RETURN TO MARTIN BECK

What do you read when you are really stressed out? When you want something to bring you back to a state of equilibrium, and not slip into dark depression.

I look at the books on my "read next" TBR shelf, and see I have a personal "Nazi Occupied Poland" reading challenge coming up very soon. That should help me realise that things could be a great deal worse!

But I decided that I would read another book from the Martin Beck series. I always feel a sense of nostalgia for those heady days, twenty years ago, when I searched through Devon's many second hand bookshops for the missing books in my Sjowall/Wahloo collection.

Now we have the marvelous Harper Perennial editions with introductions and informative articles at the end of the books; and above all with font sizes that are readable by the elderly.

I like to save these books up, just as you store a vintage wine that is too good to drink, but now it was time to read another. My out of order reading of Sjowall and Wahloo's ten book series, has now reached number nine for me, actually number six in the series, Murder at the Savoy [1970]. In the introduction Michael Carlson explains the Swedish title; Polis, polis, potatismos; but he also states Sjowall and Wahloo cited Ed McBain's 87th Precinct police procedurals as an influence.

Is this correct? I am not sure they had read any Ed McBain, and in this interview Maj Sjowall only mentions the influence of Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett.

Is it just pure nostalgia, or are the Martin Beck books as good as I remember? I ask the same question each time I read one.

Well I have reached page 116 of Murder at the Savoy, and my answer is yes, they are wonderful reads. Despite the differences in police procedure, no computers, no DNA, no mobile phones, and an almost all male police force they have a knack of seeming very relevant to the present day. Above all they obey basic rules for good crime fiction; you must have a good plot, a cast of interesting characters, and mention food.

There was matjes herring on a bed of dill, sour cream and chives. A dish of carp roe with a wreath of diced onion, dill and lemon slices. Thin slices of smoked salmon spread out on fragile lettuce leaves. Sliced hard-boiled eggs. Smoked herring. Smoked flounder. Hungarian salami, Polish sausage. Finnish sausage and liver sausage from Skane. A large bowl of lettuce with lots of fresh shrimps.

But as well as the light humour there is a much heavier social commentary confirming that Sjowall and Wahloo believed the model social democratic society was falling apart even in 1970.

Behind its spectacular topographical facade and under its polished, semi-fashionable surface, Stockholm had become an asphalt jungle, where drug addiction and sexual perversion ran more rampant than ever..........

An impoverished proletariat was also being created, especially among the elderly. Inflation had given rise to one of the highest costs of living in the world, and the latest surveys showed that many pensioners had to live on dog and cat food in order to make ends meet.

The Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

Roseanna [1965] *

The Man who Went Up In Smoke [1966] *

The Man on the Balcony [1967] *

The Laughing Policeman [1968] *

The Fire Engine that Disappeared [1969] **

Murder at the Savoy [1970] -reading now

The Abominable Man [1971]- to be read

The Locked Room [1972]**

Cop Killer [1974]*

The Terrorists [1975]*

* Read before I began blogging.

** Reviewed on Crime Scraps

This old blurb that appeared on the cover of Roseanna says it all:

'Sjowall/Wahloo are the best writers of police procedural in the world.' Birmingham Post

THE ABOMINABLE MAN: SJOWALL & WAHLOO

Over the weekend I read The Abominable Man by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. This was the tenth and last book in the Martin Beck series that I have read, although it is seventh book they wrote. Usually reading a Scandinavian crime fiction series out of order is due to the eccentric publishing order, but in my case it was simply due to availability of the books in English. I read my first Martin Beck books about thirty years ago, and I might now go back and read all ten again in the correct order; they are that good.

When Chief Inspector Stig Nyman is sliced up with a carbine bayonet while ill in a Stockholm Hospital, Martin Beck and colleague Einar Ronn don't get much sleep as they investigate a long list of those who might have a grudge against the policeman. When Lennart Kollberg, who knew Nyman in the Army, and the abrasive Gunvald Larsson join the hunt for the perpetrator the action moves rapidly on to an exciting and dramatic denouement.

The theme of this book is the abuse of power by the state, in this case police officers, against vulnerable and apparently powerless citizens. When those citizens decide to fight back the authorities are caught off guard. This is a theme very relevant today, and something that has been taken up more recently by other Scandinavian crime writers.

Perhaps the brass realized that in the long run it would prove untenable simply to insist that everyone involved in sociology was actually a communist or some other subversive.

Of course Marxists Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo make you feel sympathetic to the underdog perpetrator, as they did in the previous book in the series Murder at the Savoy. The real villain there was unfeeling corrupt capitalism, in this book it is the 'look after our own' brutal police force backed by all the power of the state.

Martin Beck looked him in the eye and said reluctantly, 'He was a bad policeman.'

"Wrong,' said Kollberg. 'Now listen. Nyman was one hell of a bad policeman. He was a barbaric son of a bitch of the very worst sort.'

Written nearly forty years ago The Abominable Man is a simple uncomplicated short [216 pages] police procedural but the character development and theme are dealt with so cleverly that it is a classic read.

Sjowall and Wahloo were among the very few writers who could blend humour and tragedy so successfully into a concise story, leaving you satisfied but also wanting so much more of their addictive characters.

'If we'd known what society was coming to, we wouldn't have had any children at all. But they've been leading us on all these years.'

'Who?' said Ronn.

'The politicians. The party leaders. The ones we thought were on our side. Just gangsters, all of them.'

END GAME 2006

"When in doubt have two guys come through the door with guns"

Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]

A great line from Chandler who obviously learned his lessons, as I did , from that typical English Public school education at Dulwich College.

