From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

The Abominable Man (Martin Beck, #7)

Maj Sjöwall,

Per Wahlöö

Start date: August 15, 2024

Finish date: September 7, 2024

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: Another in this great Scandinavian series.
[close] Another in this great Scandinavian series.

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What Members Thought

Mar 08, 2011 Nancy Oakes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: translated-fiction, crime-fiction-scandinavia

Part the seventh of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's excellent 10-part series, The Abominable Man starts off in a hospital room where a man lays in a great deal of pain and anxiety due to his fear of death. To get his mind off his problems for a moment, he makes his way to the nurses' station and back, and is savagely attacked when he returns to his room. Martin Beck, who had just spent the evening with his daughter, has just gotten into bed at 2:30 a.m. when the phone rings. The caller is Einar Rönn, also Part the seventh of Sjöwall and Wahlöö's excellent 10-part series, The Abominable Man starts off in a hospital room where a man lays in a great deal of pain and anxiety due to his fear of death. To get his mind off his problems for a moment, he makes his way to the nurses' station and back, and is savagely attacked when he returns to his room. Martin Beck, who had just spent the evening with his daughter, has just gotten into bed at 2:30 a.m. when the phone rings. The caller is Einar Rönn, also on the murder squad, who calls Beck because of the identity of the dead man: it is Chief Inspector Stig Nyman. Digging into his past, the investigators discover numerous complaints of mistreatment and brutality against Nyman, which doesn't make their job any easier. In the meantime, Martin Beck is seized with a feeling of dread -- intuiting danger ahead.

The Abominable Man is another excellent novel from Sjowall and Wahloo, and it is darker in tone than any of its predecessors, one of the most intense books of the series so far. There are the typical moments of humor, but much less so than in prior novels. The authors' focus in this installment ranges from the effects of the 1965 nationalization of the police force to the altering of Stockholm's city center over the previous decade in a "frenzy of modernization." But these sort of comments are the meat of these books, considering the entire 10-book is subtitled "The Story of a Crime." As Maj Sjowall notes in an
article in the Guardian a couple of years back,

"We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society, where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer."

As in most of these novels, there's a sense of overwhelming frustration that lasts throughout the story, first on the part of the police, who find their jobs more difficult and as Martin Beck feels, often "pointless." Matters are only made worse when during a crisis Beck's "politically reliable" superintendent gets involved, but whose "qualifications as a policeman were more open to question." But it's not just the police -- the frustration of many ordinary citizens who turn to the authorities for help here is so well portrayed that while reading the story one can almost feel it.

The Abominable Man is one of the most atmospheric novels in the series, and in my humble opinion as a reader, one of the best. While Sjöwall and Wahlöö manage to get their sociopolitical points across, they're also damn good crime fiction writers and their plotting is superb. You can't really ask for much better than that. ...more

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Aug 13, 2024 Susan rated it it was amazing

This is the seventh book in the Martin Beck series, meaning I only have three left to read. When I get to the end, I know I will be extremely sad. I am totally involved the world of Martin Beck and his colleagues and so this seventh in the series is a difficult one because Beck, the least heroic hero imaginable, is in danger.

It begins with the violent killing of Stig Nyland in a hospital room. Nyland was a policeman, although recently signed off with illness (hence the hospital). When Nyland's b ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Leslie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scandinavian, mysteries

This 7th entry in the Martin Beck series was excellent! A tad more crime fiction rather than mystery, but the perspective of "old school" cops was both horrifying and enlightening. The big cliff-hanger at the end is a little toned down by the fact that I know that there are some more books to come in this series.

There are so many aspects of this particular story that could have been written in the past few years that it is a surprise to remember that this first came out in 1972. ...more

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Sep 22, 2013 Bev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: swedish-mystery, police-procedural, mystery, silver-age-mystery, mount-tbr-2015

The Abominable Man (1971) is the seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. It shows Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his career--challenges calling for quick detective work and professional challenges when his investigation reveals evidence of corruption all the way through some of the highest levels of the force.

It all begins with the horrific murder of a chief inspector in his hospital room--murdered by bayonet. And it soon becomes apparent th The Abominable Man (1971) is the seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. It shows Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his career--challenges calling for quick detective work and professional challenges when his investigation reveals evidence of corruption all the way through some of the highest levels of the force.

It all begins with the horrific murder of a chief inspector in his hospital room--murdered by bayonet. And it soon becomes apparent that the person responsible has a personal hatred of not only Chief Inspector Nyman but the police in general. As Beck and his team work against the clock to find the madman before he can drastically reduce the number of officers on the force, they find a link to Nyman's reputation for brutal, strong-arm police tactics. Tactics he perfected as a sadistic instructor in the armed forces and used over a forty-year career. Could the madman be someone falsely arrested and abused while in custody? Or perhaps he's a rogue cop who suffered under a harsh Inspector and is looking for revenge.

Beck and his colleagues finally run the culprit to earth, but the final stand-off with an expert marksman will raise the police body count to at least five and Beck will have to resort to a drastic plan in order to stop the killer before he can claim more lives. The man will be caught--but at what cost? And how much blame rests with a police force which harbored corrupt officers and turned a blind eye to reports of misconduct?

This installment of the Beck series is a hard-hitting novel on a number of levels. It opens with Nyman's very brutal death, but soon turns into a commentary on the method of police work that had its roots in a sadistic drill-sergeant style of instruction and enforcement. Although the reader can't condone the murders, one can still understand the motive. When those who are called upon to serve and protect cause so much harm in one person's life, it isn't hard to understand when that person reaches the end of their endurance.

Definitely not a puzzle mystery and not entirely a police procedural--although we do watch Beck and his men hard at work gathering the evidence and searching the records for clues to the killer's identity. This works best as a social commentary on the state of the police force in the early 1970s and makes for an absorbing read. But it is also an action-packed police drama--moving quickly from the first murder to the final scene. Sjöwall and Wahlöö are experts at setting the scene and placing the reader right in the middle of the action. ★★★★ for a perfectly paced, police thriller.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks. ...more

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