From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Roseanna (Martin Beck, #1)

Maj Sjöwall,

Per Wahlöö

Start date: November 15, 2022

Finish date: December 6, 2022

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: The first in this acclaimed series
[close] The first in this acclaimed series

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Showing 2 of 474 topics — 9,147 comments total

Buddy reads

* Vale of Tears (Bradecote and Catchpoll #5) by Sarah Hawkswood (Sept/Oct 25)
By Susan · 5 posts · 11 views

last updated Sep 20, 2025 02:26PM

* Vale of Tears (Bradecote and Catchpoll #5) - SPOILER Thread - (Sept/Oct 25)
By Susan · 5 posts · 7 views

last updated Sep 21, 2025 08:01AM

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What Members Thought

Nov 04, 2022 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have never read this series before, but was interested to try it, especially as it is so influential in Nordic Noir. Although this, the first book, was published in 1965, it feels fairly contemporary in many ways.

A woman's body is found in a canal, but her identity is not known. Martin Beck is the main character - a rather unhappily married, dissatisfied and obsessive man - who becomes involved in the investigation. When the woman is finally identified as an American, there follows a very inte ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2022 Carolien rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2022, crime, eur

One of the classics of Scandinavian crime. A woman's body is found when an area near a lock on a canal near Gothenburg is dredged. When the local police cannot identify her, Martin Beck and team is called in from Stockholm. But even they cannot identify her, other than that she was probably a tourist. Painstaking police work trawling through photos of other passengers, interviewing them finally leads to results. In this day of short attention spans, it was interesting to see the nearly eight-mon ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Jun 18, 2014 Leslie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries, scandinavian

This first book in the Martin Beck series may have suffered from being read out of order. It was interesting to read the descriptions of Melander and Kollberg in particular, as these colleagues of Beck's recur in most of the books. The mystery itself is in some ways straightforward -- this is much more of a police procedural and less of a 'whodunit'. This is not a mystery in which the reader can solve the case first - information comes to the reader as it comes to the detectives & they find the ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 10, 2021 Christine PNW rated it really liked it

I thought this was really good - particularly the first 80%. I'm not in love with the way that they solved the case - (view spoiler) - because it just felt very contrived, unlike the rest of the book, which felt incredibly authentic.

There were so many things to like about it. The characters were realistic. They were mundane. Not larger than life, not tortured or heroic. They were believ ...more

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