Well, this is a hell of a way to introduce a character. It was only when I came to enter the fact I was reading ‘Roseanna’ onto this website that I realised it is the inaugural book of the Martin Beck series (as you may guess, I’m more of a ‘pick up and read’ type of guy, than a ‘research deeply beforehand’ type of guy’). There was the legend in front of me: ‘Martin Beck, 1’. And the interesting thing is that by the time I did add it to this website, I was already sixty pages through and hadn’t noticed that this was an introductory novel. There was no grand and startling entrance; instead there was a police station, a somewhat miserable homicide detective and his downbeat, but professional team. And of course there was a murder which had to be solved. There’s little in the way of background, little in terms of context, we are in Sweden in the 1960s and there’s work to be done.This is certainly one of the most existential crime novels I’ve ever read. Throughout there’s a sense of disorientation, of questioning the world and the way it works, questioning the terrible things man does. Of course all mystery novels are about questions, all mystery novels are about the terrible things men do; but here the questions don’t stop at the exit to the interrogation room, they are everywhere in the world. I make it sound bleak, yet the forward propulsion of the plot and the tension of each fresh questioning, means that it’s never dull or a chore to get through. It’s grim and unrelenting, sure, but also fundamentally gripping. There’s a reason why these two are the godparents of Swedish crime fiction. As undoubtedly this isn’t an English crime novel or an American crime novel, it’s most definitely Scandinavian – the missing link between Ingmar Bergman and Harry Hole. A body of a young woman is found in a lake and Martin Beck and his team are called to investigate. As summer turns to winter and everything gets colder and darker, the investigation continues – seemingly without conclusion. At the centre of the book is a sex crime, around it are possible other sexual assaults and the horror of it all is restated again and again. This is not a book that goes for moments of levity, this is not a novel which tries to lighten the tone; this is an examination of a crime which almost feels ground down by it. At the centre we have the policeman, Martin Beck, who is seemingly ill throughout, as if his malaise at the murders he faces and the state of the modern world has turned into physical illness. As I said this is his introduction as a character, but we find out little about him – he has a loveless marriage, a couple of kids and is building a model boat. What’s really important to him is his job, or more specifically the case he’s acting on. His colleagues are so ill defined they are almost cyphers, his team is barely indistinguishable from one another, but again that adds to the procedural existentialism of it. Rather than give these other policemen names, Sjowell and Wahloo may as well have just called them Officer A and officer B.This is a truly Scandinavian crime novel.Life is bleak, horrible things happen and there seems to be no escape from it. Martin Beck is building a model ship, that is how he amuses himself when he’s not working (which takes up most of his time) or dealing with his family (which takes up less). He distracts his mind from what’s going on around him, by working on this tiny replica of a boat. It’s his form of escape. But Roseanna McKay, the victim, died on a boat. She was someone who was escaping, heading across Europe for the trip of a lifetime, and the horrible nature of life caught up with her there. And so before he’s even finished it, the model of the boat – not even a real boat, but a model which couldn’t sail him anywhere anyway – just looks even more futile as a means of getting away. It’s actually pointed out that Roseanna McKay could have died in an accident, just been hit by a truck, but instead she was murdered and so became Martin Beck’s responsibility. And so this detective, who is one of life’s questioners, starts to question the world all over again and when he finds the answer he’s looking for, it doesn’t seem to give him any satisfaction at all.Again, this is a very Scandinavian crime novel.And in the background is an American cop with the unlikely name of Kafka. Raymond Chandler once called a character Hemmingway, describing him as “A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you believe it must be good” (which given Chandler’s style, is a dig you wonder how seriously to take). The Kafka reference in Rosanna can’t help but add to the jaded existentialism of it all (even if the character of Kafka himself is the least jaded police officer on show). It’s a reminder that for all these questions that need to be asked, there are – like Joseph K finds in ‘The Trial’ and ‘The Castle’ – some questions which can’t be answered.I know I’ve made it sound bleak, I know I’ve hammered down the point that this is very Scandinavian; but if you want to clutch a book between white knuckles and feel the hairs on the back on your neck rise, this is definitely one to go for.
