Per Wahloo

Harper Perennial have recently started republishing the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo - originally written between 1965 and 1975. (The full series as at this book, is outlined below.) These books are often included in lists of the great classics of crime fiction. They integrate a wide range of social and cultural issues alongside their crime fiction base, making some very pointed observations and statements about Swedish society at the time that they were written. Even allowing for the way that they mirror society, as seen through the author's joint eyes at that time, they also stand up incredibly well in current day terms - there is no sense that they have become dated or antiquated in any way and the message is as relevant and pointed today as it was when they were written.

 

THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN is the next book in the Harper series, originally from 1968. It opens with Stockholm police stretched to the limits by a series of protests against the war in Vietnam. On a rainy night, at the height of one of the major protests, off in the suburbs of Stockholm a double decker bus veers off the road, the driver and 8 of his passengers gunned down by an unknown killer. The murders seem to be totally motiveless, there doesn't seem to be any connection between any of the people on that bus. One of the passengers is one of Beck's own detectives, dead in his seat, with his service revolver in his hand and no apparent reason for being anywhere near that bus.

 

Again Sjowall and Wahloo weave an intricate investigation story deftly with a view of the surrounding circumstances of the time - the effect that the protests are having on police resourcing, the tension between Stockholm and more regional areas of Sweden, the tension between the investigating team members, social problems of workers coming to Sweden for a better life and finding a different story. Even Sweden's much commented on sexual freedom and liberation is considered, when the discovery of nude photographs of the dead man's girlfriend are found in his desk.

 

As expected in any book from this pair of writers, the investigation is deft and very human focused. The book incorporates a range of commentary on a wide range of issues, but there's nothing preachy or pushy - the tone is observational, the issues highlighted as part of the characters reactions and observations.

 

Each of the Harper Perennial titles incorporates an introduction written by a well known Crime writer of current times - THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN is introduced by Sean and Nicci French, who, highlight a number of the social commentary elements of the book. Whilst the entire introduction is very interesting, one of the most telling comments is right at the end:

 

"And speaking as another married couple who write thrillers, we don't know which of them wrote what, we can't see the joins, and we don't care".

 

The PS section in this book continues Richard Shepherd's analysis; briefly discusses the film adaptation of 1973 and continues the Q and A sessions with Maj Sjowall.

 

Full list of titles available from Harper Perennial so far:

 

Roseanna

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

The Man on the Balcony

The Laughing Policeman

The Fire Engine that Disappeared (June 2007)

Murder at the Savoy (June 2007)

Harper Perennial have recently started republishing the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo - originally written between 1965 and 1975. (The full series as at this book, is outlined below.) These books are often included in lists of the great classics of crime fiction. They integrate a wide range of social and cultural issues alongside their crime fiction base, making some very pointed observations and statements about Swedish society at the time that they were written. Even allowing for the way that they mirror society, as seen through the author's joint eyes at that time, they also stand up incredibly well in current day terms - there is no sense that they have become dated or antiquated in any way and the message is as relevant and pointed today as it was when they were written.

 

THE MAN ON THE BALCONY is the fourth in the series being released by Harper, and it covers the confrontational subject matter of the violation and murder of a number of very young girls. Their bodies are found in the parks of Stockholm, and Police Superintendent Martin Beck and his team have only two possible witnesses - one is a 3 year old boy and the other is a mugger who has to be identified, and then made to talk. Stockholm society is becoming increasingly tense, the police are increasing unable to identify any possible suspects, and the investigation drags until a lucky coincidence is recognised for what it is.

 

Alongside some very caustic social observation in THE MAN IN THE BALCONY, is a team of police that grate up against each other when the pressure is on - their own lives exist in and around their jobs. The effect of the murder of young children affects each one of them in a different way depending upon their own life experience. The effect of the murders on the parents, and on the families of their friends is subtly different for each person encountered, but equally raw and illustrative. The great thing about this team is that they are all human - with problems at home, problems in adjusting to changes in their own lives, problems handling the reactions of the people affected by the murders and problems handling their own reactions. They are also able to put all of that aside and pull together when they finally have a direction in the investigation.

 

THE MAN ON THE BALCONY reminds the reader that it is possible to bring a multi-layered, character driven, soundly plotted book in a short package. There's also a willingness to use a different style of resolution - in THE MAN ON THE BALCONY the police get lucky and a coincidental comment leads them in the right direction.

 

Each of the Harper Perennial titles incorporates an introduction written by a well known Crime writer of current times - THE MAN ON THE BALCONY is introduced by Andrew Taylor. He discusses the effect that the books of Sjowall and Wahloo had on his own writing career and that adds an extra layer to the book. Combine that with a PS section at the end including further analysis, and interview with Maj Sjowall, a summary of the next titles in the series and a "If You Liked This...." section and this is a wonderful (and greatly overdue) repackaging of one of the all time great Crime Fiction series.

 

Full list of titles available from Harper Perennial:

 

Roseanna

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

The Man on the Balcony

The Laughing Policeman

The Fire Engine that Disappeared (June 2007)

Murder at the Savoy (June 2007)

I'm still dipping into this reprint series from Harper Perennial with a profound sense of gratitude for the fact that they are bringing these fabulous books back to our attention.  Originally copyrighted in 1966 THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE sees the only time Wahloo and Sjowall take Martin way outside his comfort zone - to Budapest to investigate the disappearance of a Swedish journalist - he seems to have literally gone up in smoke!

 

Martin is called back from a family holiday - sort of - well not quite - grudgingly to work on this task in the heights of the European summer - in a country he's never been to before; with a local police force that doesn't really know why he's there; in the height and strangeness of another culture; in an Eastern European underworld that doesn't make sense.  And he has to do this in an era before fax machines, before mobile telephones, before email - just an infrequent scratchy telephone call back home to try to find some details about who the missing man is in the first place.

 

In classic Sjowall/ Wahloo style Martin wanders his way around the problem, doing a little, thinking a lot and seeing more than anybody realises to find, firstly what on earth this journalist was up to and finally where he ended up.

 

In this edition, Val McDermid wrote the forward and, as is the way with this series, these forwards provide a valuable insight into just how wide the influence of this Swedish pair of writers has been - just to quote one small part of the excellent introduction:

 

"Discovering dedicated mystery booksellers was a bit like going to heaven without having to die first.  There were so many crime writers whose books were available in the US only - ironically, some of them British - and in those pre-Internet days, the only apparent way to acquire them was physically to go there and buy them.  Which I did.  In industrial quantities.  Among the books in the holdall were ten paperbacks in the black livery of Vintage Press.  They comrpised a decalogue of crime novels written by the Swedish husband-wife team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.  They'd been on my must-read list since I'd read about them in Julian Symonds' definitive overview of the genre, Bloody Murder. "

 

Val's introduction is as worth reading as the book itself.