As I’ve mentioned (rather a while ago), I read the majority of the rather brilliant, and widely praised, Martin Beck series whilst in Sweden over Easter. I’d only read one before, from the middle of the series, and although I enjoyed it, I much prefer reading books in order (call me a pendant…). Mr. Bibliomouse had kindly taken the first 4 out of the library for me to read whilst he was ‘at the office’ (for ‘office’, read ‘sitting in cafe, pretending to read academic articles’), and it didn’t take me long to polish them all off and go back for more!

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were a couple who wrote ten books in the Martin Beck series together before Wahlöö died in 1975. Although  Sjöwall still lives in Stockholm, and is one of Sweden’s  foremost translators, it’s the crime novels that she wrote with Wahlöö that she’s best known for.

As a series, the books changed the way that fictional detectives were portrayed. Beck was created as the original ‘realistic’ detective, before readers were used to characters like Morse and Wallander conducting investigations from beneath a crust of cynical cantankerousness. Despite Beck being almost constantly either depressed or mildly ill, he’s an immensely likeable main character and the partnership with his close friend and fellow detective Lennart Kollberg is beautifully drawn throughout the 10 novels. It’s this skill with characterisation that makes the books a joy to read- not all of the detectives are empathetic, but all of them are recognisable from real life. All have tics and habits that make them make them annoying at times, both to each other and to the reader, but in a way that just makes the novels more realistic, and by the end of the series I really felt as though I would miss some of the characters. This is a sure indicator that I really rate a book/series highly, that the end of the novel will leave a small hole in my life, albeit usually temporarily*.

All of the ten novels are worth reading, but my favourites were ‘Roseanna’, ‘The Laughing Policeman’ and ‘Cop Killer’. If you want detailed and well-written police procedurals, with an underlying social commentary, I highly recommend Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s series of crime stories.

*Actually, I still sometimes wonder what certain literary characters are doing, and what their eventual fate was. Did Cassandra ever find love again, after Simon Cotton? Was George still a tomboy, even when she grew up? I know it’s odd, but some characters just seem to live outside of their books. Don’t tell anyone…!