The shocking ninth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö finds Beck investigating parallel cases that have shocked a small rural community.
In a country town, a woman is brutally murdered and left buried in a swamp. There are two main suspects: her closest neighbor and her ex-husband. Meanwhile, on a quiet suburban street a midnight shootout takes place between three cops and two teenage boys. Dead, one cop and one kid. Wounded, two cops. Escaped, one kid. Martin Beck and his partner Lenart Kollberg are called in to investigate. As Beck digs deeper into the murky waters of the young girl’s murder, Kollberg scours the town for the teenager, and together they are forced to examine the changing face of crime.
“The first great series of police thrillers. . . . Truly exciting.”—Michael Ondaatje
"The [Martin Beck] series has maintained such a degree of excellence that comparisons are near impossible."--Minneapolis Tribune
“It’s hard to think of any other thriller writers (apart from Simenon perhaps) who can capture so much of a society in a couple of hundred pages and yet still hold true to the thriller form.”—Sean and Nicci French
“Sjöwall and Wahlöö write unsparingly and unswervingly. . . . Their plots are second to none.”—Val McDermid
“Sjöwall and Wahlöö continue to be tops for discriminating crime book readers.”—Denver Post
“Ingenious. . . . Their mysteries don’t just read well; they reread even better. . . . The writing is lean, with mournful undertones.”—The New York Times
”Martin Beck is as always very believable: this, we feel, is what it must mean to be an honest and intelligent policeman in modern Sweden, or anywhere else.”—Times Literary Supplement
“In the hands of Wahlöö and Sjöwal . . . the police story – with no loss of suspense or action – [has been] brilliantly fashioned into a sharp instrument for social commentary.”—Washington Post
“Edge-of-the-seat suspense.”—San Francisco Examiner
