Customer Reviews

Roseanna (a Martin Beck Police Mystery/ 1)

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4 star:		(11)
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"Roseanna" introduces Martin Beck, an overworked but brilliant Swedish policeman. When the body of a young woman is found in a nearby lake, Beck is called in to assist. The case proves frustrating, and months pass before any progress is made. Fortunately, Beck is persistent and sticks with the case, even as it begins to haunt his life. Originally released in 1967, the plot doesn't rely on high-tech police techniques - just good old-fashioned story-telling.

Married authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo crafted this fine novel, as well as subsequent entries in the Martin Beck series. The style of writing is sometimes dry and always factual, which adds a great deal of realism to the story. At times, the translation is somewhat awkward, particularly in the dialogue, but it doesn't detract much from the overall impact of the book. Vintage Crime/ Black Lizard has re-released the series, and as always they've done a beautiful job. Recommended for fans of police/detective stories - I intend to read more entries in the series.

The first in a series of ten detective novels intended to portray the decay of modern Scandinavian society though the lens of the police procedural. Written by a husband and wife team, (Sjowall and Wahloo), the books are excellently plotted and written, with an eye toward detail and realism.

In this first book, the emphasis is more on introducing the characters and their methods, with very little political or social commentary. The protagonist is the hapless Martin Beck, a homicide detective with the Stockholm police force, trapped in a loveless marriage at home and stultified by inept bueracracy at the workplace. His escape from the tedium of existence is his quiet, unstated, love of police work, particularly his own methodical approach to homicide.

This book introduces us to Beck, and follows his patient investigation into the rape, bludgeoning, and subsequent drowning of an American tourist named Roseanna. It is one of the best in the series; in fact, its probably one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Start with this book and read the rest of the series. You won't be disappointed.

facts are what we need." Crane Wilbur

Facts are few and far between for Detective Inspector Martin Beck in "Roseanna". A girl's body is found by a dredger in a lock near Sweden's Lake Vattern. The body is naked and there are no clues as to her identity and the reasons for her death. Martin Beck is called up from Stockholm to assist the local authorities in their investigation. Through a process of time-consuming grunt work and dogged determination Beck and his colleagues try first to find the pieces to this jigsaw puzzle of a mystery. They first have to identify the dead girl. Next they have to identify the crime scene (one of a number of passenger ferries). Finally the have to identify a possible suspect out of more than eighty potential killers.

The pace of the book tracks the pace of the investigation. In the first few months of the case little progress is made. However, this affords the readers the opportunity to get a glimpse of Beck and his colleague's character and personalities as they go about the daily grind of their police work. The pace quickens and the excitement mounts as the jigsaw puzzle pieces begin to fall into place.

Roseanna was the first in a series of ten Martin Beck mysteries written by the Swedish, husband and wife team of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. The plot and structure of the four Beck mysteries I've read to date do not deviate from the standard format found in any well-written police procedural. However, what sets the Beck mysteries apart is their location and character development. Naturally enough, each book is a small window into Swedish life and culture in the 1960s and 1970s when the books were written. Further, as the series develops the character of Beck and his colleagues evolve and the reader slowly obtains a real feel for Beck and his fellow police officers.

Roseanna was not the best of the Beck books I've read but it was good enough that I stayed up a bit later than I should in order to finish it. Even thought this may not be the best of the bunch I do suggest that any reader new to the series start with Roseanna in order to appreciate the evolution of Beck and his family and fellow officers.

If you like police procedurals with a bit of an exotic flair you should enjoy the Martin Beck stories. They rank alongside Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin series set in Russia and Georges Simenon's Maigret stories set in France as enjoyable, well-written stories set on distant shores. Recommended. L. Fleisig

This is the first in a series of 10 mystery novels written three decades ago by husband-wife team Wahloo and Sjowall. The protagonist is Swedish detective Martin Beck, unhappy in his marriage but dedicated to his work--here, the investigation of the murder of an unknown woman discovered during the dredge-up of a canal. The writing style is spare, evoking the close, bleak atmosphere permeating the novel and Beck's daily life. Using few words, the authors bring the characters to life. The mystery plot is straightforward; its true value is in introducing and developing the characters and their environment.

I've long intended to check out the 10-book Martin Beck series by Swedish husband/wife team Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall, and the 40th anniversary of this first book in the series seems like a good excuse. For some reason, some readers seem to think the book takes place in the '70s or late '60s, but it was written in 1963-4, published in Sweden in 1965, and appeared in English in 1967. The story begins with the discovery of a woman's corpse in Lake Vattern in central Sweden, roughly equidistant from Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo. The police from the nearby town of Motala start investigating and when it's established that the woman was strangled, the homicide experts from Stockholm are called in.

