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kittiwakeAs a teenager, I read a lot of police procedurals. My local library was well stocked with the 47th precinct novels by Ed MacBain, Dell Shannon's Luis Mendoza books and the Martin Beck series by Sjowall & Wahjoo.
After so many years the main thing I remember about the Martin Beck books is just how bitter they are about the Swedish establishment. I can't remember any of the plots, although I did remember Beck, his friend and colleague Kollberg and the comic-relief patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvant.
In "The Laughing Policeman", which I don't think I've read before, Beck and his team investigate Sweden's first mass-murder. Late one evening, the driver of a Stockholm bus and seven of his passengers are shot dead as it approaches the terminus, and the one surviving passenger ends up in a coma. One of the dead men is a policeman, but no-one can understand what he was doing travelling on that bus.
After so many years the main thing I remember about the Martin Beck books is just how bitter they are about the Swedish establishment. I can't remember any of the plots, although I did remember Beck, his friend and colleague Kollberg and the comic-relief patrolmen Kristiansson and Kvant.
In "The Laughing Policeman", which I don't think I've read before, Beck and his team investigate Sweden's first mass-murder. Late one evening, the driver of a Stockholm bus and seven of his passengers are shot dead as it approaches the terminus, and the one surviving passenger ends up in a coma. One of the dead men is a policeman, but no-one can understand what he was doing travelling on that bus.
