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Product Description
Review
'Wahloo's solo work deserves to be considered in the same context as Zamyatin, Capek, Orwell, or Durrenmatt...high praise indeed' --Irresistible Targets, Michael Carlson, January 2012
'Don't miss'
--Crime Time, Bob Cornwell, January 2012
The Beck books were greatly admired, but Wahloo's two novels featuring Chief Inspector Jensen are more intellectually intriguing --Independent on Sunday
'Don't miss'
--Crime Time, Bob Cornwell, January 2012
The Beck books were greatly admired, but Wahloo's two novels featuring Chief Inspector Jensen are more intellectually intriguing --Independent on Sunday
Book Description
A chilling dystopian classic crime story from the godfather of Scandinavian crime fiction
Inside This Book
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
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.
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.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
A tense page-turner that is also an intellectual thriller
17 Mar 2006
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.
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
Not as good as the MARTIN BECK series
29 Dec 2008
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.
I loved all the Martin Beck books, couldn't put any one of them down until I finished reading them.
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