Martin Beck Mysteries: The Man Who Went Up in Smoke & Roseanna

Martin Beck #1-2

by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke and Roseanna.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime

404 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1969

About the author

Maj Sjöwall was a Swedish author and translator. She was best known for the collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö on a series of ten novels about the exploits of Martin Beck, a police detective in Stockholm. In 1971, the fourth of these books, The Laughing Policeman (a translation of Den skrattande polisen, originally published in 1968) won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel. They also wrote novels separately.

Sjöwall had a 13 year relationship with Wahlöö which lasted until his death in 1975.

Reviews

[Steve Lasaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to start anywhere in the Swedish noir genre, this is your beginning point. Mankell's Wallander stories and Larsson's Girl Who books continued the road which Sjowall and Wahloo's Beck Books of Crime paved. Nesb0's Norwegian Hole and Indridason's Icelandic Erlender are also continuations of this journey.

Enjoy the trip.

[Cleve]

I just finished reading all 10 books of the Vintage crime series set in 1960's Sweden. I highly recommend this series of books. I shall miss the characters.

[Nancy Pitre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different take on the detective novel.

[Linda Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like all the Sjowall books. Martin Beck is sooo laid back, so skilled, but also so methodical. The pacing is slow, the details many, and I feel "there" there. This one was particularly fun for me to read because my first ever boyfriend was from Hungary...Budapest (pronounced BoodaPesht) and It is sort of two cities in one, with a bridge connecting the two parts. So this book, being mainly in Budapest, was finally, after 62 years (!) my chance to visit and see it. You have to like "mystery" and crime-solving books that are low key, paced very methodically but not boringly, with no extremely bad crime scenes. There really always is a "mystery".

~Linda Campbell Franklin

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real social issues weave into these crime stories. A great couple whose time together writing these books was cut short. Was one of them a reporter?