The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Martin Beck, #2)

by Maj Sjöwall

No, Martin Beck is none of these things. He's a driven, middle-aged dyspeptic whose marriage slowly disintegrates during the series. Not because of some cataclysmic infidelity or clash of belief systems, but rather because of the quiet desperation that builds between two people who once loved each other but now have nothing in common but their children and their address.

He's also something of an idealist whose job forces him to confront the gulf between what should exist in an ideal world and what exists in actuality. His awareness of that gap colours his life, making him depressed and sometimes fatalistic about whether what he does can ever make any difference.

Then there is that aspect that Julian Symonds picked on so astutely – their interest in the philosophical aspects of crime. These days, it is a given that the crime novel is capable of shining a light on society, of illuminating us to ourselves.

Stenström was still the youngest in the department and after him there would presumably be a whole generation of detectives who did not knock on doors.

Blue Monk.

Conrad von Hötzendorf.

It was certainly a very large city. He remembered the legendary Gustaf Lidberg's almost classic reflection on landing in New York in 1899, on his search for the counterfeiter Skog: ‘In this anty heap is Mr Who, address: Where?’

Emil Jannings.

Not beautiful in the conventional sense of the word, but a highly functional specimen of the human race.

It was a superb dinner, but it did not gladden him, and the waiters swarmed around their lugubrious guest like medical experts around a dictator's sickbed.

(Martin Beck, the born detective and famous observer, constantly occupied making useless observations and storing them away for future use. Doesn't even have bats in his belfry – they couldn't get in for all the crap in the way.)

‘Being a policeman,’ said Szluka, ‘is not a profession. And it's certainly not a vocation either. It's a curse.’ A little later he turned around and said: ‘Of course, I don't mean that. Only think it sometimes. Are you married?’

The trip took scarcely an hour, and in Limhamn he at once got a taxi that would take him to Malmö. The taxi driver was talkative and spoke a southern Swedish dialect that sounded to Martin Beck almost as incomprehensible as Hungarian.

On the way into Malmö, Kollberg said, ‘Nice guy, our friend Matsson. I don't think humanity has suffered any great loss if something really has happened to him. If so, then it's only your holiday that has suffered.’

As Martin Beck and Kollberg entered the flat, they underwent a change. It happened to them both at the same time and without either of them being aware of it. All that had been tense, uncertain and vigilant about them vanished and was replaced by a routine calm, a mechanical determination which showed that they knew what was going to happen and that they had been through the same thing before.

Gunnarsson looked straight at him and said, ‘In that case, I don't understand the point of all this.’ Martin Beck knew that he would remember that remark for years, perhaps for the rest of his life.