Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds, 10 Jan 2007
George Santayana
On a rainy Stockholm night a gunman opens fire on Stockholm bus, killing eight passengers and critically wounding a ninth. The crime scene is bloody and chaotic. Critical clues may have been destroyed when the first police officers arrive on the scene and trample through the bus. Police Superintendent Martin Beck is placed in charge of the investigation. There appear to be no clues and no apparent motive. His task is the monumental one of taking this chaotic scene and imposing enough order on it so that clues may be found, leads followed, and the criminal or criminals brought to justice. The physical and mental burdens of the job are compounded by emotional burdens once Beck discovers that one of the victims happens to be a detective who worked in Martin Beck's unit. That is the plot that unfolds in the opening pages of Per Wahloo and Maj Sowall's remarkably well-crafted "The Laughing Policeman".
The Laughing Policeman, published in Sweden in 1968 and in the U.S. in 1971 (winner of that year's Edgar Award for Best Novel), was the fourth in a series of ten Martin Beck mysteries written by the Swedish, husband and wife team of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. The plot and structure of the four Beck mysteries I've read to date do not deviate from the standard format found in any well-written police procedural. However, what sets the Beck mysteries apart is their location and character development. Naturally enough, each book is a small window into Swedish life and culture in the 1960s and 1970s when the books were written. Further, as the series develops the character of Beck and his colleagues evolve and the reader slowly obtains a real feel for Beck and his fellow police officers. By the fourth book, the personalities of Martin Beck and his police colleagues have developed to the point where the reader almost has an instinct for how each will react to a given situation. At the same time the characters, especially Beck, remain far from predictable. However, they are already fully formed in the authors' minds and for that reason I suggest reading these books in order.
I do not think it appropriate to divulge any details about a police procedural such as this so I will leave it to the reader to see how Martin Beck and his crew slowly put together the pieces of the puzzle behind the killings. The authors are quite good at keeping the pot boiling. They don't reveal too much too early and they do not rely on Sherlock Holmes-like deductions to take the place of crafting a story. Additionally, the writing is filled with funny moments and asides. In its own way the Beck mysteries provide a very interesting glimpse into Swedish life and culture in the 1960s and 1970s. In the hands of Wahloo and Sjowall, Beck's conversations are filled with both blunt exchanges and very sly, sardonic comments that kept me chucking throughout. I was also impressed with how the authors have slowly continued to build up their protagonists back stories. By this volume in the series the reader has a pretty good idea as to the home lives and personal idiosyncrasies of all the major characters. They are free from stereotype and make reading the book a more enjoyable experience.
The Laughing Policeman was a good read, one of those books that you feel you must finish just one more chapter before heading off to bed or back to work. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Crime fiction at its best, 17 May 2005
Described by many as a "classic of the police procedural", "The Laughing Policeman", by husband-and-wife Scandinavian team Maj Sjöwall and Peter Wahlöö, is a wonderfully realised piece of detective fiction.While written in the late 1960s, the storyline is far from dated. It's a well crafted and exquisitely plotted piece of fiction that had me hooked from the first page. The setting is Stockholm, Sweden. It's a cold, wet November evening and two policemen have just stumbled upon a double-decker bus that has driven off the road. On board are eight people, including an off-duty police officer, who have been gunned down by an unknown assailant. Who was the murderer and what was his motive? Why was the policeman onboard? And did he know the young nurse sitting next to him? The crime - Sweden's first ever mass murder - tests the resolve of all the detectives working on it, including Inspector Martin Beck whom appears in three other novels by the Sjöwall and Wahlöö. I initially found the writing in "The Laughing Policeman" a little disjointed - probably the fault of the translator and not the authors - but once I got used to the style I absolutely loved this book. The humour and the banter between the police working on the case really brought the story alive. And despite the grim subject matter, I found myself chuckling throughout because of the one-liners. This is definitely a classic piece of crime fiction that holds up against the best of its genre today, and I would highly recommend it to anyone after a powerful and intelligent read.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the buses, 17 Feb 2007
Book #4, and the loveable pair of Swedish Marxists are on top form with this one; it's a real high point in the series. The procedural aspects are very much to the fore, the wonderful Gunvald Larrson character looks like he's here to stay, and there's a great comedic turn from the Keystone-like Kristiansson and Kvant. Oh, and Kollberg gets kinky. Read it!
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