Well it is probably time to look back and assess the highs and lows of a year which seems to have whistled by even quicker than 2005. I am convinced that as well as global warming being a reality there is also something Einsteinian occuring, and that as I get older time is speeding up.

This was the first year for a long time that we had not been abroad on holiday, but that surprisingly did not seem to make the year drag, because we were kept so busy with our family chores.

We can't feel sorry for ourselves about not having had a foreign holiday because in the previous 7 years, we had been four times to the USA , and three times to Italy, as well as touring Spain and Ireland.

FAMILY HIGH: Our son getting a 2:1 Sociology degree from University of Bath, and a fork lift driving licence. I am not sure which will be more useful in the long term.

LOWS: The inevitable funerals and trips to see friends and relatives recovering from illness. When they are younger than you it seems even more traumatic, and quite sobering.

WORLD WIDE WEB:

This was the year I made real use of the internet and met some interesting people online. I was also able to keep in touch with old friends and relatives in Mauritania, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Sciota PA, Forest Hill, Columbus OH, and Oxfordshire.

In the first half of the year I worked on a game enhancement for a computer baseball game with some helpful guys from Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. It was a very successful collaboration, but on those rainy days in Devon one gets a bit jealous when informed about Arizona's superb weather and Oregon's wonderful scenery.

Later in the year I started Crime Scraps and met online with a very friendly group of crime bloggers, especially Maxine, Rhian, Karen, and Peter. My apologies if I have forgotten anyone.

ALMOST GOOD REAL CRIME MOMENT:

The conviction of Danny and Ricky Preddie for the manslaughter of 10 year old Damiola Taylor. It had taken 6 years, three trials, and two police investigations to reach this conclusion and frankly the 8 year sentences were too lenient. There can really never be a "good moment" in this sad saga, but at least the convictions brought some kind of justice for young Damiola.

WORST REAL CRIME INCIDENT:

The shooting of five young girls aged between 7 and 13 at a school house in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

The lack of anger in the community and their forgiveness for the shooter, who had committed suicide, was an example of their deep faith.

I think these two incidents particularly affected me because I knew both areas quite well, Peckham from my childhood in Camberwell, and Lancaster County from holidays there in 1979 and 1994.

MOST INTERESTING REAL CRIME INCIDENT:

The reappearance of 18 year old Natascha Kampusch near the Austrian home of Wolfgang Priklopil, where she had been imprisoned for 8 years. The full story will probably never be revealed as Priklopil threw himself under a train when he realised she had escaped.

BEST CRIME FICTION MOMENTS:

The discovery of authors Leonardo Sciascia, Andrea Camilleri, Gianrico Carofiglio and Carlo Lucarelli, and enjoying every page they had written.

The realisation that Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were as good as I remembered after a 15 year gap in reading their police procedurals.

Learning so much history from the wonderful crime fiction of CJ Sansom and David Liss.

And of course delving into all those other crime fiction blogs with their excellent recommendations.

MOST ENJOYABLE CRIME READ OF THE YEAR:

A difficult one this as there were so many good books, but the choice is a triple tie:

The Locked Room by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Day after Day by Carlo Lucarelli, and The Coffee Trader by David Liss.

I really could not seperate these three novels.

MOST BORING CRIME READ OF THE YEAR:

Another tie between Half Broken Things by Morag Joss, and Predator by Patricia Cornwell.

CRIME FILMS:

I really enjoyed the best of them, History of Violence and Criminale Romanzo, both were exciting and even though you knew the probable outcome very gripping.

At the other end of the scale I nearly walked out of Hidden, and was only prevented doing so by the fact that most of the people in our row were comatose and asking them to move could have been dangerous. A totally hideous film that had all the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros, and none of the excitement.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:

To lose weight, my regular New Year resolution, and to enjoy every day whatever it may bring.

Today the weather is Devonian in that it is dark, very windy and raining, obviously an ideal day for reading about Salvo Montalbano and his problems on sunny Sicily.

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books, which are your very own."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]

HAPPY NEW YEAR

MORE SJOWALL AND WAHLOO: THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED

I finished reading The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo several days ago. Now I am prepared to be criticized for the fault of constant repetition but this book was top quality crime fiction and the series is a must read for crime fiction fans. I know I am a bit of a bore on this subject but they really are very good.

Don't just take my opinion look at the knowledgeable Maxine of Petrona's review here.

Ernst Sigurd Karlsson kills himself with a shot through the mouth in his tidy bedroom. Alongside the phone in the living room is a pad with two words written on it. Martin Beck.

Meanwhile Gunvald Larsson is observing a Stockholm apartment house, while a young policeman gets some coffee to warm him. The  house explodes and Larsson heroically rescues most of the people inside.

Why was the house being watched? Was the explosion arson or an accident? 

The investigation is an ensemble operation, breaking several of S.S. Van Dine's rules for writing detective stories [listed by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise], with the conflicting idiosyncratic personalities of the detectives playing a major part in the story. Systematic police work, stinging social commentary and a lot of humour makes this book a great read. 

Martin Beck takes an ancillary role in this story apart from the details of his almost always depressing home life which leads him to lie to his wife and spend the holiday  weekend with Kollberg and his wife.

The slightly concussed Gunvald Larsson conducts his own off beat investigation while supposedly off sick. But Martin Beck and the rest of the team, Lennart Kollberg  Einar Ronn, Fredrik Melander [when he is not in the toilet] , and 'future Chief of Police' Benny Skacke end up needing the cooperation of Inspector Mansson from Malmo who conveniently finds a very helpful witness in order to solve the interrelated crimes. 

