The Locked Room

Rating:
Summary: a Stockholm-based circa 1970 crime story; pretty decent read
Review: 'The Locked Room' is a rather curious book which seems to be more of a statement about the human condition in Sweden during the late 1960s rather than crime story. The authors are clearly a bit left wing and *extremely* critical of their country. Strange, and all this anger about the Swedish social condition does get tiresome, but is works.

As for the story, two rather unusual crimes (a locked room murder first viewed as a suicide) and a bank robbery/murder baffle the Stockholm police force. But as the story unfolds we understand these two incidents are related. The conclusion is surprising and *very* cynical.

My only complaint with the book is that it has a dated feel to it, and the prose (or translation?) is a bit flat. For example during the bank robbery the robber says "hands up!" and the teller says "you'll never get away with it!". Not very original, eh?

Bottom line: a curious but forgotten mystery novel. Not worth seeking out but certainly an interesting diversion.

Rating:
Summary: a Stockholm-based circa 1970 crime story; pretty decent read
Review: 'The Locked Room' is a rather curious book which seems to be more of a statement about the human condition in Sweden during the late 1960s rather than crime story. The authors are clearly a bit left wing and *extremely* critical of their country. Strange, and all this anger about the Swedish social condition does get tiresome, but is works.

As for the story, two rather unusual crimes (a locked room murder first viewed as a suicide) and a bank robbery/murder baffle the Stockholm police force. But as the story unfolds we understand these two incidents are related. The conclusion is surprising and *very* cynical.

My only complaint with the book is that it has a dated feel to it, and the prose (or translation?) is a bit flat. For example during the bank robbery the robber says "hands up!" and the teller says "you'll never get away with it!". Not very original, eh?

Bottom line: a curious but forgotten mystery novel. Not worth seeking out but certainly an interesting diversion.

Rating:
Summary: curiously at an angle to what it seems to be
Review: A detective story with 4 key elements: 1. a bank robbery by a lone woman 2. a bank robbery by professional criminals 3. the murder of a loner 4. a strange and attractive landlady

But everything turns out how you don't expect in a detective story: the bank robberies are investigated by one team, the murder by Martin Beck. The professional robbers get away with their robbery, the murderer is (wrongly)apprehended and convicted for the other. Beck actually solves the murder, but that charge does not stand up in court. Success and failure are thoroughly confused. The lone woman escapes with her daughter and starts a new life with the proceeds of her crime, and the hint that the strangely attractive landlady might bring the promise of a new start for Martin Beck (now his long imprisoning marriage has ended)is left in the air.

Rating:
Summary: Outdated
Review: Detective Martin Beck is back at work after a near-fatal event at work. A team of colleagues is attempting to solve a series of bank robberies that they are convinced are related. Beck is in the process of solving another case. His work and conclusions are more intriguing than that of the others and finally solved but not prosecuted. All crimes eventually can be all tied together even though they are not officially solved. The crimes are set in the Stockholm of the 70ies and integrated in Sweden's social problems of that era.

While I was expecting a masterpiece along the lines of Henning Mankell's criminal investigator Wallander this book did certainly not live up to my expectations. The stories are very fragmented, the sudden shifts from one story to the other are deliberate but destructive to the reader. I did not get hooked onto the book at all - because of its fragmentation it totally lacks suspense. It is hard to relate nowadays to the social problems of the time and they seem to overshadow the story lines in many instances. I concluded for myself that I could not get interested because of too many contemporary references, which will not make this mystery a classic of its genre. While Martin Beck fills the role of an interesting inspector he is pushed to far into the background even though he is supposed to be the novel's hero.

Rating:
Summary: Outdated
Review: Detective Martin Beck is back at work after a near-fatal event at work. A team of colleagues is attempting to solve a series of bank robberies that they are convinced are related. Beck is in the process of solving another case. His work and conclusions are more intriguing than that of the others and finally solved but not prosecuted. All crimes eventually can be all tied together even though they are not officially solved. The crimes are set in the Stockholm of the 70ies and integrated in Sweden's social problems of that era.

While I was expecting a masterpiece along the lines of Henning Mankell's criminal investigator Wallander this book did certainly not live up to my expectations. The stories are very fragmented, the sudden shifts from one story to the other are deliberate but destructive to the reader. I did not get hooked onto the book at all - because of its fragmentation it totally lacks suspense. It is hard to relate nowadays to the social problems of the time and they seem to overshadow the story lines in many instances. I concluded for myself that I could not get interested because of too many contemporary references, which will not make this mystery a classic of its genre. While Martin Beck fills the role of an interesting inspector he is pushed to far into the background even though he is supposed to be the novel's hero.

Rating:
Summary: Another solid entry in the Martin Beck series
Review: I have recently become a fan of this series of twelve detective novels, written in the late 1960's and early 1970's in Sweden by husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Wahloo, who died in 1975, did some reporting and the no-nonsense style of these novels reminds one of good reporting.

The Locked Room is somewhat unique to the series, in that the authors frequently shift their focus to the minor characters and criminals, in omniscient narrator style, giving the reader more perspective than is usual. The novel involves two crimes, a bold bank robbery in which a bank customer is killed, and the discovery of a retired man's decomposed body in his apartment, which appears to be locked from the inside. Beck, who recently returned to the force after recovering from a shooting, is assigned the locked room case and we see him trying to fit the pieces together of a seemingly impossible crime to solve.

A NY Times critic has recently praised the grim realism of these novels; if Beck drinks too much coffee on an empty stomach, his gets sick. After a broad daylight bank robbery, the police get starkly different eyewitness accounts, leading to a morass of seemingly unrelated clues, some of them way off. The reader is constantly reminded that in the real world, this is how crimes are really solved by big city police forces.

Some readers are a little put off by the Socialist leanings of the authors, which rises to the surface occasionally as they discuss current events of Stockholm 30 years ago including strikes, poor health care/benefits for workers, etc. However the rantings never seemed to me to get in the way of their story, and the novels are all written in a lean, sparse style with few wasted scenes or verbal flourishes. I recommend the series highly, beginning with the great Roseanna.

Rating:
Summary: Another solid entry in the Martin Beck series
Review: I have recently become a fan of this series of twelve detective novels, written in the late 1960's and early 1970's in Sweden by husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Wahloo, who died in 1975, did some reporting and the no-nonsense style of these novels reminds one of good reporting.

The Locked Room is somewhat unique to the series, in that the authors frequently shift their focus to the minor characters and criminals, in omniscient narrator style, giving the reader more perspective than is usual. The novel involves two crimes, a bold bank robbery in which a bank customer is killed, and the discovery of a retired man's decomposed body in his apartment, which appears to be locked from the inside. Beck, who recently returned to the force after recovering from a shooting, is assigned the locked room case and we see him trying to fit the pieces together of a seemingly impossible crime to solve.

A NY Times critic has recently praised the grim realism of these novels; if Beck drinks too much coffee on an empty stomach, his gets sick. After a broad daylight bank robbery, the police get starkly different eyewitness accounts, leading to a morass of seemingly unrelated clues, some of them way off. The reader is constantly reminded that in the real world, this is how crimes are really solved by big city police forces.

Some readers are a little put off by the Socialist leanings of the authors, which rises to the surface occasionally as they discuss current events of Stockholm 30 years ago including strikes, poor health care/benefits for workers, etc. However the rantings never seemed to me to get in the way of their story, and the novels are all written in a lean, sparse style with few wasted scenes or verbal flourishes. I recommend the series highly, beginning with the great Roseanna.

Rating:
Summary: best of the bunch
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Review: 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.