My mother, who was an exchange student in Stockholm, Sweden, read these back in the 1970’s. She connected with the descriptions of Swedish places, and I can still remember her enjoying them a lot then. I didn’t pick them up until, I think mid-2009… at which point, I a) read them out of order and b) gobbled all ten of them up in about a month and a half – which included tracking down copies of the last two which were then out-of-print. A couple of weeks ago I started re-reading them, in order.
They’re worthwhile, though not incredibly deep. They have great pace, laugh-out-loud humor, and a wonderful dash of politics… and moments of brilliance.
I like the character Martin Beck. He’s a bit plodding, often has a cold, not getting along well with his wife… but he’s observant, thoughtful, hard-working, respectful, and has a strong moral compass – a good sense for justice. He’s a kind of somewhat quiet everyman hero. Beck is only one of a team of policemen, detectives I would call them (though Beck rises above that rank, becoming the superintendent.)
The detective whom I like best, and whom I identify with most, is Lennart Kollberg. He’s a bit overweight, loves eating and sex (reviews call him a sensualist), strongly dislikes guns, gets frustrated by overzealous people in positions of authority… well, that last one is something that Sjöwall and Wahlöö must really believe in, because it comes up a lot.
This week I read one of my favorite passages, which stars Kollberg. I am on the third book now – The Man on the Balcony. It’s the story of the solving of a series of gruesome child rape-murders. Kollberg has the daunting task of notifying a woman whose daughter has been killed.
Kollberg felt slightly sick at the thought of the task ahead of him. It was disagreeable at least. He had been forced into similar tasks before, but now, in the case of a child, the ordeal was worse than ever. If only Martin had been here, he thought; he’s much better at this sort of thing than I am. Then he remember how depressed Martin Beck had always seemed in situations like this, and followed up the train of thought: hah, it’s just as hard for everyone, whoever has to do it.
The apartment house where the dead girl had lived was obliquely opposite Vanadis Park, in the block between Surbrunnsgatan and Frejgatan. The elevator was out of order and he had to walk up the five flights. He stood still for a moment and got his breath before ringing the doorbell.
(more…) | ||
7165 | dbpedia | 0 | 88 | https://nordics.info/show/artikel/crime-fiction | en | Nordic crime fiction | [
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"Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen"
] | 2024-08-15T14:12:46+02:00 | Since 1990s, Nordic crime fiction has been a significant sub-genre within the global genre of crime fiction. Usually characterised by social realism, gloomy locations and morose detectives, crime novels and TV series from across the Nordic region provide puzzling mysteries and thrilling stories that use the crime plot to investigate the state of justice, equality, vulnerability and current debates specific to the Nordic welfare societies. The genre includes modern TV classics such as the Danish Forbrydelsen (The Killing, 2007-2012), the Danish/Swedish co-production Bron/Broen (The Bridge, 2011-2018) and global bestsellers by the Norwegian Jo Nesbø and the Swede Stieg Larsson, but it also includes dark and critical images of the underbelly of the Nordic states, which extend further back in history, even to literary works from the nineteenth century. | en | https://cdn.au.dk/favicon.ico | https://nordics.info/show/artikel/crime-fiction | *Listen to this article as a podcast in Danish or English!
In the twenty-first century, Nordic crime fiction is a literary genre and a publishing phenomenon which has maintained its local socio-critical potential in a global market place for books and entertainment. The success of the genre is increasingly reinforced by film adaptations and series made for television. Arguably, Nordic crime fiction only became recognised as constituting a common ‘regional genre’ when crime novels from the Nordic countries became translated and television series subtitled, dubbed or remade into a wide range of languages. The reasons for the international success of Nordic crime fiction abroad are many ranging, from the ability of authors and screen writers to blend regional particularities with widely recognisable international forms, to Nordic publishing and media industries’ growing internationalisation since the 1990s.
In some countries outside the Nordic region, the twenty-first century crime boom coincided with a wider fascination with the apparently successful Nordic welfare states and desirable Nordic stereotypes including happiness, quality designer furniture and New Nordic food. The publishing and media industries have benefited greatly from the global ‘brand’ of the Nordic countries and participated in stimulating a desire for ‘all things Nordic’ abroad. Nordic crime fiction as an intermedial genre and a twenty-first century global brand is often referred to as ‘Nordic noir’.