A lot of the black humour in the book concerns the team members and their relationships with minor characters such as their boss Hammar, criminal-technologist Hjelm, and the 'Laurel and Hardy' of the Stockholm police Kvant and Kristiansson.

'Except a false alarm, which you failed to report, for Christ's sake. Out of sheer idleness or stupidity. Is that right?'

'Yes ,' mumbled Kristiansson.

'We were exhausted,' said Kvant, with a glimpse of hope.

'By what?'

'Lengthy and demanding duty.'

'Christ, kiss my arse,' said Gunvald Larsson. 'How many arrests had you made during your patrol?'

'None', said Kristiansson.

If you have not read this series yet you are in for a wonderful treat and I can do no more than quote the Birmingham [UK] Post;

'Sjowall /Wahloo are the best writers of police procedural in the world.' 

THE LEGACY OF SJOWALL AND WAHLOO

Thanks to Peter at Detectives Beyond Borders for the link to the Swedish site www.deckarakademin.se/priser.htm

If only I could speak Swedish! But I was able to fathom out some key points. One award is given to a foreign book translated into Swedish, and another to works in Swedish.

The foreign award is named after Martin Beck, and this is a tribute to Beck's creators those Viking Gods of the police procedural, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. I received two of the series in the post today;

1969 The Fire Engine That Disappeared, with an introduction by Colin Dexter

1970 Murder At The Savoy

I now have 9 out of the 10 books.

Colin Dexter admits that until asked to write the introduction he had never read any of the Swedish married couples books.

For a crime writer not to have read Sjowall and Wahloo is like a playwright not having read Shakespeare. It is my day for bold statements. I am pleased Colin Dexter started to read the Martin Beck series, he is in for a treat.

Some interesting names appear among the list of recent foreign prize winners.

2006 Phillipe Claudel

2005 Arnaldur Indridason [Icelandic]

2004 Alexander McCall Smith

2003 Ben Elton

2002 Karin Fossum [Norwegian]

2001 Peter Robinson

2000 Thomas H. Cook

While the list of Swedish winners demonstrates how long it takes for a book to be translated into English even if it is a prize winner. There is probably a wealth of fine crime writing that we have not yet had the pleasure of reading because it is still untranslated.

2006 Stieg Larsson

2005 Inger Frimansson

2004 Asa Larsson

2003 Leif G.W. Persson

2002 Kjell Eriksson [for Princess of Burundi]

2001 Ake Edwardson

2000 Aino Thosell

Henning Mankell won in 1991 and 1995, and Hakan Nesser in 1994 and 1996.

One of the nice things about these new Harper Perennial editions is the P.S. extras with insights about crime fiction, crime authors, policemen, and Swedish society.

"the so called Welfare State abounds with sick, poor, lonely people, living at best on dog food....." The Locked Room 1973

On suicide: "Sweden led the world by a margin that seemed to grow larger from one report to the next." Cop Killer 1974

SWEDISH COVERS

Update:

This blog is now dormant and has moved with all the old posts and many new ones to Crime Scraps Review at http://crimescraps2.wordpress.com.

Please come one over.

Barbara Fister, whose website Scandinavian Crime Fiction in English and her companion blog have become excellent resources, commented on my recent follow up post on the arguments over female crime writers in Sweden that 'it would be interesting to see how Sjowall and Wahloo were marketed'.

Above are the covers of a 30 year old Penguin edition of Polismordaren, Cop Killer by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo and a recent Swedish edition of Prime Time by Liza Marklund.

You don't need to be in the publishing industry, or a graphic designer, to note the huge change in emphasis away from the story and the detective to concentrate on the author.

The books title has become secondary in the marketing of the Marklund novel, while the authors Sjowall and Wahloo are tertiary to the information conveyed in the title and the name of the detective in the 1978 book.

KARIN ALVTEGEN

I have started to read Betrayal by Karin Alvtegen and am finding it rather dark, disturbing and depressing. That is not so say that it is not excellent psychological crime fiction, but I have not yet found even a small spark of humour in the book.

The very short winter days are probably one cause of the very high suicide rates in Scandinavia.

But in theory countries in which there is not such a large gap in wealth between the rich and the poor should be happier and more content. This is another book that puts that myth to rest, and reveals in the lives of the two main characters Eva and Jonas how loneliness and alienation can lead to desperation.

Sjowall and Wahloo, in their classic sequence of books, revealed for the first time that all was not well with the Swedish socialist paradise, and Karin Alvtegen carries on that theme in this dark tale of revenge and general despair.

Details about Karin Alvtegen's books, and some the reasons for their dark mood can be found at:

http://www.karinalvtegen.com/index_eng.htm

"the so-called Welfare State abounds with sick, poor and lonely people....." Sjowall and Wahloo: The Locked Room 1973

HIGHLIGHTING HUMOUR

Seamus Scanlon's original post at Crime Always Pays was followed by Barbara Fister's post with her own accurate assessment of the Martin Beck books.

"-they're shot through with humour and irony".

Seamus has replied in the comments that "I agree that the Beck books are full of black humour and irony which I neglected to highlight."

Here is another example of the Sjowall and Wahloo circa 1965 humour that perhaps in these more sensitive times would not get past the editor.

"Yes, of course your colleague showed me her portrait, but you understand, it wasn't her face that I recognize. It's the dress, or more correctly, not exactly the dress, either."

He turned to the left and placed his powerful index finger on Martin beck's chest.

"It was the decollete," he said in a thundering whisper.

