The final Martin Beck novel (though it’s not entirely clear from the novel — with Per Wahloo dying) is about Beck being hired (involuntarily enlisted) to design and execute a security plan with a visiting US Senator of dubious reputation and politics. It’s 1975 and politics are fraught.
We start with a terrorist bombing in a far away country showing a sophisticated network of terrorists (more so mercenaries for hire) who specialize in precision attacks. We then jump to a court case in which a young woman from the countryside, who wandered into a bank with a knife strapped to her belt is mistaken for a bank robber and through a case of prosecutory aggression is on trial. Beck testifies on behalf of the young woman, providing his analysis and expertise on her general naivete about modern society (a kind of primitivatist anti-capital hippie) who was simply trying to borrow money for a trip to the US to see the father of her child before being mistaken for a bank robber.
The novel then spends a lot of time with Beck and his new girlfriend (a leftist) as they enjoy a post-divorce romance and possibilities about the future.
As the visit from the US Senator approached, tensions heighten, and an unrelated set of crimes threaten to disrupt or confuse or allow for the possibility of assassination.
Like I said, it’s a final novel, even if unwittingly and it works as such. There’s a sense in the novel of times changing, with Beck being older and thinking about age and time passing, and finding himself sympathetic with the frustrations of the youth in his country.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Terrorists-Martin-Beck-Police-Mystery/dp/0307390888/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=martin+beck+the+terrorists&qid=1575048573&sr=8-1)
