Book 21 - Maj & Per Wahloo Sjowall "The Man On the Balcony: The Martin Beck Series"

Maj & Per Wahloo Sjowall "The Man On the Balcony: The Martin Beck Series" (Harper Perennial)





This is , from what i have gathered, the third book in the Martin Beck Series and was written in 1967 as part of a planned 10 book series. It is the first one of the series I have read, although BBC Radio 4 or 4 Extra did serialise some of the books. 

The Man on the Balcony is a police procedural before the advent of forensic technology, before mobile phones and before the internet. There's a serial killer targeting young girls and the Swedish police have two unreliable witnesses - a three year old boy and a mugger. The fact that the paedophile is caught is due to luck more than great feats of detection. However, this book is much more than a crime novel as it analyses the darker side of contemporary 1960s Swedish society - drug addicts, alcoholics, the homeless, prostitution.

The prose is spare and paints a bleak picture of Stockholm and its citizens. Martin Beck is a hard working policeman becoming more estranged from his family as the series progresses. He has closer ties to his work colleagues than his wife.

If you enjoy Henning Mankell's books, you may like to try this series, though beware the crimes depicted are used to reflect society and are not necessarily the primary focus of the novel.

So Far Today ..

So, not wanting to be stuck indoors, unlike yesterday, i snook out to go Faversham to sell some unwanted books , including that one on The Goons. It was only four books in all, and i received a five pound note for them from my usual bookseller. I then perused some of the thrift shops, charity shops, and ended up in the library.

I picked up two more paperbacks, twenty pence and a quid respectively (the Hoggart book was a pound) . These being a Penguin Modern classic and an autobiography.

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Then i shall be doing some scanning for a drug store, and finishing of the day for q awhile in the Office. . 

Later On

So later on I popped into the Office after walking from Teynham which is roughly three miles .

However, there are changes afoot which means the advantage of using the place will be lost to me. I have an interview at the J C on April 2nd which will result in me having to go there instead in the near future. In a way I will miss the Office.

I took the train back.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Thought For The Day

The rise of food banks is a sign of the times. Delays in benefit payments are about 31 % of referrals for help with food but a significant amount of people in work (19 %) is the second most common motive for a referral due to simply "low income",  according to the Trussell Trust who run 350 plus  food banks.  What with zero hour contracts no wonder the poor and disadvantaged seem to get left behind. Somehow we need to reverse this trend as, all i see at the moment, a situation that will not improve and in fact worsen.

The late Tony Benn once said that "people in debt become hopeless,and hopeless people don't vote".

Now i feel quite angry and disillusioned , sorry to ruin your weekend.