The Laughing Policeman (Paperback)

by Maj Sjowall (Author), Per Wahloo (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In this classic police procedural, the ever-dyspeptic Martin Beck has nothing to be amused about, even though it's Christmastime. Åke Stenstrom, a young detective in Beck's squad, has just been killed in an unprecedented mass murder aboard a Stockholm city bus. Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or did he push a murderer too far in his efforts to make a name for himself on the force? Realizing that Stenstrom's presence on the bus was no mere coincidence, his compatriots retrace his steps and chase years-old clues to a crime long thought unsolvable. Along with Roseanna, this is one of the best of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's ten Martin Beck mysteries.

Review
"Must reading for anyone who claims to be [a student] of the best detective fiction." --Saturday Review

I ve read The Laughing Policeman six or eight times. Each time I reach the final twist on the final page, I shiver afresh. --Jonathan Franzen

Must reading for anyone who claims to be [a student] of the best detective fiction. -- Saturday Review. A tantalizing, intricate tale. -- New York Times Book Review. A top-notch example of the police procedural school of mystery. --Chicago Sun-Times. I ve read The Laughing Policeman six or eight times. Each time I reach the final twist on the final page, I shiver afresh. -- Jonathan Franzen. --. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (December 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679742239
• ISBN-13: 978-0679742234
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #511,015 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of a generally great series, November 3, 1998

By A Customer

I read a LOT of mysteries, but I usually either donate them to the library book sale afterwards, or wait to take them out of the library in the first place. The Martin Beck series is one of the few that I've bought, kept for years, and reread numerous times. This novel is probably the best of the bunch: not only is it well plotted and suspenseful, but the characters are people you grow to care about, and their environment (Stockholm in the '60's) is vividly depicted. The authors' political agenda is clear, but they're not simplistic: the police bureaucrats may be idiots, but there are still competent, conscientious policemen with a sense of responsibility and the desire to see justice done; and the authors are no kinder to the misguided social reformers whose starry-eyed zeal led to the excesses of the welfare state. Setting the central events of the novel at Christmas is a nice ironic touch. I highly recommend the whole series, but especially this one. (The film made from the book is a bomb, however: transplanting the story to San Francisco works well at first, and Walter Matthau is convincing as Martin Beck -- but the screenwriters just strung together all the sensational scenes in the novel with no attention to the authors' careful plotting, and the result is a disaster. View it and weep.)

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds., January 10, 2007

By	Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

George Santayana

On a rainy Stockholm night a gunman opens fire on Stockholm bus, killing eight passengers and critically wounding a ninth. The crime scene is bloody and chaotic. Critical clues may have been destroyed when the first police officers arrive on the scene and trample through the bus. Police Superintendent Martin Beck is placed in charge of the investigation. There appear to be no clues and no apparent motive. His task is the monumental one of taking this chaotic scene and imposing enough order on it so that clues may be found, leads followed, and the criminal or criminals brought to justice. The physical and mental burdens of the job are compounded by emotional burdens once Beck discovers that one of the victims happens to be a detective who worked in Martin Beck's unit. That is the plot that unfolds in the opening pages of Per Wahloo and Maj Sowall's remarkably well-crafted "The Laughing Policeman".

The Laughing Policeman, published in Sweden in 1968 and in the U.S. in 1971 (winner of that year's Edgar Award for Best Novel), was the fourth 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. By the fourth book, the personalities of Martin Beck and his police colleagues have developed to the point where the reader almost has an instinct for how each will react to a given situation. At the same time the characters, especially Beck, remain far from predictable. However, they are already fully formed in the authors' minds and for that reason I suggest reading these books in order.

I do not think it appropriate to divulge any details about a police procedural such as this so I will leave it to the reader to see how Martin Beck and his crew slowly put together the pieces of the puzzle behind the killings. The authors are quite good at keeping the pot boiling. They don't reveal too much too early and they do not rely on Sherlock Holmes-like deductions to take the place of crafting a story. Additionally, the writing is filled with funny moments and asides. In its own way the Beck mysteries provide a very interesting glimpse into Swedish life and culture in the 1960s and 1970s. In the hands of Wahloo and Sjowall, Beck's conversations are filled with both blunt exchanges and very sly, sardonic comments that kept me chucking throughout. I was also impressed with how the authors have slowly continued to build up their protagonists back stories. By this volume in the series the reader has a pretty good idea as to the home lives and personal idiosyncrasies of all the major characters. They are free from stereotype and make reading the book a more enjoyable experience.

The Laughing Policeman was a good read, one of those books that you feel you must finish just one more chapter before heading off to bed or back to work. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a Barrel of Laughs, November 20, 2006

By	Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The Laughing Policeman is the best known book of the multi-volume Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Despite the title there is little laughing in this grim and gloomy yet classic police procedural. The book is marked by the sparse dialogue and buttoned-down personalities of the Swedish characters. (The book was later made into a movie of the same name starring Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern, but set in San Francisco!)

The entire detective force of Sweden is assigned to solve the murder of 9 people on a Stockholm bus in 1968 (an anti-war - Vietnam that is - demonstration is the backdrop for the book's opening). One of the murdered is Ake Stenstrom, a Stockholm detective. His presence on the bus begins to unravel the mystery of this seemingly random and insane mass murder. Insane it may be, but never random.

Each detective obsessively follows their own path and the paths lead into Stockholm's underworld. Could an old unsolved murder somehow be related to this insane bloodshed many years later? Mass murder so un-Swedish after all - the police don't even have any psychological profiles they can use. Can the always miserable Beck or his top-notch partner Lennart Kollberg crack the case?

Highly recommended for fans of detective stories with an international bent.