Origins of Nordic crime fiction
Crime fiction in the Nordic countries has a long history with early examples being the Danish Steen Steensen Blicher’s Præsten i Vejlbye (1829) (The Pastor of Vejlbye, 1991) and the Norwegian Maurits Hansen’s detective story Mordet på Maskinbygger Roolfsen (1839) (The Murder of Engineer Roolfsen). It is in the period since the Second World War, however, that Nordic crime fiction has contributed a particular accent and a growing number of globally successful authors to a predominantly Anglo-American genre.
Nordic crime fiction since the Second World War is indebted to the British Golden Age of crime writers in the 1920s and 1930s, with writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, and shares many traits with the American hard-boiled private detective stories of Raymond Chandler and the police procedurals of Ed McBain. However, it was with the Swedish author duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s ten-volume series about Martin Beck (1965-75), collectively known as ‘Roman om ett brott’ (‘Report of a Crime’), and the new wave of crime writing in the 1990s, that Nordic crime fiction added to the various sub-genres of crime fiction an emphasis on social realism and criticism, gloomy Nordic locations and the trademark morose detective.
The success of the Nordic police procedural
In the 1960s, Sjöwall and Wahlöö translated into Swedish several of Ed McBain’s ‘87th precinct’ novels which were pioneering police procedurals. This inspired the use of a formula wherein the private lives and personal struggles of police officers are mirrored in the larger socio-political landscape of Sweden’s folkhem (People’s Home), the particular Swedish version of the Nordic welfare state. The Swedes Sjöwall and Wahlöö went on to write the Report of a Crime series, which is often cited as the single most influential work of socio-critical crime fiction to subsequent writers in the genre across the Nordic region and beyond.
From their Marxist-Leninist perspective, Sjöwall and Wahlöö explicitly aimed to use their crime novels as a means to analyse the Swedish welfare state, to relate crime to its political and ideological doctrines, and to reveal its perceived fascist nature. The subtitle of the novel, ‘Report of a crime’, was then both an indicator of the genre and a programmatic statement criticising the ‘criminal’ subservience of the welfare state to capitalism. From Roseanna (1965) (Roseanna, 1967) to Terroristerna (1975) (The Terrorists, 1976), Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s crime novels follow Martin Beck and his homicide squad from the sex murder of an American tourist to the murder of the prime minister of a Swedish police state, anticipating the murder of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme by a decade. In their investigations, Beck and his team are constantly faced with an impenetrable police bureaucracy, a metonymy for a brutal society that gradually overshadows the idyllic Swedish post-war welfare state.
Less politically radical in his critique of Danish society, Anders Bodelsen from Denmark similarly used the social realistic thriller to explore the new realities of the welfare state in his Tænk på et tal (1968) (Think of a Number, 1969). Bodelsen insisted that collective conflicts should be understood through the private; and in his breakthrough novel the personal conflict of a bank cashier, who is tempted to hide the loot from a bank robbery, is reflected in society’s balancing act between materialism and social responsibility.
In the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Nordic thriller gained international attention with the Swede Jan Guillou’s Coq Rouge series (1986-2006) featuring the Swedish spy Carl Hamilton, a nobleman with socialist leanings, and with the work of Danish Leif Davidsen, whose political thrillers focused on Russia and the new Europe, e.g. in Den russiske sangerinde (1988) (The Russian Singer, 1991) and Den serbiske dansker (1996) (The Serbian Dane, 2007). Like Bodelsen and later Stieg Larsson (Sweden), these writers were already well-known and, in the case of Guillou, a controversial journalist, who used the sub-genre of the thriller to criticise and reflect on the changing national and global socio-political climate in the final years of the 20th century.
The police procedural rode the cusp of the new wave of Nordic crime fiction in 1990s.
