Scan barcode
A review by macloo
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
4.0
By now we know Martin Beck, police detective, and his colleagues pretty well. A month before Christmas, nine people are gunned down in a city bus. No witnesses. This is an exceeding rare crime for Sweden — the characters refer to it as Sweden's first mass murder, and at least once they remark on the University of Texas tower shooting of 1966, which was quite recent when this novel was written. Once again, the crime is marked by a staggering absence of clues or leads.
Among some things that struck me (reading in 2019) were the several mentions of "nymphomaniacs." The idea of a woman with an insatiable sex drive seems to have fascinated the authors. I found it kind of silly, and I wondered if it was kind of a new notion in the 1960s. Also the references to "junkies" and "pushers." It's not so much that these terms date the book as that they remind me that the '60s were a time when worlds were colliding, and for the police, it was a case of an underworld they were all too familiar with crossing over into the world of everyday respectability.
Anyway, the Stockholm police put everyone on the bus murders case, and even bring in extra detectives from the hinterlands (treating the reader to the biases against the northern residents of Sweden), but mostly they just beat their heads against the wall. Weeks pass as they desperately turn over every rock — and of course, bit by bit, some threads appear. We see the payoffs of a refusal to give up, and a willingness to return again and again to question a person. Also the ability to listen carefully. To believe that no detail is too small.
The final page of this book is utterly fabulous. Don't even think about looking at it in advance.
Among some things that struck me (reading in 2019) were the several mentions of "nymphomaniacs." The idea of a woman with an insatiable sex drive seems to have fascinated the authors. I found it kind of silly, and I wondered if it was kind of a new notion in the 1960s. Also the references to "junkies" and "pushers." It's not so much that these terms date the book as that they remind me that the '60s were a time when worlds were colliding, and for the police, it was a case of an underworld they were all too familiar with crossing over into the world of everyday respectability.
Anyway, the Stockholm police put everyone on the bus murders case, and even bring in extra detectives from the hinterlands (treating the reader to the biases against the northern residents of Sweden), but mostly they just beat their heads against the wall. Weeks pass as they desperately turn over every rock — and of course, bit by bit, some threads appear. We see the payoffs of a refusal to give up, and a willingness to return again and again to question a person. Also the ability to listen carefully. To believe that no detail is too small.
The final page of this book is utterly fabulous. Don't even think about looking at it in advance.