Roseanna: Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

It has become almost a Scandinavian tradition to break up the tension of even the bleakest stories with a little humour. I recall Harry Hole having problems with the 'e' on his computer while trying to write a report on neo-Nazis, and Van Veeteren's colleague Rheinhart brilliant ironical reply to the inquiry whether a headless corpse was really a case of murder that no, it might be someone who could not afford a proper funeral and had donated his head to medical science.

When it comes to dark, scary and sombre Johan Theorin's latest number one best seller The Darkest Room takes some beating, but even among that bleakness he creates a little humour.

Two elderly ladies at the residential home where the elderly sea captain Gerlof Davidsson lives provide the light relief as policewoman Tilda Davidsson waits to take out her grandfather's brother and over hears their conversations.

"Talk things, through, yes," said the first lady. "Once and for all. She says I never supported her. You only thought about yourself and Daddy, she said. All the time. And us kids have always been in second place."

That's what my son says as well, said the other lady. "Although with him it's the exact opposite. He rings before Christmas every year and complains and says I gave him too much love."

WORLD FAMOUS IN UPPSALA:THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI BY KJELL ERIKSSON

This blog is now dormant but you can read all my old posts and lots of new material at Crime Scraps Review.

http://crimescraps2.wordpress.com

On a snowy night just before Christmas John Jonsson, an unemployed welder and expert on African ornamental fish, fails to come home for his supper. He later is found in the snow tortured and brutally murdered.

'Little John' Jonsson is survived by his beautiful wife Berit, his teenage son Justus, and by his brother Lennart, well known to the police as a local small time villain.

Lennart does not trust the police and begins his own investigation into his brother's murder, and a secret shared by John and Justus.

The story follows Lennart's efforts, the activities of a psychopath Vincent who went to school with John, and the systematic investigations of Uppsala's police team.

The team under the kindly direction of chief Ottosson are missing detective Anne Lindell, who is on an extended maternity leave looking after baby Erik. The other detectives Ola Haver, in charge, Frederiksson, who prefers paper to computers, germophobic Peter Lundin, Berglund, Beatrice and Riis begin a trawl through the life and contacts of John Jonsson. Lindell will later get involved both in the police work and in an emotional entanglement in what is a very good example of police procedural crime fiction.

Kjell Eriksson is an interesting author born in 1953 he was for many years a construction worker and then a gardener for ten years before giving up to become a full time writer. His politics are very left wing [possibly a member of the SKP Swedish Communist Party] and this comes over in the book in the way he talks about the nobility of labour and the goodness of John's father, a roofer and representative of Uppsala's working class.

In 1999 Eriksson turned to writing crime fiction because he "wanted to deliver and experience suspense" and "the existence of a built in voltage moment". [from translated article in Ordfront Forlag].

When he first started writing he was treated with suspicion by his friends, but now he is regarded with warmth and respect by his former co -workers.

"Mentally, I am still on our side of the river, but I utilize the principal means of expression of the west side-the written language." [Behind the Headlines, Behind the Dividing Lines:Kjell Eriksson: Mystery Readers Journal Fall 2007]

He is now "World famous in Uppsala".

Although The Princess of Burundi is the first Anne Lindell novel to be published in English it is number 4 in the series, and the next two books in English The Cruel Stars of The Night and The Demon of Dakar are numbers 6 and 7. This makes it a little difficult to get into the book because we have not got to know the characters in the way in which the author intended.

Number One in the series The Illuminated Path won the Best First Crime Fiction novel in 1999 and The Princess of Burundi won the Best Novel award in 2002.

The derivation from the Sjowall and Wahloo Martin Beck and the Ed McBain 87th Precinct team police procedurals is clear to see and is even referred to when a Rastafarian locksmith asks Frederiksson "Are you Sweden's answer to Carella?".

I thought it apt that a tribute to McBain's procedurals in the city of Isola should be located in Uppsala.

With any of these police procedural team novels it is the quality of the characters and the interaction between them that decide whether they are successful. Carella, Meyer, Kling, Gunvald Larsson, Kollberg, Bennny Skacke and Martin Beck were all memorable and I am not sure that apart from Anne Lindell and possibly Ola Haver the police are quite as interesting in this Uppsala novel.

But what Eriksson does do very well is introduce with the characters of the pathetic Vincent and the very angry Lennart a study of the split society in a university city, and how the failure to recognize problems early in school can destroy future lives.

He also places Anne Lindell firmly on his side of the tracks:

" I am certainly not sophisticated", she said quietly to herself. "Not like the detectives on TV, the ones who listen to opera, know Greek mythology, and know if a wine is right for fish or a white meat."

I have lived in two university cities and seen the vast social gulf that exists between 'town and gown' and sometimes the effect is not pleasant.

"But Berglund was certainly aware of the fact that there were two cities, two Uppsalas: Oskar's and the skankarna [a slang word for university graduates], with their academic degrees."

The Princess of Burundi is the sort of book that grows on you and while it does take a little more concentration to follow all the different strands of the story it is certainly worth the effort.

I enjoyed this book more because I had spent a day in Uppsala many years ago, the west side, and I thought it was a beautiful city. Also the constant reference to roofers reminded me of a story my father told me. My father and grandfather were both master glaziers used to working at heights. During a Zeppelin raid in the First World War my grandfather, an air raid warden, tied my father aged then about 7 to him, and they climbed over the roofs dealing with the primitive incendiary bombs.

I should point out I did not inherit any of their ability with glass or their bravery.

You can read another review of The Princess of Burundi here.

MORE DETECTIVE FEVER

Earlier in the month I posted about the Six Detective Series to Savour selected by Johanna McGeary of Time magazine, and asked 'What other Detective Series Do You Enjoy?'