1990s wave of Nordic crime fiction
It was the police procedural in the style of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s that would ride the cusp of the new wave of Nordic crime fiction in the 1990s. Henning Mankell’s (from Sweden) Inspector Kurt Wallander, Åke Edwardson’s (also Swedish) Chief Inspector Erik Winter, Arnaldur Indriðason’s (from Iceland) Detective Erlendur, Matti Yrjänä Joensuu’s (Finland) Detective Sergeant Timo Harjunpää and Håkan Nesser’s (both from Sweden) Chief Inspector Van Veeteren have all become synonymous with the Nordic police procedural’s male anti-hero investigator.
Mankell’s Wallander series: From Mördare utan ansikte (1991) (Faceless Killers, 1997) to Den orolige mannen (2009) (The Troubled Man, 2011), Mankell’s Wallander series takes place in and around the provincial southern Swedish town of Ystad on the shore of the Baltic. Mankell intended the Wallander series as an investigation into the deterioration of the often celebrated Swedish social consciousness infected by a growing sense of insecurity and xenophobia. While set in a provincial borderland, Mankell’s crime fiction is global in scope, confronting the attitudes of a provincial Swedish microcosm towards border-crossing phenomena such as:
immigration (Mördare utan ansikte, 1991; Faceless Killers, 1997);
organ trafficking in the developing world (Mannen som log, 1994; The Man Who Smiled, 2005);
human trafficking (Villospår, 1995; Sidetracked, 2000);
Swedish mercenaries in the Congo (Den femte kvinnan, 1996; The Fifth Woman, 2001); and
an international conspiracy to destroy the financial system to right the wrongs of worldwide economic inequality (Brandvägg, 1988; Firewall, 2004).
Rather than focusing solely on crimes and their investigation, Mankell’s texts devote much attention to Wallander’s thought processes, his poor habits, ailing body and deteriorating relationships. Throughout the series, Wallander, with his psychological and bodily wounds, becomes a complex reflector of a society unable to commit ethically and with solidarity to the challenges of a globalised world.
Nesser’s Van Veeteren series: This series is less explicitly critical of contemporary society and less interested in international affairs than Mankell’s, as its setting in the fictitious European country Maardam suggests. However, a recurrent theme that Nesser’s crime fiction shares with several other Nordic crime novels is the abuse of women by men, most explicitly explored in Kvinna med födelsemärke (1996, Woman with Birthmark, 2009).
Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow: It was arguably with the Dane Peter Høeg’s Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne (1992, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, 1993) that the Nordic crime novel broke through to the international market as a global brand and blurred the boundaries between high and popular culture. Offering a highly critical view of Denmark’s colonial exploitations of Greenland through the Greenlandic-Danish scientist-protagonist Smilla Jaspersen, the novel also contributed to discussions of cultural belonging, gender and identity in a postcolonial, globalised era.
Other contributions: Although not exclusively writers of genre fiction, and focusing to a larger extent on the psychological and communal effects of crime, Swede Kerstin Ekman and Norwegian Karin Fossum have similarly explored the geographical and cultural peripheries of late-modern Scandinavia in internationally acclaimed crime novels. Examples are Ekman’s Händelser vid vatten (1993) (Blackwater, 1996) and Fossum’s series about Konrad Sejer, including Se deg ikke tilbake! (1996) (Don’t Look Back, 2002).
Key themes
Female protagonists: Dominating the debates about Nordic crime writing in the 1990s, and to a large extent the bestseller lists, was what first became known in Sweden as the femikrimi, crime novels with a female protagonist, written by women often from a feminist perspective. This new wave of women crime writers includes Liza Marklund and Camilla Läckberg (both from Sweden); Gretelise Holm and Sara Blædel (both from Denmark); Anne Holt (Norway) and Leena Letholainen (Finland). While indebted to the (often masculine) conventions of the genre and the Nordic social realist tradition, including the focus on gender and sexual politics, these writers reverse the traditional depiction of women in the genre as passive, asexual and inferior. From an explicit feminist perspective, Liza Marklund’s series with the journalist Annika Bengtzon, beginning with Sprängaren (1998, The Bomber, 2000), recounts the struggles facing an ambitious female crime reporter, juggling family responsibilities in her everyday life in a male dominated world, and solving crimes that also include domestic violence.
