The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s phenomenal fourth instalment in their best-selling Martin Beck mystery series sees Martin Beck in charge of a significant manhunt to uncover a mass murderer. Jonathan Franzen has included a new introduction “The Laughing Policeman has been read by me six to eight times. I tremble once again every time I get to the shocking conclusion on the last page.”
Nine bus passengers are shot and killed on a chilly, rainy night in Stockholm by an unknown killer. The media describes it as a freak attack and labels the murderer a lunatic. Superintendent Martin Beck disagrees and believes it was more than a coincidence because one of his most eagerly awaited young detectives was among those killed.
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
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This book was adapted into a Hollywood movie, and it won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel. Martin Beck, a Swedish police detective, is the protagonist of the narrative. However, you also get to see the story through the perspectives of numerous police officers who are all working to solve the mystery. And we attempt to write from other people’s views in our works, which is another trait we received from Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
All of them were written long ago by a husband and wife pair; this one takes place in the fall of 1967. They are masterpieces of the genre, much like the others. We get bits of local flavour and perhaps even a satirical critique of the period’s Swedish culture in addition to the anticipated puzzling clues and the clearly defined portrayal of the police personnel working on the case. In reality, this concept has been there throughout the series from the very beginning and changes as Sweden does, going from being a relatively unknown location off the beaten road to one where the pathologies of the entire globe are brilliantly on show.
Both separately and collectively, they are fantastic. The most well-known of these is The Laughing Policeman. The humour in this book is excellent, just like in the others.
It is cleverly constructed and centres on a group of charming police officers who are tasked with solving a mass murder on a bus in which one of their own was killed. There are Shakespere-like fools in these works as well, demonstrating the wide variety of abilities in the Swedish police service. Each police officer brings a unique set of skills to the table…
