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Murder on the Thirty-First Floor [Paperback]

Per Wahlöö
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

15 Dec 2011

In an unnamed country, in an unnamed year sometime in the future, Chief Inspector Jensen of the Sixteenth Division is called in after the publishers controlling the entire country's newspapers and magazines receive a threat to blow up their building, in retaliation for a murder they are accused of committing. The building is evacuated, but the bomb fails to explode and Jensen is given seven days in which to track down the letter writer.

Jensen has never had a case he could not solve before, but as his investigation into the identity of the letter writer begins it soon becomes clear that the directors of the publishers have their own secrets, not least the identity of the 'Special Department' on the thirty first floor; the only department not permitted to be evacuated after the bomb threat.

Author of the Martin Beck series.


Frequently Bought Together

Murder on the Thirty-First Floor + The Steel Spring + The Terrorists (The Martin Beck series, Book 10)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (15 Dec 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099554763
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099554769
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.4 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 282,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Something quite special and fascinating: a use of the detective form to present a brooding and biting forecast of the future - or of a possible future" (New York Times Book Review )

"The godfather of Scandinavian crime fiction" (Jo Nesbo )

"[Sarah Death's translation] seems to catch the bleakness perfectly... Wahlöö's solo work deserves to be considered in the same context as Zamyatin, Capek, Orwell, or Durrenmatt...high praise indeed." (Michael Carlson Irresistible Targets )

"[His novels] are economical and move with great pace... [They] have been restored to the canon of European crime fiction in English. Don't miss" (Bob Cornwell Crime Time )

"Wahlöö would prompt many writers to use crime fiction as a way of holding a mirror to social evils. Here the investigation is tense, the murder shocking, but at heart the crime is against journalism and intellectual freedom" (Public Sphere )

Book Description

A chilling dystopian classic crime story from the godfather of Scandinavian crime fiction.

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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic but SCARY! 29 Dec 2012
By DotDot
Format:Paperback
This was my first Per Wahloo read - while I await the Martin Beck series. Considering when it, and the Steel Spring, were written they are mind-blowingly up-to-date and accurate of the manipulations of our 'masters'....should be recommended reading for encouraging teens' thinking/what NOT to become.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Murder on the thirty-first floor---Per Wahloo 27 Dec 2011
By Simon Clarke TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Per Wahloo,together with his wife,Maj Sjowell,wrote the
ten crime novels in the Martin Beck series.This novel is
the first in a series of two,and was first published in
1964,but is now re-issued in an excellent new English
translation by Sarah Death.
It is not traditional crime fiction,it is more a dystopian
novel set in an unknown Northern European country,some time
in the future,and aside from the main protagonist,Chief
Inspector Jensen,no one else in the story is given a name.
The inhabitants of this country are ruthlessly conditioned,
and anxiety is managed by the state.
The emotionless Jensen,who has never failed to solve a
crime ,is given 7 days to investigate a crime involving an
anonymous bomb threat on the offices of a company that controls
all the country's magazines.
As Jensen struggles to conclude the matter.we are given
evidence of a soulless society. One does not have to agree
with the author's political vision in order to appreciate
his talent and originality.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars  2 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A tense page-turner that is also an intellectual thriller 17 Mar 2006
By John Gabree - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Per Wahloo is not the first writer to record the stifling effect of government bureaucracy. But in the background of this police procedural he has fashioned a devastating critique of the modern state. This may not be the first anti-utopian novel, but it is among the best.

The time is the near future. The major problems that have plagued the democracies -- housing, unemployment, social inequality and so in -- have been solved, partly it seems by having been declared solved. Like Big Brother in "1984" (and some recent inhabitants of the White House), the rulers of this corporate paradise are deeply offended by the merest expression of dissent.

Chief Inspector Jensen must stop whoever is threatening to bomb the company that controls the nation's magazines and newspapers. According to someone Jensen consults at the Ministry of Communications, their publications "have proved their ability to satisfy in a moderate way all legitimate tastes." Although the press once tended to inspire anxiety and unhappiness, now it can be relied on to give readers reassurance and peace of mind. The media have, in short, "the ability to be comprehensible and uncomplicated, adapting to the tastes of modern man."

Jensen has never failed to solve a case. He is a cop's cop, tireless, incorruptible, puritanical, a stickler for the rules. As he pursues his investigation, he is continually turning in people for petty infractions, especially private drunkenness. His thoroughness begins to unsettle the company's executives. They become more concerned with preserving the secret of the "thirty-first floor" than with discovering who is threatening the company. If he can unlock the door to the thirty-first floor, the chief inspector will find his culprit. He will also find the key to the mysterious control exercised by the society over its writers and intellectuals.

With his wife, the poet Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo was responsible for the Martin Beck novels, the detective series that was also an acute critique of Swedish society. In "Murder on the Thirty-First Floor," by exaggerating certain contemporary trends and phenomena only slightly (the dependence on the automobile and the mindlessness of popular culture), he has created a tense page-turner that is also an intellectual thriller.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the MARTIN BECK series 29 Dec 2008
By Susie - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm a big fan of the Martin Beck series by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. Murder on the Thirty-first Floor by Per Wahloo doesn't pack a punch like the books they've written together. Sorry I can't offer a more detailed review but I read this book some time ago and just got the request to review it today.
I loved all the Martin Beck books, couldn't put any one of them down until I finished reading them.
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