I was grateful to receive a stimulating and varied list of detectives, although unfortunately blogger was misbehaving and ate some replies.

HarryBosch/Mickey Haller: Michael Connelly

V.I.Warshawski: Sara Paretsky

Kinsey Milhone: Sue Grafton

Sharon McCone: Marcia Muller [the only author on this list I have not read]

Eduard Martinez and Borja 'Pep' Masdeu: Teresa Solana

Inspector Adamsberg: Fred Vargas

Salvo Montalbano: Andrea Camilleri

Harry Hole: Jo Nesbo*

Erlendur: Arnaldur Indridason

Thora Gudmundsdottir: Yrsa Sigurdardottir

and of course Martin Beck: Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

I would add a few of my own choices:

Morse: Colin Dexter

Rebus: Ian Rankin

Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe: Reginald Hill

Reg Wexford: Ruth Rendell

Annika Bengtzon: Liza Marklund

Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind: Martin Edwards

Inspector Sejer: Karin Fossum

Some of these series are in their dotage, or retirement, and some are still only in nappies. But I would suggest they should all exhibit features common to good crime fiction: great characters, good plots, compelling atmosphere, believable situations, a simple style, and with some exceptions* a degree of violence and gore acceptable to most readers.

The classic Martin Beck books are particularly brilliant in that they encapsulate almost every factor that has gone on to make the modern crime fiction novel so popular.

a] Social commentary

b] Cynicism

c] Team work, and the difficulty of working in a team.

d] Humour, light or dark.

e] A distrust of superiors.

f] A feeling of loneliness and despair expressed by various characters.

g] Superbly drawn characters.

h] A brooding atmosphere.

No human being, particularly a young attractive woman, is so alone that there is no one to miss her when she disappears.

[Roseanna: Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo 1965]

I am looking forward to starting my Martin Beck re-read project later in the year.

Update: Even More Detective Fever. Did I really forget the following?

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren: Hakan Nesser

Kurt Wallander: Henning Mankell

Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn: Tony Hillerman

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

I have always compared in my mind any police procedural crime novel with those of the Swedish married couple, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

They wrote ten novels featuring detective Martin Beck between 1965 and 1975. They were the gold standard as far as I was concerned.

In fact I had only read six of the books, and they sit on the shelf in my study [a grand name for a large cupboard] in a position of honour. I purchased two of the series in second hand bookshops, and remember my joy at finding the nearly thirty year old paperbacks for a few pence.

Next to them sat a new unread copy of The Locked Room [1972], purchased last year, which I was going to wait to read till 2007, when the other 3 books I don't have are to be republished.

Glenn Harper at International Noir had posted an interesting article about Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander and Martin Beck mentioning that he had read all ten Sjowall and Wahloo books straight through, and obviously admired them greatly.

I realised that I had not read any of my Martin Becks for a very long time, certainly over 15 years.

Perhaps I was scared to read the unread book in case it did not meet that gold standard that I had in my memory.

After all since then I had read Mankell, Indridason, Fossum, Camilleri, Leon, Vargas, Connelly, Mosley, Crais, Pelecanos, Rendell, PD James and many more.

How would a 34 year old book such as The Locked Room, and Martin Beck compare with the more modern books and detectives?

Well Glen's article prompted me to begin reading The Locked Room, and I am now 50 pages in.

My memory was not faulty, it is gold standard fare. In fact it is hard to believe that the book is 34 years old, but it is immediately apparent how other writers were influenced by the style.

The combination of pure detection, and savage social commentary, delivered with such wit and humour is just crime writing at its best.

MODIFIED CATEGORIES FOR THE DARTMOOR DOZEN

I have just finished a very emotional and extremely harrowing read, but enough about our gas bill.

Actually I was reading and writing a review for Euro Crime about Philippe Claudel's brilliant novel Brodeck's Report and it has left me a bit breathless and drained. 

I have decided to modify the numerous categories and sub genres listed here to hopefully make matters easier for a crime fiction virgin. You might feel that I have been too simplistic or the categories are too vague, but I think that if you go much beyond twelve you will frighten off both the newcomer and the potential serious reader.  The purpose is to have  a template for saying, I think these are good examples of this type of book.

1] The Origins: 

Detective fiction in the mid 19th century by well known authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens. The non fiction book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale is an excellent introduction to this period.

2] The Age of Sherlock Holmes :

The great detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle probably needs a complete category to himself, but the "Age" allows me to include, if I wanted, books by R. Austin Freeman, John Buchan, Erskine Childers, G.K.Chesterton and Conan Doyle's brother in law E.W.Hornung who wrote at around this time. 

3] The Golden Age:

That enormous volume of detective fiction published during the 1920s and 1930s on both sides of the Atlantic which feature a crime puzzle to be solved by a varied assortment of detectives. The British for example Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Croft, Margery Allingham and Dorothy L Sayers, and the Americans Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen.

4] Hardboiled:

The mainly American development lead by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, a tradition that was carried on first by Ross Macdonald and later by many others.

5] The Police Procedural:

For example the 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain, the Martin Beck books by Sjowall and Wahloo and all the series that followed them featuring a team of detectives.

6] Detectives [police, forensic and private]:

A huge category ranging from police detectives that might be included in the police procedural category but are mavericks such as Ian Rankin's Rebus to forensic investigators like Kathy Reich's Temperance Brennan and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, and on to "private eyes" like Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor or Sara Paretsky's V.I.Warshawski. 

7] Psychological suspense:

The Barbara Vines written by Ruth Rendell and the novels of Patricia Highsmith are the most obvious examples of this type of novel.

