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The Martin Beck series - The Locked Room (Martin Beck 8)
 
 

The Martin Beck series - The Locked Room (Martin Beck 8) [Kindle Edition]

Maj Sjöwall , Per Wahlöö
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Kindle Price: £4.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Review

Praise for ‘Roseanna’:

‘The writing is elegant and surprisingly humorous – if you haven’t come across Beck before, you’re in for a treat.’ Guardian

‘I have never read a finer police story.’ Los Angeles Times

‘The decalogue about the Swedish Chief Inspector Martin Beck created by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo during the 1960s and 1970s are indeed classic police fiction. They changed the genre. Whoever is writing crime fiction after these novels inspired by them in one way or another.’ Henning Mankell

‘If you haven’t read Sjowall/Wahloo, start now.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Their mysteries don’t just read well; they reread even better. Witness, wife, petty cop or crook – they’re all real characters even if they get just a few sentences. The plots hold, because they’re ingenious but never inhuman.’ New York Times

Product Description

The eighth classic instalment in this genre-changing series of novels starring Detective Inspector Martin Beck. This new edition has an introduction by Michael Connolly.

In one part of town, a woman robs a bank. In another, a corpse is found shot through the heart in a room locked from within, with no firearm in sight. Although the two incidents appear unrelated, Detective Inspector Martin Beck believes otherwise, and solving the mystery acquires the utmost importance. Haunted by a near-fatal bullet wound and trying to recover from the break-up of his unhappy marriage, Beck throws himself into the case to escape from the prison that his own life has come to resemble.

Written in the 1960s, these masterpieces are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction. The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book will have a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.


Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 2074 KB
  • Print Length: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial (3 April 2009)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B002RI90ZO
  • Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #11,587 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Written towards the end of the series of 10 Martin Beck novels, this has all the features of the other novels: spare, economical writing, a sympathetic lead character in the Wallander mode, a strong ensemble cast of characters, a plausible and fairly detailed account of police procedures and an exposure of the underbelly of the Swedish social democratic 'utopia'.

The novel is notable for its plots which combine a classic 'locked room mystery' with a tales of both highly professional and pathetically amateurish bank robbers. It contains a laugh out loud scene where the hapless police under the hapless direction of bulldozer Olsen storm a completely empty room injuring two officers and a police dog in the process and also introduces a love interest for the chief inspector which is more believable than many in the genre.

The writing is ironic and comedic throughout and concludes with the denouement of the three plots where the innocent are punished and the guilty go free. Altogether a satisfying read.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
worthwhile 4 Aug 2008
By ingram
Format:Paperback
A worthwhile read. This is the last of the 10 books in the series I have read. In context I thought it fine, although i seem to think the early books were better.

These authors are worth following up.
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Highway robbery 26 Feb 2011
By Officer Dibble VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
The authors play with the format by running parallel storylines. There is a traditional police procedural involving the ensemble cast, which almost turns into Keystone Cops farce, especially the delightfully bungled, 'forced entry'. Meanwhile, a convalescing Martin Beck runs his own one-man police procedural (to the point of pure detective story) in solving a classic locked room murder mystery.

As this is the eighth in the series, it is perhaps understandable that the authors should feel free to have a little fun with the genre. They still find time for more outbreaks of social conscience which seem to be more worn on the sleeve as this decalogue progresses.

The portrayal of Sweden in the 1970's gets grimmer with poor people 'living on dogfood'. However, the newly-divorced Beck flirts with both unwanted promotion and the very much wanted love interest, Rhea.

A busier novel than some of the others in this series and slightly disjointed as a result. It is still an excellent read but you might benefit from having read some of the earlier Beck novels.
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