Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Classic Swedish Noir

Martin Beck Book Series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

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In 1965 writing partners (and partners in real life) Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö embarked on a quest – to write and publish ten novels in ten years featuring Stockholm’s Martin Beck. The novels, police procedurals, were structured as not only mysteries, but reflections and commentary on modern Swedish society. The duo wore alternating chapters – but since I haven’t read any of their individual works I couldn’t;t guess who wrote which chapter in any given novel. The books are cohesive and follow policeman Martin […]

Leaving it all on the field

The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

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Is this it? Really it? All I get from the Martin Beck series? Damn. What great books these are. They’ve ruined the police procedural for me forever. When I first sat down to read Roseanna about five years ago, I would have never guessed this would become one of my favorite book series of all time. I found it to be a drab, uninspiring procedural novel. Fun if you like reading about shoe leather detective work but otherwise nothing special. And then someone turned me on to […]

The Swedish Maigret? Hah!

Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

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I don’t know if Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö planned for there to only be ten books in the Martin Beck series but here, at book nine, things seem to be wrapping up. This book is the most self-referential of its predecessors by far, even going as far as bringing a former convict from one of the past crimes back as a minor but important character. It acknowledges the journey you go on with these people. At the heart of this one is Martin Beck. […]

Skål

The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

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I don’t know that the Martin Beck series can possibly be better than The Locked Room. It hits every critical talking point the writing staff have tried to address in previous tales and it becomes something else entirely. It’s almost as if this book is writing through the reader rather than to them. Some series don’t need to be read in sequential order. They may be even better if you don’t do that. I started the Lew Archer series out of order by accident and it’s my […]

Police and Brutality

The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

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One of the best in an already great series, The Abominable Man grapples with a lot and spares no emotion. At the heart of this offering is what it means for a country to be policed. It’s a discussion that’s been had by a broader swath of Americans since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which though originally inspired by the murder of Trayvon Martin, galvanized the deaths of young black men at the hands of law enforcement. Police brutality in the States has its […]

Eat the Rich

Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö

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Going into reading this series, I knew Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were avowed socialists who wrote these books in large parts as a critique of inequality in Sweden. But while their beliefs do sneak out from time-to-time, they generally ground their mysteries in the tradition of a police procedural as opposed to pedagogy cloaked in mystery drag. That goes out the window with Murder at the Savoy, which is about as didactic of a book as I’ve read from them. There’s no question about it […]



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