8] Caper and comic crime fiction:

I have included these together because they do have certain common features. Examples are the books of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiassen, Janet Evanovich and Declan Burke.

9] Historical crime fiction:

Anything from history such as books about the classical and medieval periods by Lindsey Davis, Ellis Peters, Bernard Knight and Ariana Franklin and ranging through the years  to Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series and John Lawton's commentary on Britain from the late 1930s to the 1960s.  

10] Thrillers:

You could include legal, techno, and spy fiction in this category with authors like John Le Carre, Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming, John Grisham, and Daniel Silva.

11] Crime fiction in translation:

That vast reservoir of books written in other languages than English can be dealt with here. That gives us the chance to pick some translated crime fiction in more than one category.

12] The Wild Card category:

A chance to double up and recommend more than one book from your favourite type of crime fiction, or to include something you don't think can be classified into another group. I am cheating here but the category is available if you want to recommend two English Country House or Locked Room or Pulp Noir or "femikrimi" books. 

"Well sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding' 

Gutman in The Maltese Falcon

[to be continued with my book selections next week]     

THE QUIZ ANSWERS: PART ONE

I will start back by giving you the first few answers to the Winter Quirky Quiz.

You can see the full list of questions here.

1] The photos are of course two time winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel Inger Frimansson, and the wonderful Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

2] What is the cinematic link between Patricia Highsmith, and the British band Coldplay?

I did not want the first result of googling this [Jamie Thraves and the Cry of the Owl] but the much better known star from the movie of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, Gwyneth Paltrow, who is married to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, who comes from Exeter.

3] Who was "inquisitive, impetuous, alert, skeptical, pertinacious and resourceful"?

Archie Goodwin, according to supersleuth, gourmet and orchid collector Nero Wolfe.

4] Which crime fiction books end with the words:

a) X as in Marx.

This could only be from those well known Marxists Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, and comes from The Terrorists, the tenth and last Martin Beck book.

b) "...never retired from work and came to grow vegetable marrows."

The murderer's lament at the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

5] Which crime fiction writer lost a name, the art of working together and a burial place when he crossed the Atlantic?

This was the first slightly tricky question. Here is how to tackle it.

The art of working together is collaboration= collaborator?

A burial place is a grave.

Who wrote books with 'collaborator' and 'grave' in the titles and those titles were changed?

The answer is:

Matt Beynon Rees in the USA became Matt Rees in the UK. The Collaborator of Bethlehem in the USA became The Bethlehem Murders in the UK, and A Grave in Gaza in the USA became The Saladin Murders in the UK.

[to be continued]

MURDER AT THE SAVOY: MAJ SJOWALL AND PER WAHLOO

Viktor Palmgren, a powerful businessman is dining at the Elite Hotel Savoy in Malmo with the managers of his varied companies. At the end of the meal as he begins to make a speech a man walks up to him, and shoots him in the head, sticks the weapon in his pocket, swings himself through an open window and steps down onto the pavement and then disappears.

The main suspect is not arrested at Stockholm's Arlanda airport because the task of arresting him was given to that comedically lazy and incompetent pair of Keystone Kops, Karl Kristiansson and Kurt Kvant.

Martin Beck is therefore sent from Stockholm to Malmo, to join Per Mansson in conducting an investigation. The dinner guests are all interviewed, and as their lives are exposed we learn something about Swedish society.

Palmgren's business practices and his involvement with dubious overseas organizations could mean a variety of people wanted him dead. The ludicrously incompetent Swedish secret service send an agent to Malmo, and he does not have a clue how to proceed.

This police procedural has a fairly simple plot, and is fairly short, but is a classic example of Sjowall/Wahloo's superb technique.

Their message is crystal clear. Capitalism is evil because it benefits the rich and powerful while leaving ordinary people with nothing.

'Gentlemen, the world of business is tough today. With the credit market in its present state there is no room for philanthropy or sentimentalism.'

Was this really written forty years ago?

But I think the main strength of the books is the author's ability to create in a few lines characters that are so memorable. The reader is given almost the character's entire back story in one brief paragraph. Here are two examples, firstly Gunvald Larsson;

'This is my eldest brother,' said the blonde. 'Unfortunately. Gunvald's his name. He's a .........policeman. Before that he was just a thug. The last time I saw him was more than ten years ago, and even before that the times were few and far between.'

Then the young Benny Skacke:

He imagined himself coming up with the solution, tracking down and catching the murderer single -handed. He would be promoted, and after that the only direction would be up. He was close to becoming Chief of Police when a new ring on the phone interrupted his vision of the future.

Murder at the Savoy has been superbly translated by Joan Tate, and remains forty years after it was written a wonderful example of the police procedural.

The combination of social commentary and great characters is typical of this great ten book series, and makes reading each one such a supreme pleasure.

You can read two more reviews from Maxine at Eurocrime and Jose Ignacio at The Game's Afoot.

MY DARTMOOR DOZEN PART THREE

6] DETECTIVES [POLICE,FORENSIC,PRIVATE]

My choices have so far not been very adventurous. Conan Doyle, Christie, Sjowall and Wahloo, and then Raymond Chandler are hardly surprising picks but they are a solid introduction to crime fiction, and therefore I can be a bit more eccentric in my next choice.

The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes by K.C.Constantine [I love the title] says on the cover it is a Mario Balzic detective novel, but Mario does more talking and thinking than he does detecting. The novel is much more interested in the people and their situations than the mystery. 

