The Locked Room: A Martin Beck Police Mystery (8)

I have enjoyed all 10 of the Sjowall Wahloo series featuring Martin Beck as the Stockholm detective of murder mysteries. However, this one's plot is just so brilliant and ironic, it has to be the best. Not only the plot but also the development of both major and minor characters, the way the social commentary is integrated here, and the subplot of the landlady who seems to mean more to Martin Beck than he realizes himself, make this for me the outstanding one. I've kept rereading not just this one but the entire series for many years, it's a monumental achievement by these authors simply because nothing like it has ever been done before or since.

The seventh Martin Beck novel. Recovering from his misadventures in "The Abominable Man", Beck takes up a seemingly unsolvable case: a friendless, elderly miser, shot one time in the head in a one-bedroom apartment, with locked doors and locked windows, and no gun in sight. Meanwhile, his colleagues are investigating the high-profile shooting of a security guard during a daring bank robbery conducted, apparently, by a beautiful blonde woman.Although the authors begin to get a little too heavy-handed in their social commentary, this is still one of the better Beck novels (in fact it is regarded by many as the best, though I think its predecessor is better.) The dual plot structure and the improbable connection between the crimes make for a great thriller. The characters are engaging, and the ending is wonderful. Read it.

The characteristic of a murder mystery that I have always loved is the way the sharp edge of a murder investigation slices through the layers of society. In this book, we have a decaying police force depicted with all of its warts and heros, and a group of common criminals who know no other means of support. The murder mystery ambles along at a comfortable pace, as we watch the police investigation of bank robberies become hopelessly boggled. The description of the takedown led by the district attorney had me howling with laughter, much to the annoyance of my wife who expects me to be quiet when reading by the fire. I have enjoyed many of the other books by this pair in decades gone by and was thrilled to learn that there was at least one more that I hadn't read. If you have any interest in police murder mysteries and haven't read books by these authors, this book is very highly recommended.

this is a very good book. If you like the other martin beck books you will enjoy this one as well. This book is one the books that hasn't been made into a film wich is good I think. No fillm really does the characters justice.

I'm assuming that this series is so intelligent and underappreciated that I'm preaching to the converted, however, I've read em all and this and Fire Engine That Disappeared are the best