The Laughing Policeman
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season240 pages, about 5 hours: three-quarters the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbOn a rainy November night in Stockholm, a gunman kills everyone aboard a city bus with a submachine gun.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 13 reviews from critics and book blogs, 7 credit the plot and 8 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesTwo reviewers trace Henning Mankell’s Sidetracked and Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both on the shelf, back to it.
The case for it
on Martin Beck
“Beck is cautious, recessive, phlegmatic, and altogether unwriterly.”
Jonathan Franzen · introduction to The Laughing Policeman, 2009 on the Torell interview
“the chapter where he interviews Åsa Torell, Stenström’s widow, was the most riveting”
five stars · a book blog on the atmosphere
“readers will find themselves wrapped up in the melancholy atmosphere of Martin Beck’s world”
Abby Endler · Criminal Element, 2019 on the prose
“translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair is as terse as it should be”
a book blog
The case against
on the sexual content
“aspects to the text which now appear somewhat dated (its examination of sexuality, for example)”
a book blog on the pace
“dead in the water more often than they are making real headway”
a book blog on the home lives
“cops’ home lives, which are relatively humdrum and mundane”
a book blog on the detectives
“More often than not, they come off as confused or buffoonish”
a book blog