Balzic is the police chief of an economically depressed fictional Western Pennsylvania rust belt town called Rocksburg. The novel written in 1983 is a study of that town, its inhabitants and their problems. 

The interrelations of husbands, wives, parents, race, religion, class and politics are more important than the plot. This novel is primarily a social commentary on the heartland of America and the many depressed small towns where the people, including Mario Balzic, are angry and cling to their guns and their religion. [With apologies to President Obama] 

The city council are negotiating with the police union and we can judge that it is a very ethnic town from their names:

"they being for the city, Mayor Angelo Bellotti; Councilman Louis Del Vito, chairman of the Safety Committe; and Solicitor Peter Renaldo; and for the police, Lieutenant Angelo Clemente.........Fraternal order of Police president Wall Stuchinsky, a state cop; and Joseph Czekaj, FOP solicitor."

Mario Balzic is half Serb half Italian, a less politically correct terminology is used, in a town with some characters who would clearly be at home in a Sciascia or Camilleri novel. 

Renaldo was in his early thirties; his father had been a coal miner and worked all the overtime he could get to make sure his son got through college and law school so he would never have to spend  a minute in  the mines, and now Balzic knew, the son despised the father for being a miner, an immigrant, and, worst of all, uneducated.

And in another passage. 

Belotti was good at what he did and what he did was make people believe it was in their interest to have him for a friend. It was a good thing he had few appetites. There was no telling what he could steal if he had more.

Good writers can say so much with so few words.

I have to declare an interest in that I love small town USA as my first trip there thirty years ago involved a bus trip through Western Pennsylvania, and we have stayed with friends in the Eastern part of the state where there are many Orthodox churches and the people all seem to have surnames with no vowels. The heartland is a wonderfully hospitable place once you get used to having the only car in the restaurant car park with everyone else driving a pick up truck with a gun rack. 

One of my favourite memories of these small towns was a poster we saw in North Carolina in 2001 which said "My boss is a Jewish carpenter". 

After seeing a few of these posters I was impressed that a Jew could build a successful business in the Southern Bible belt where the Klan had been a factor in the past.

Then I had an epiphany and realized the identity of the Jewish carpenter. 

Read The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes as a guide to the world of small town ethnic America and its values, a world away from Los Angeles, Florida and New York. 

[to be continued] 

FROM HILL STREET BLUES TO THE KILLING

We have had our problems with blogger, and then my internet, and television also went down. This always seems to happen at the weekend, but I was told by a reliable source that the copper covering of the cable had been stolen?

Luckily it was a nice day for a drive, and as always the other drivers on the road were so very friendly following me for miles along the narrow roads of Devon. They were so friendly that when they eventually overtook my little car they hooted, and waved; sometimes they waved with a clenched fist and sometimes they waved with one or two fingers. Probably in appreciation of the fact that I had obeyed the speed limit. ;o)

The television is back up but I am suffering from withdrawal symptoms-no The Killing and no Spiral 3 .

No Sarah Lund, no Laure Berthaud.....

Firstly I think this season of Spiral was almost spoilt by too much gore, but the outstanding acting and wonderful casting, of even the minor parts, kept this twelve episode series in the front rank of television crime dramas. Spiral 3 was not perhaps quite as good as the previous series as at times it approached a parody of itself, but it was still very good.

Although definitely not as good as the twenty part Danish series, The Killing, which has had so much attention, and quite rightly so.

What distinguished these two outstanding series was a combination of great production and a brilliant ensemble cast.

Anyone who has ever watched a few minutes of some glitzy British hospital based series when staff, who have supposedly worked a grueling night shift, look as if they have just left a hairdressers on the way to a modeling assignment will know how bad casting and production can affect the veracity of a program.

In both The Killing and Spiral it was clear even the minor parts had been cast with the utmost care.

An ensemble cast is a cast in which the principal performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production.

In crime fiction books the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo, and the Ed McBain 87th Precinct books are the classic examples of the ensemble cast.

The Americans excel in this form of TV drama with a story arc that is comprised of extended multiple storylines continuing over many episodes. The Screen Actors Guild specifically gives an award for outstanding cast performance in a drama series.

The original winners in 1994 were the cast of NYPD Blue [1993-2005], and it was won in 2010 by another crime series, Boardwalk Empire. Other winners of this award have included Mad Men, The Sopranos, ER, The West Wing, and CSI.

Possibly the first of these modern American ensemble crime dramas was Hill Street Blues [1981-1987] set in an unnamed American city and filmed in almost documentary style it followed the activities of the ensemble cast of cops. In the UK we had some outstanding TV police dramas almost but not quite similar in style predating Hill Street, such as Z-Cars [1962-1978] and its successors such as Softly Softly [1966-1969] and Softly Softly, Task Force [1969-1973]. But later the very successful British TV crime series such as Prime Suspect [1991-2006] with Helen Mirren, and Morse with John Thaw, concentrated on one main character.

The team of outstanding actors in The Killing were:

Sofie Grabol [Sarah Lund], Soren Malling [Jan Meyer], Lars Mikkelsen [Troels Hartmann], Bjarne Henriksen [Theis Birk Larsen], Anna Eleonora Jorgensen [Pernille Birk Larsen] and Nicolaj Kopernikus [Vagn Skaerbaek].

The parts of the victim's parents Theis and Pernille were brilliantly acted, and it was this that made the triple story line of police investigation, family reaction, political intrigue work so well.

In Spiral the six main parts are well acted: Caroline Proust [Police captain Laure Berthaud], Gregory Fitoussi [Pierre Clement], Phillipe Duclos [Judge Francois Roban], Thierry Godard [Gilou], Fred Bianconi [Tin Tin], and Audrey Fleurot [Josephine Karlsson]. But with his popping eyes Dominique Dagnier is brilliant in a cameo role as the truly frightening Prosecutor Machard, the boss from hell.

