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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
I'm so glad I read this series of 10 excellent books, each one as least as good as the one that came before it.
There's just one annoyance: The character called Herrgott Allwright in book 9 is here known as Herrgott Content. It took me a few pages to figure out why Martin Beck is so happy to see this guy when he spots him on a street corner. Also, Content is obviously a poor translation choice since the reader doesn't know that it's supposed to sound like the adjective, not the noun.
There's just one annoyance: The character called Herrgott Allwright in book 9 is here known as Herrgott Content. It took me a few pages to figure out why Martin Beck is so happy to see this guy when he spots him on a street corner. Also, Content is obviously a poor translation choice since the reader doesn't know that it's supposed to sound like the adjective, not the noun.
This is the first book (and last book) in the series where I felt I could recognise the difference in the writing of the two authors. Could be my imagination of course. It didn't detract from the story though. Recommended for anyone who wants insight into where the current Scandi writers get their inspiration.
I'm very pleased to have read all of the books in this 1960s Decalogue that portrays the nationalization of the Swedish police force and the rise of the 'welfare state'.
This last installment is perhaps the most polemic, dealing as it does with several smaller crimes in the context of the crimes committed by the terrorists. As a result the book is a bit all over the place but nonetheless it manages to maintain interest with an undercurrent of menace permeating the last few chapters. A very satisfying read.
This last installment is perhaps the most polemic, dealing as it does with several smaller crimes in the context of the crimes committed by the terrorists. As a result the book is a bit all over the place but nonetheless it manages to maintain interest with an undercurrent of menace permeating the last few chapters. A very satisfying read.
All the characters in the series show up for this final episode, which starts out with a terrorist assassination in an unnamed Latin American country, to which Gunvald Larsson is a witness. Seeming a bit disjointed, the story moves on to a trial of an odd young bank robber, where Martin Beck is a witness, and to the murder of a porn-film producer in his mistress's home. Gradually the main act gathers momentum, as Beck leads a star-studded team assigned to preventing the assassination of a visiting American Senator (presumably by the same terrorist organization that struck in the early pages in another hemisphere). It's low-key but, like most of the other books in the series, oddly satisfying. We watch Beck and his selected teammates use their brains and years of experience to carefully and conscientiously do good work. There are quite a few slurs toward the rest of the Swedish police force, so thank heaven for this handful of men (and one woman) who know what they're doing.
Reflecting on the series, I have to conclude it doesn't hold up all that well. It doesn't have the timeless quality of the books by Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. Stories have squirmy little aspects that mark them as taking place in the 1970s and make them seem narrow, particularly related to sexual relationships and women in general. I have a warm spot in my heart for Martin Beck, though. He's worth admiring, and despite the almost equal roles played by other policemen in most of the books, he remains the core of the series for me.
Reflecting on the series, I have to conclude it doesn't hold up all that well. It doesn't have the timeless quality of the books by Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. Stories have squirmy little aspects that mark them as taking place in the 1970s and make them seem narrow, particularly related to sexual relationships and women in general. I have a warm spot in my heart for Martin Beck, though. He's worth admiring, and despite the almost equal roles played by other policemen in most of the books, he remains the core of the series for me.
I really needed to finally finish this series. The intended sense of despair and despondency of society going straight to hell that slowly grows from Roseanna through ten books in ten years until this point where people have finally decided to make a stand against the leaders who have brought this upon us was starting to make me feel like not bothering.
As Sjowall was dying of cancer during the writing of this entry the plot takes an even more melancholy tone, the idealism of the political protesters that regularly appear as background characters in this series becomes almost as much misguided aggression as that of the constantly condemned police force. Here are some writers wondering whether all of their protests were worth it, at the same time when their protagonists - Beck et al - are wondering whether their personal sacrifices in becoming policemen were worth it.
Beck has been tasked with protecting an American senator visiting Sweden after a terrorist threat is raised. It's smartly done on both sides of the law, the writing provides great tension and intrigue as well as the copious amounts of societal criticism that occasionally comes across as a grouchy old sod writing to their local newspaper. At this stage it's very much like spending time with old colleagues that you've grown to respect and care for, comfortable and relaxed. The painstaking procedural style action of the first few books has given way to a more conventional thriller plot except in true Beck style things deliberately end with a whimper and not a bang. It's been a highly enjoyable ride but somehow I expected more. I recently compared the series of books to the TV show The Wire, each book focussing on a different aspect of society to paint a grand picture of what's wrong, and I thought that show ended a little disappointingly too now I think about it.
As Sjowall was dying of cancer during the writing of this entry the plot takes an even more melancholy tone, the idealism of the political protesters that regularly appear as background characters in this series becomes almost as much misguided aggression as that of the constantly condemned police force. Here are some writers wondering whether all of their protests were worth it, at the same time when their protagonists - Beck et al - are wondering whether their personal sacrifices in becoming policemen were worth it.
Beck has been tasked with protecting an American senator visiting Sweden after a terrorist threat is raised. It's smartly done on both sides of the law, the writing provides great tension and intrigue as well as the copious amounts of societal criticism that occasionally comes across as a grouchy old sod writing to their local newspaper. At this stage it's very much like spending time with old colleagues that you've grown to respect and care for, comfortable and relaxed. The painstaking procedural style action of the first few books has given way to a more conventional thriller plot except in true Beck style things deliberately end with a whimper and not a bang. It's been a highly enjoyable ride but somehow I expected more. I recently compared the series of books to the TV show The Wire, each book focussing on a different aspect of society to paint a grand picture of what's wrong, and I thought that show ended a little disappointingly too now I think about it.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The final book in the Martin Beck series is fittingly grim. Worth pushing through if you've read the others.
Superb and final outing in the Martin Beck decalogue. Gripping and extremely well-written -- and translated -- police procedural that's the obvious template for later works from Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Except with the Beck novels' pacing, characters and nuanced psychological take on the crime thriller, I find Sjowall and Wahloo have the upper hand.
I'm sorry to come to the end of this series. Not only are the mysteries engaging, but the political questions the books raise are as relevant today as they were in the 1960s and 1970s. The boorish American Senator in this novel could easily be a stand-in for Trump--although the American electorate in the 1970s was smart enough not to elect him president. Interested readers should start at the beginning of the series and read it in order. The authors saw the ten novels as comprising one story.