Violence against women, the corruption of the welfare state and moral bankruptcy of capital: These were central themes in Danish Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series (including Kvinden i buret (2007) (Mercy, 2011)) and Swedish Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published international blockbuster the Millenium Trilogy: Män som hatar kvinnor (2005, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2008), Flickan som lekte med elden (2006, The Girl Who Played with Fire, 2009) and Luftslottet som sprängdes (2007, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, 2009). The global success of Nordic crime fiction in the new millennium is indebted to the unprecedented sales and global reach of these three novels (and their later film adaptations and additional instalments written by David Lagercrantz). However, the Millennium Trilogy also shares a more local and critical interest in revising the culturally suppressed influences of right-wing ideologies and the legacy of the Second World War on contemporary Swedish society with novels such as Arne Dahl’s (Sweden) Dödsmässa (2004) (Requiem), Gunnar Staalesen’s (Norway) I mørket er alle ulver grå (1983, At Night All Wolves are Grey, 1986), and Jo Nesbø’s (Norway) third Harry Hole novel, Rødstrupe (2000, The Redbreast, 2006).
Twenty-first century success of Nordic noir
In the twenty-first century, Nordic crime fiction is a literary genre and a publishing phenomenon which has maintained its local socio-critical potential in a global market place for books and entertainment with strong traditions and publishing catalogues in all of the Nordic countries. The success of the genre is increasingly reinforced by adaptations into film and series made for television, as well as original TV drama productions. For instance:
Mankell’s Wallander series was made into a TV series produced by Svensk Filmindustri and Yellow Bird (2005-2010);
Yellow Bird also produced a UK remake of Wallander (2008-);
The Danish television drama Forbrydelsen (The Killing, 2007-2012) was produced by DR (Danmarks Radio, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation);
The US remake of The Killing (2011) was produced by Fox Television Studios and Fuse Entertainment;
The series was also novelised by the British writer David Hewson; and,
The Danish/Swedish co-production Bron/Broen (The Bridge, 2011-2018) has been remade for several regions including the French-British The Tunnel and the US-Mexican The Bridge.
Further reading: | |||||
7165 | dbpedia | 2 | 29 | http://katesbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/enduring-influence-of-maj-sj-and-per.html | en | Kate's Book Blog: The Enduring Influence of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö | [
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"Kate S",
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] | null | In my post last week about Roseanna , the first in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, I quoted from Henning Mankell's int... | http://katesbookblog.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | http://katesbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/enduring-influence-of-maj-sj-and-per.html | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 6 | https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6546.Per_Wahl_ | en | Per Wahlöö | [
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"Per Wahlöö",
"Maj Sjöwall",
"Mignon G. Eberhart",
"Sarah Death (Translator)",
"Joan Tate (Translator)",
"Jan Bogaerts (Translator)",
"Ülev Aaloe (translator"
] | null | About Per Wahlöö: Per Fredrik Wahlöö (5 August 1926 - 22 June 1975) was a Swedish author. He is perhaps best known for the collaborative work with his pa... | https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6546.Per_Wahl_ | Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. | |||||||
7165 | dbpedia | 3 | 73 | https://www.scandinaviastandard.com/scandi-six-crime-writers-of-scandinavia/ | en | Six Scandinavian Crime Writers You Should Be Reading | [
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"Manasa Bollempalli",
"Read more"
] | 2022-10-22T15:05:59+00:00 | A list of the six best nordic noir writers as well as their best books. | en | /wp-content/uploads/fbrfg/apple-touch-icon.png?x28180 | Scandinavia Standard | https://www.scandinaviastandard.com/scandi-six-crime-writers-of-scandinavia/ | In late 2005 I picked up a book called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and discovered the grim criminal landscape of Sweden! What was, until then, a fairy tale country in my mind suddenly transformed into a dark and horrific landscape of violent crimes. Okay maybe that’s an exaggeration. But if you’re fascinated by the darker side of life, Nordic Noir is for you. Here are six writers who create gruesome murder mysteries and are available in English translation.
