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jazzy_daveMaj & 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.
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.
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Date: 2014-03-21 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-21 02:05 pm (UTC)That could be an interesting aspect.
Hugs, Jon