Book description
Here, in one eBook volume, are the first four books in the hugely
acclaimed Martin Beck series - novels that shaped the future of
Scandinavian crime fiction and influenced writers from Stieg Larsson to
Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell to Lars Kepplar.
The first four novels in the Martin Beck series, available in one eBook volume.
'Roseanna': On a July afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged
from a lake in southern Sweden. Raped and murdered, she is naked,
unmarked and carries no sign of her identity. As Detective Inspector
Martin Beck slowly begins to make the connections that will bring her
identity to light, he uncovers a series of crimes further reaching than
he ever would have imagined and a killer far more dangerous. How much
will Beck be prepared to risk to catch him?
'The Man Who Went Up in Smoke': A Swedish journalist has vanished
without a trace in Budapest. When Detective Inspector Martin Beck
arrives in the city to investigate, he is drawn to an Eastern European
underworld in search of a man nobody knows. With the aid of the coolly
efficient local police, he reveals a web of crime, stretching back
across Europe - a discovery that will put his own life at risk.
'The Man on the Balcony': Someone is killing young girls in the
once-peaceful parks of Stockholm - killing them after having his own way
with them. The people of Stockholm are tense and fearful. Police
Superintendent Martin Beck has two witnesses: a cold-blooded mugger who
won't say much and a three-year-old boy who can't say much. The
dedicated work of the police seems to be leading nowhere, and with each
passing day the likelihood of another murder grows. But then Beck
remembers someone - or something - he overheard.
'The Laughing Policeman': On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus
riders are gunned down by an unknown assassin. The press, anxious for an
explanation for the seemingly random crime, quickly dubs him a madman.
But Martin Beck of the Homicide Squad suspects otherwise: this
apparently motiveless killer has managed to target one of Beck's best
detectives - and he, surely, would not have been riding that lethal bus
without a reason. 'The writing is elegant and surprisingly humorous -
if you haven't come across Beck before, you're in for a treat.' Guardian
'I have never read a finer police story.' Los Angeles Times
'The decalogue about the Swedish Chief Inspector Martin Beck created by
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo during the 1960s and 1970s are indeed classic
police fiction. They changed the genre. Whoever is writing crime fiction
after these novels inspired by them in one way or another.' Henning Mankell
'If you haven't read Sjowall/Wahloo, start now.' Sunday Telegraph
'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.' New York Times 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. After
returning to Sweden, he wrote a number of television and radio plays,
and was managing editor of several magazines, before becoming a
full-time writer.
Maj Sjowall is a poet. She lives in Sweden.