Crime fiction in Scandinavia really took off with this Swedish couple who wrote a series of books featuring homicide detective Martin Beck and his team. Written over a span of 10 years, the journalist duo dug into their Marxist roots and wrote to hold a mirror to Sweden’s rapid modernisation during the 1960s.
Thought provoking and meticulously researched, almost every contemporary Scandinavian crime writer swears by Sjöwal & Wahlöö’s Martin Beck series.
Begin with:
Roseanna: Amazon | iBooks
The Man Who Went Up In Smoke: Amazon | iBooks
The Man on the Balcony: Amazon | iBooks
Arnaldur Indridason
Indridason is from Iceland and takes inspiration from the great storytelling tradition of that remote and beautiful country. His most popular series is based on Erlendur Sveinsson, the commissioner of police in Rejkyavik.
Indridason began as a journalist and then a film critic for Morgunbladid, Iceland’s biggest newspaper. He is considered to be one of the most beloved writers in Iceland. Jar City is a good place to start; you can also see the 2006 film of the same name by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur.
Begin with:
Jar City: Amazon | iBooks
Silence of the Grave: Amazon | iBooks
Arctic Chill: Amazon | iBooks
Jo Nesbø
Nesbø is probably one of the most well known Scandi crime writer outside of Scandinavia. This Norwegian celebrity is an eclectic mixture of singer-songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre, a crime fiction writer and a children’s book writer!
Based in Oslo, his detective is Harry Hole, a heavy drinker, smoker and cynic. Hole is the classic unconventional cop; brilliant with his work and unorthodox in his methods. His themes are famously dark, crafted seamlessly with gut-wrenching plot twists.
Begin with:
The Redbreast: Amazon | iBooks
Nemesis: Amazon | iBooks
The Devil’s Star: Amazon | iBooks
Karin Fossum
Often referred to as the Norwegian Queen of Crime, Fossum debuted as a poet in 1974, winning the Tarjei Vesaas’ debutantpris that year. Her main character is Detective Konrad Sejer, a relatively more stable man than most of the other detectives in Nordic Noir. Sejer is an unassuming and cautious detective and doesn’t jump to conclusions without giving a chance to alternate possibilities. Often based in Oslo and the surrounding villages, Fossum’s Sejer makes for a surprisingly emphatic read.
Begin with:
Don’t Look Back: Amazon | iBooks
He Who Fears The Wolf: Amazon | iBooks
When the Devil Holds the Candle: Amazon | iBooks
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Although Sweden and Norway lead the race in crime fiction authorship, Denmark has a few too. Adler-Olsen was born in Copenhagen and grew up in doctor’s quarters in mental hospitals all over the country (his father was the famous psychiatrist and sexologist Henry Olsen).
Adler-Olsen’s series is based on the one man Department Q, a special unit of the police reserved for unsolved crimes. Carl Morck is transferred here after the death of two colleagues. Morck, in and as Department Q, is left to break a stack of cold cases on minimal resources.
Begin with:
Mercy: Amazon | iBooks
Disgrace: Amazon | iBooks
Redemption: Amazon | iBooks
Stieg Larsson
Currently the best known Scandinavian crime writer in the world, Larsson began as a journalist. All of his fiction has been published posthumously; he died in 2004.
His Millenium Trilogy, which begins with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is a series of novels featuring hacker Lisbeth Salander and writer Mikael Blomkvist, with Stockholm as the backdrop and violence against women as the theme. Disturbing, face-paced and full of fleshed-out, fascinating characters, it’s no wonder that the Millenium Trilogy books have topped bestseller lists since their releases beginning in 2005 (in Swedish) and 2008 (in English). Acclaimed Swedish and American films of the series have been made, most recently by American director David Fincher.
Begin with:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Amazon | iBooks
The Girl Who Played with Fire: Amazon | iBooks
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest: Amazon | iBooks
Honorable mentions:
Anne Holt for her detective Hanne Wilhelmsen series
Henning Mankell for his Inspector Kurt Wallander series
Peter Høeg for Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow |