problems, but they never forget that they are writing novels, not polemics. They dress up their social concerns in fast-moving storytelling, never losing sight of the need to keep their readers engaged.
The end product, though serious in its intent, is far from gloomy. Sjöwall and Wahlöö are blessed with the gift of humour. It manifests itself in the sly, dark wit of Beck, but also in the knockabout farce that erupts from time to time, generally through the characters of Kristiansson and Kvant, a pair of patrol cops who are as stupid as they are unlucky. Their slapstick interludes are as funny to the reader as they are frustrating to the detectives. Before Sjöwall and Wahlöö, such a pair of Keystone Kops would have been unthinkable, undermining as they do the seriousness of police investigation and bringing it squarely into the realm of normal human behaviour.
In many respects, however, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke is an exception to the rest of the novels. It takes place mostly outside Sweden, in Budapest, at a time when the cold war was still an unnerving backdrop to everyday life. For much of the book, Beck is on his own in a strange land, without back-up and without any visceral understanding of the society he's trying to operate in. His investigation into the disappearance of a Swedish journalist seems to run into brick walls at every turn, growing more and more baffling with each successive revelation.
Soon we come to understand that Beck can't crack the case on his own. He has to draw on help both from his colleagues at home and from unexpected sources in Budapest before the pieces can finally fall into place, revealing a truth that manages to be both banal and original.
Sjöwall and Wahlöö won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar award for Best Novel in 1971 with The Laughing Policeman. It remains the only novel in translation ever to have won the award. To me, that's not particularly surprising. I guarantee if you read their books, you'll end up agreeing with me. And with all the other crime writers who know only too well how much we owe to that pair of Swedish journalists turned novelists.
Val McDermid
The room was small and shabby. There were no curtains and the view outside consisted of a grey fire wall, a few rusty armatures and a faded advertisement for margarine. The centre pane of glass in the left half of the window was gone and had been replaced by a roughly cut piece of cardboard. The wallpaper was floral, but so discoloured by soot and seeping moisture that the pattern was scarcely visible. Here and there it had come away from the crumbling plaster, and in several places there had been attempts to repair it with adhesive strips and wrapping paper.
There were a heating stove, six pieces of furniture and a picture in the room. In front of the stove stood a cardboard box of ashes and a dented aluminium coffee pot. The end of the bed faced the stove and the bedclothes consisted of a thick layer of old newspapers, a ragged quilt and a striped pillow. The picture was of a naked blonde standing beside a marble balustrade, and it was hanging to the right of the stove so that the person lying in the bed could see it before he fell asleep and immediately when he woke up. Someone appeared to have enlarged the woman's nipples and genitals with a pencil.
In the other part of the room, nearest to the window, stood a round table and two wooden chairs, of which one had lost its back. On the table were three empty vermouth bottles, a soft-drink bottle and two coffee cups, among other things. The ash tray had been turned upside down and among the cigarette butts, bottle tops and dead matches lay a few dirty sugar lumps, a small penknife with its blades open, and a piece of sausage. A third coffee cup had fallen to the floor and had broken. Face down on the worn linoleum, between the table and the bed, lay a dead body.
In all probability this was the same person who had improved upon the picture and tried to mend the wallpaper with strips of adhesive and wrapping paper. It was a man and he was lying with his legs close together, his elbows pressed against his ribs and his hands drawn up towards his head, as if in an effort to protect himself. The man was wearing a woollen vest and frayed trousers. On his feet were ragged woollen socks. A large sideboard had been tipped over him, obscuring his head and half the top part of his body. The third wooden chair had been thrown down beside the corpse. Its seat was bloodstained and on the top of the back handprints were clearly visible. The floor was covered with pieces of glass. Some of them had come from the glass doors of the sideboard, others from a half-shattered wine bottle which had been thrown onto a heap of dirty underclothes by the wall. What was left of the bottle was covered with a thin skin of dried blood. Someone had drawn a white circle around it.
Of its kind, the picture was almost perfect, taken by the best wide-angle lens the police possessed and in an artificial light that gave an etched sharpness to every detail.
Martin Beck put down the photograph and magnifying glass, got up and went across to the window. Outside it was full Swedish summer. And more than that. It was hot. On the grass of Kristineberg Park a couple of girls were sunbathing in bikinis. They were lying flat on their backs with their legs apart and their arms stretched outward away from their bodies. They were young and thin, or slim as they say, and they could do this with a certain grace. When he focused sharply, he even recognized them as two office girls from his own department. So it was already past twelve. In the morning they put on their bathing suits, cotton dresses and sandals and went to work. In the lunch hour they took off their dresses and went out and lay in the park. Practical.
Dejectedly, he recalled that soon he would have to leave all this and move over to the south police headquarters in the rowdy neighbourhood around Västberga Allé.
Behind him he heard someone fling open the door and come into the room. He did not need to turn around to know who it was. Stenström. Stenström was still the youngest in the department and after him there would presumably be a whole generation of detectives who did not knock on doors.
‘How's it going?’ he said.
‘Not so well,’ said Stenström. ‘When I was there fifteen minutes ago he was still flatly denying everything.’
Martin Beck turned around, went back to his desk and once again looked at the photo of the scene of the crime. On the ceiling above the newspaper mattress, the ragged quilt and the striped pillow, there was an old patch of dampness. It looked like a sea horse. With a little good will it could have been a mermaid. He wondered if the man on the floor had had that much imagination.
‘It doesn't matter,’ said Stenström officiously. ‘We'll get him on the technical evidence.’
Martin Beck made no reply. Instead he pointed at the thick report Stenström had put down on his desk and said, ‘What's that?’
‘The record of the interrogation from Sundbyberg.’
‘Take the miserable thing away. Starting tomorrow I'm on my holiday. Give it to Kollberg. Or to anybody you damn please.’
Martin Beck took the photograph and went up one flight of stairs, opened a door and found himself with Kollberg and Melander.
It was much warmer in there than in his room, presumably because the windows were closed and the curtains drawn. Kollberg and the suspect were sitting opposite each other at the table, quite still. Melander, a tall man, was standing by the window, his pipe in his mouth and his arms folded. He was looking steadily at the suspect. On a chair by the door sat a police guard in uniform trousers and a light-blue shirt. He was balancing his cap on his right knee. No one said anything and the only moving thing was the reel of the tape recorder. Martin Beck situated himself to one side and just behind Kollberg and joined in the general silence. A wasp could be heard bouncing against the window behind the curtains. Kollberg had taken off his
