The Man on the Balconyby Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
Translated from: Swedish
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Martin Beck #3
Publication Date: January 1, 1967
Genre: mystery: silver age (1950-1979)
Pages: 194
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of crime
The chilling third -- and breakthrough -- novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo, finds Martin Beck investigating a string of child murders. With an introduction by Jo Nesbo: "Sjöwall and Wahlöö have shoulders that can accomodate all of today's crime writers. And we are all there."
In the once peaceful parks of Stockholm, a killer is stalking young girls and disposing their bodies. The city is on edge, and an undercurrent of fear has gripped its residents. Martin Beck, now a superintendent, has two possible witnesses: a silent, stone-cold mugger and a mute three year old boy. With the likelihood of another murder growing as each day passes, the police force work night and day. But their efforts have offered little insight into the methodology of the killer. Then a distant memory resurfaces in Beck's mind, and he may just have the break he needs.
This is the third book in the Martin Beck series, which was published in Sweden and translated into English. The fourth book in the series, The Laughing Policeman, won the Edgar Award.
This is a classic police procedural – Martin Beck is all work and no play. It is focuses on Beck, although some of his colleagues have supporting roles, and it’s focused on the hard graft of investigating crime. Beck is a damaged protagonist – his personal life is in shambles, he is pretty much miserable all of the time. The characters feel very real. I’ve known a lot of police officers – I was a prosecutor for over a quarter century – and most fictional police officers feel about as real as the cowboys played by John Wayne in classic Westerns.
These guys, though, they feel real. They can be petty and irritable. They are not larger than life, rather they grind out the day-to-day work of solving crimes. They are manifestly unhandsome, they are of average, or sometimes even below-average, intelligence, they are plodding. They do not have magical powers of insight or understanding and, in fact, sometimes things are basically beating them in the face before they figure out what is going on. But, they figure shit out. That’s how real police work happens. With detectives putting on their shoes and socks and knocking on doors and talking to people.
I used to read a lot more Nordic Noir than I do now – especially Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallender series, and, of course, Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. I’m trying to hit crime books that were sort of defining of various aspects of the genre as part of this project, and the Martin Beck series, in many ways, is the source material for all of those authors who came later.
My library has all 10 of the Vintage kindle editions that were re-issued in the 1990’s.