To be honest (and in retrospect also kind of unfortunately), I actively shied away from Astrid Lindgren's three Kalle Blomkvist novels when my grandparents presented the German translations (and where Kalle Blomkvist is called Kalle Blomquist) to me in 1978 as a gift. For even as a young reader I was not really into mysteries, and I therefore kind of assumed that Astrid Lindgren's Kalle Blomkvist would be too much like a Nancy Drew or an Encyclopedia Brown type of character (and thus rather textually annoying to and for me).
But yes, and after now having read the 2017 Susan Beard Oxford University Press translation of Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist lever farligt (Astrid Lindgren's original Swedish text and the second of the three Kalle Blomkvist books), after having both read and indeed and truly also quite enjoyed A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously, I definitely admit that I certainly made a bit of a mistake not considering the Kalle Blomkvist novels (in German translation) as an eleven year old. For albeit the bona fide mystery that Kalle and his friends solve in A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously is still a bit too much detective story oriented for me (not to mention that A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously features an actual murder, which does kind of surprise me for children's novel originally published in 1951) and that in particular murder victim and resident loan shark Old Gren and his ruthless killer (who tries to poison Eva-Lotta with arsenic laced chocolate because she is a witness who has unfortunately also had her name and personal data plastered all over the town newspaper and who almost manages to capture Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta while they are out and about investigating) are rather too one-sided and as such somewhat annoying and even kind of creepy and thus a bit uncomfortable, I do very much and happily appreciate that unlike the above mentioned Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown novels I read and totally did not like as a young reader, NOT EVERYTHING in A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously actually and automatically revolves around solving mysteries and nothing else.
And indeed, and therefore, I do absolutely and utterly adore reading about Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta being such great and close friends (and really with no questions of gender ever being considered either) and as such I also majorly enjoy how much of Astrid Lindgren's text (and by extension also Susan Beard's translation) in A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously is first and foremost a story of late 1940s and early 1950s Swedish childhood in a small town, is a story of fun and engaging escapades (and how in A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously, this focusses in particular and extensively on the many imaginative skirmishes between the rival gangs of the White Roses and the Red Roses, that all of the depicted fights are actually not really all that serious, not based on factual and nasty animosity between Kalle's White Roses and Sixten's Red Roses, but fun, make-believe and in fact between close friends, and how the playful "battles" also then help Kalle, Anders and Eva-Lotta out when they are in danger from the murderer, as Eva-Lotta uses their "secret language" to alert Kalle and Anders of the murderer's identity).
Highly recommended is A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously and a totally fun and engaging read (albeit that my adult self does wonder a bit how after the murder has taken place, no one seemingly considers that Eva-Lotta might well be a target for the killer and that anything being sent to her or dropped off for her could be a trap, as my thoughts certainly automatically went that way and kind of immediately were majorly suspicious regarding that chocolate bar, and that even with a murderer on the loose, Kalle, Anders, Eva-Lotta and equally the Red Roses are seemingly still being given quite a lot of freedom to roam around alone and to explore, and even at night). And furthermore, and finally, while I personally do majorly adore how in A Kalle Blomkvist Mystery: Living Dangerously Susan Beard uses all these typically and wonderful British expressions in her translation, I guess I should also leave a bit of a caveat regarding this (but that at the same time I certainly do not really recommend the earlier 1950s Kalle Blomkvist English language translations by Herbert Antoine either, as his narrative flow is much less natural than Susan Beard's and that I also do not at all understand why in Antoine's renditions Kalle Blomkvist's name has been changed to Bill Bergson).