I will miss them all; Jan Meyer's ears, Sarah Lund's expensive jumpers, Josephine Karlsson's freckles, disheveled Laure Berthaud's predatory smile, and Troels Hartmann's electioneering ploys, and I am really looking forward to the next series.

I read somewhere The Killing "redefined the genre", it didn't but it did return it to a very successful formula from the past.

TRUE HEIR

I recently treated myself by purchasing brand new copies of the ten Harper Perennial Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo Martin Beck books that I did not have in my possession in order to make a complete set.

They certainly look rather smart on my bookshelf, and the pages are readable unlike the miniscule font in some of my battered 1970 editions. The introductions by some famous authors should be an interesting diversion, although I immediately spotted a error in Henning Mankell's intro to Roseanna, the first book in the series.

'They were influenced and inspired by the American writer Ed McBain.'

Not true says Maj Sjowall in this article by Tom Nolan.

'When we started writing the series we didn't know about Ed McBain.'

My real purpose in these purchases was not the aesthetics of my shelving, but my plan [health willing] to do a marathon ten Martin Beck read later this year. I have read these books out of order, spread out over a period of nearly thirty years, and it is clearly time to go back and re-read them in the intended order.

At the moment I am about half way through Hakan Nesser's The Inspector and Silence, the fifth book in the ten book Van Veeteren series to be translated into English by Laurie Thompon.

With its chess playing, music loving detective, idiosyncratic characters, ironic humour and intelligent thought provoking plots this series is in my opinion rapidly assuming a premier position among police procedurals.

Hakan Nesser looks to me more like the heir to Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo than any of his rivals?

They had spent several hours together on subsequent evenings, and the lasting impression Van Veeteren had of his rescuer was that he was a rather untalented crackpot holding a series-more or less seriously meant-ideas and principles about practically everything.

A post about Hakan Nesser with links to reviews of the four previous books in the Inspector Van Veeteren series.

UNSEEN: MARI JUNGSTEDT

A dinner party on the Swedish island of Gotland goes drastically wrong when Helena Hillerstrom's jealous boyfriend Per objected to her dancing with handsome single man Kristian. Per smacks Helena who scratches him, and then Per punches Kristian. The party is definitely over.

The next morning Helena goes for a walk on the beach with her dog, and both her and the dog are later found hacked to death.

Inspector Anders Knutas, a solid family man, will lead the police team, while Johan Berg a TV journalist will carry out his own independent investigation. When Frida, a second attractive woman is brutally murdered in a similar fashion, the people of Gotland begin to panic and worry as to their safety and to the reduced holiday trade. There are some people on the island with secrets to hide.

Unseen is a solid police procedural with Inspector Anders Knutas, who is happily married with twins Nils and Petra, leading an investigative team much in the manner of Sjowall and Wahloo's Martin Beck, and Henning Mankel's Wallander. We learn a lot about Gotland and its traditions, as well as the importance to the Swedes of Midsummer, not surprising in a country with such long winter nights. There are some fine descriptions of the geography of the island, and the smartly designed and furnished houses of the prosperous young people.

The most interesting of the police team are Karin Jacobsson, who Knutas is perhaps a little in love with, despite his happy home life, and Martin Kihkgard, a prolific eater, who one suspects was sent from Stockholm to provide some light relief to the dark tale.

The clever variation in the normal police procedural theme is the additional presence of TV journalist Johan Berg conducting his own enquiries, and also creating personal turmoil in the mind of Helena's best friend Emma.

Emma is beautiful, distressed by the loss of her childhood friend, and incidentally has a husband Olle and two young children, but this does not stop the selfish Johan from pursuing her.

The antics and cogitations of this couple play a large part in the novel. I suppose this is what is called 'femikrimi', and I have to admit it fitted into the story well without slowing the plot narrative in any way.

But I did not like the character of Johan at all, and it is a compliment to the author and the brilliant translator Tiina Nunnally that he inspired such antipathy.

The technique of interspersing passages of the serial killer's past and his thoughts worked well and eventually gave us a clue to the murderer's motives.

I thought the police were a bit slow on the uptake, but that too was credible in a holiday resort where very little serious crime occurred.

I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading more about Mari Jungstedt's characters. I think I might shout 'Don't do it Emma' as I read.

You can read another review of Unseen by Maxine of Petrona here.

FROM BECK TO WALLANDER

In this post at Scandinavian Crime Fiction Barbara Fister rightly points out:

Martin Beck.... has a dose of melancholia [as well as frequent colds] the books themselves are hardly gloomy -they're shot through with humour and irony. Which is another way they resemble McBain more than Mankell.

I would definitely put Sjowall and Wahloo's Martin Beck books possibly just behind Hakan Nesser on the extreme range of ironic/humorous Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Henning Mankell is almost at the other end of the spectrum, but not quite as dark as Karin Alvtegen and with all the other writers positioned along the scale.

There is almost as much variation in style, sometimes in the same book, among Scandinavian writers as among writers from other countries. It is the irony and subtle humour in the most unlikeliest of situations that breaks the tension and makes reading a pleasure.

Elofsson had mechanically begun to push the nearest bystanders back.

"Don't push people, " said Mansson.

Then he looked straight at the people nearest to him, one by one, and said in a loud calm voice:

"There's a dead man in the car. And he looks horrible."

Not a single person pushed forward.

The Fire Engine That Disappeared: Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo 1969