Enter Martin Beck, a chain-smoking homicide detective roughly in his late 30s. Beck is a classic example of the workaholic policeman that one can find in crime fiction and film the world over. He barely speaks to his wife and children, and prefers long hard hours at the office to a home life that offers him nothing. It's such a bleak portrait that the reader is hard-pressed to imagine Beck's marriage (or lungs) surviving the series. The story is a very straightforward, and almost dry procedural account of the case. The first problem the team encounters is in identifying the victim, as she doesn't match any missing persons reports and as part of the route for touring the Gota canal system, Lake Vattern is a high-traffic tourist area, with lots of tour boats coming through. The second hurdle is that once she is identified, months have passed, and tracking down everyone who was on her tour cruise and taking statements proves very difficult. Finally, even once a suspect is identified, there's no physical evidence or eyewitness, so Beck and his laconic team must somehow force the murderer into revealing himself in another way.

As a procedural, this is a very strong book, illustrating all the police methodology available at the time. It also does a good job of showing how important it is for the detective to form a psychological portrait of the victim, a concept that was not particularly widespread forty years ago. The combination of procedure and psychology make for a decent crime novel, although the bone dry prose isn't going to enthrall anyone. The authors famously said that their books were intended to challenge conventional Swedish morality, and without revealing anything, the murder and motive in this book are clearly built around this premise. A solid beginning to a promising series.

This book was made into a film twice in Sweden, once in 1967, and again in 1993. Sadly neither of these appear to be available in English in any format.

The nude body of a young woman is dredged from the bottom of a Swedish canal, and Martin Beck, a homicide detective with the Stockholm Police Force, spends the rest of "Roseanna" doggedly looking for clues and trying to solve her murder. Authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo supposedly set out to write ten books featuring a homicide detective (Beck), and showing the ills of modern society in the process. Roseanna was the first of the ten books, one per year, that came out in the late sixties and early seventies. But what Sjowall and Wahloo may have succeeded in doing is something a little different - revealing a genius for characterization and story, so that by the tenth book ("The Terrorists", sadly out of print), one looks at Beck and the other recurring characters like old friends. But Roseanna is great reading, whether basking on the beach or in bed on a dark and stormy night. One roots for Martin Beck, a creation every bit as compelling as S! ! am Spade, Travis McGee or Phillip Marlowe, as he stubbornly pursues his seemingly impossible task. And one also has to thank Black Lizard for having the courage to re-issue these masterpieces of crime fiction. Enjoy!

The Martin Beck books by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo are individually brilliant and collectively stunning. It's incredible that this series isn't available in its entirety -- so many people are being deprived of a great reading experience. One can only hope that some publisher will get wise and bring them all back into print. In the way that Tony Hillerman takes you into the Southwest or Laurie King evokes the world of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Sjowall and Wahloo paint a stark, but not grim, picture of modern Sweden and a great portrait of Martin Beck, an imperfect but admirable human being.

Like Freeling or Simenon, the Sjowall/Wahloo novels are excellent more for the excuse the mystery provides for an examination of everyday life, than they are for the excitement or horror of the crime itself. In the case of Martin Beck, he explores the frustrations and pleasures of Swedish life while solving his mysteries.

This is not my favorite in the series (so far, that would be _The Man Who Went Up in Smoke_), but it's not a bad place to begin. It is hurt a bit by being a little dated by some of the concerns about Roseanna herself-- she is a great view of how many saw the hippies at the time. However, the book itself is not dated and this is not an issue that should dissuade someone from reading it.

This is the first of the Martin Beck novels by Sjöwell and Wahlöö, and whilst not the best, it is a great introduction to the series. Beck is the classic flawed personality detective (think of Endeavour Morse, Kurt Wallander, Matt Scudder, Andy Dalziel or John Rebus) whose personal life is subsumed and eventually broken up by obsession about work - could Beck be the first example of this genre? It provides an interesting exposure to Swedish society (albeit twenty years ago). The translation is mostly acccurate, though this sometimes misses a key point (for example, the "adult" content of the prime suspect's favorite magazine is not evident to those unaware of Swedish publications). Thoroughily recommended.

I was recently pointed in the direction of these husband and wife novels by a fellow reviewer here at Amazon, who read, and loved, The Laughing Policeman. I figured I would start at the beginning of the series, as Roseanna is the first "Martin Beck" mystery written by the Sjowall/Wahloo team, and I was not disappointed.

The book takes place in Stockholm in the early 1970''s where a young woman's body is found in a lake, near the locks of a major waterway. The police at first have no leads, there is no identification on the body, and they have no clues whatsoever as to the identity of the victim, nor who might have killed her. Over the course of the novel, the crime is ultimatley solved through meticulous police work, including some false leads, which in this reviewer's opinion comes reasonably close to how homicides are solved in the real world. Interrogations and surveillance of the suspects have a gritty, realistic feel which is not lost at all in the translation from the authors' native Swedish.

What I found most surprising about the book, especially given the fact that it was written by a husband and wife team, is the utter lack of personality given the main character Martin Beck. Beck is married and has kids, and yet when in the midst of an investigation he seems so engrossed in the details of the crime that he barely speaks to his family, comes home essentially to sleep, and is always battling a cold. I don't think 3 sentences of true dialogue were exchanged between Beck and his wife all novel. This wouldn't be so odd, except that there are repeated scenes in his home, he just is so absorbed with the mystery he ignores all extraneous matter until the crime is solved.

Overall, I thought this was a taut, suspenseful novel and I look forward to periodically sampling other Martin Beck mysteries from this writing duo.