"He looked tired and his sunburned skin seemed yellowish in the gray light. His face was lean with a broad forehead and a strong jaw. His mouth, under his short, straight nose, was thin and wide with two deep lines near the corners. When he smiled, you could see his healthy, white teeth. His dark hair was combed straight back from the even hairline and had not yet begun to gray. The look in his soft blue eyes was clear and calm. He was thin but not especially tall and somewhat round-shouldered. Some women would say he was good looking but most of them would see him as quite ordinary. He dressed in a way that would draw no attention. If anything, his clothes were a little too discreet."And thus I was introduced to the Swedish detective Martin Beck. As you can see from that description, he is unassuming. He catches every cold, every flu bug, coffee makes him sick, but he drinks it, and riding the subway makes him nauseous, and yet he has to ride it. When he isn't sick he is melancholy on the verge of depression. He works massive hours for a combination of reasons mainly that he is obsessed by his cases and his marriage is on the skids. He married the woman that he wanted mainly because she was happy, an antidote to his sad nature. Once she had kids, like what happens with most people, she changed. It comes back to the old argument of whether men or women are crazier, the women that marry men thinking they can change them or the men that marry women thinking they are going to stay the same. When Beck is home he works on a model ship allowing his mind to freely roam over his caseload. His kids are just background noise to his life. He doesn't seem to be interested in them. They are just symptoms to the disease of his failed marriage. Lake VatternThe crime that is the basis of this novel involves the brutal murder and rape of an American tourist from Nebraska, Roseanna McGraw. Her body is fished out of Lake Vattern, and though the case belongs to a small town police district in Motala, due to the nature of the crime, a team of detectives including Beck are sent to assist. He meets a kindred spirit in the Detective Alhberg from Motala. They both obsess over cases and as no clues present themselves in the case of Roseanna they keep calling each other with meaningless information, in an attempt to stir the brain cells, as the case lingers unsolved for months. The interest part for me was the police procedure part of the process. They enlist the help of a Detective Kafka from Lincoln, Nebraska who interviews former lovers and acquaintances of the deceased. This new information is presented to the reader as transcripts of the conversations. Because the crime is a sex crime it required that the detective ask very personal questions of the satellite people around Roseanna. Beck also has to ask some very uncomfortable questions on his end of the investigation as he interviews people connected to his suspect. We are exposed to the humdrum nature of police work as the detectives wait patiently for any kind of new clue that will spur more action. The writers do manage to build the tension as Beck is sure he has his guy. Beck, running out of resources and time, comes up with a desperate plan to try and catch his suspect. Beck operates off of intuition, and so he makes leaps of logic without proof. The book felt very authentic and the writing was crisp and clean. Henning Mankell wrote the introduction and he probably should be sending Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo a royalty check for each new Kurt Wallander book or movie deal because Kurt Wallander is without a doubt based off of the character Martin Beck. Wallander certainly annoys me more than Beck. I do feel at times like grabbing Kurt by the shoulders and giving him a good shake. He is just so inconceivably depressed all the time that it does start to feel like self-indulgent behavior. With Beck I felt more sympathetic with his plight. I have hopes that as the series progresses that he at least attempts to find a way to be happy.With Martin Beck and Kurt Wallander providing my main exposure to Swedish culture I could get the impression that they are a depressed nation. I checked to see where Sweden falls on the list of depressed countries and they don't even break the top twenty. Suicide rates in Sweden land them at 30th in the world, certainly not high enough to make one think that everyone is suicidal in Sweden. If they are a melancholy nation they certainly don't feel the need to take that last slow walk out into the woods and eat a bullet. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were a common law marriage team that wrote ten Martin Beck novels. They conceived an outline together for each book and then wrote alternating chapters. The book was seamless. I didn't find myself experiencing a difference of style leaving one chapter and starting another. I wonder if that was blended by the translation or if they really did have complimentary styles of writing. Maj Sjowall & Per WahlooI will certainly read another Martin Beck. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard have reissued the series in attractive matching trade paperbacks that encourage the reader to want to own them all.
What do You think about Roseanna (1976)?
Primo incontro con i creatori del giallo nordico. Se non fosse stato per tutti quei nomi svedesi praticamente illeggibili, lo avrei goduto di più. Non è solo questo il motivo per il quale non ne sono particolarmente entusiasta. La storia parte lenta, molto lenta come l’acqua del canale in cui viene ritrovato un cadavere femminile nudo e con segni di violenza carnale: per oltre metà del libro mi sono un po’ annoiata, non succede niente, nessun colpo di scena, niente altro che le indagini brancolanti nel buio portate avanti dal poliziotto Martin Beck della squadra omicidi di Stoccolma con la sua scontrosità che, secondo alcuni, lo avvicinerebbe a Maigret ( certo, è troppo presto per dirlo avendo letto solo questo romanzo, ma a me questo poliziotto pare meno “umano” di Maigret e più una figura stereotipa). A un certo momento c’è stata una svolta, ma così poco credibile, così artificiosa che mi è venuta voglia di abbandonarlo. Ho resistito e sono arrivata alla fine, e devo dire che l’ultima parte è notevolmente migliore, c’è azione, almeno mi sono appassionata nel leggere le attività della polizia svedese messe in campo per prendere il colpevole, e devo dire che mi è piaciuto fare un tuffo nel passato, al tempo in cui non c’erano cellulari e computer, non c’erano il test del DNA né il luminol.Per ora mi fermo con il giallo nordico, aspetterò l’estate per leggerne altri sotto l’ombrellone, con l'illusione che la pioggia continua che li abita mi rinfreschi dall’afa mediterranea.
—Sandra
The Martin Beck series is supposed to amazing, I was very excited to finally find the first book so I could find out why. So far, so ordinary.I can understand how it might have been revolutionary in Swedish crime circles, being the first of its kind to move away from the classic British mystery style of Agatha Christie but for me reading it in 2012 it doesn't have that shock to the senses factor it might have had in 1965.This mixture of Ed McBain's police procedural style and Georges Simenon's psychological analysis makes for an enjoyable read and the influence of obsessive, isolated noir heroes such as Phillip Marlowe makes Martin Beck a good protagonist for a crime novel yet he isn't as hard-boiled as I was led to believe; despite finishing 51st in a Top 100 list on the subject.It is said that these books were a political statement by the husband and wife writing team but based on this instalment it was lost on me. Perhaps the Swedes weren't used to having the working classes shown in such an honest light or the beaurocracy of public service put under the microscope but it all feels pretty standard to me now.There's not much to say about the actual murder investigation, it takes them six months and features a lot of patience and waiting and chess playing. In the end we have to trust that the detective knows more than we do as it all hinges on his intuition upon meeting the suspect and in doing so the denouement is slightly less rewarding than if it was some vital clue that nail the murdering psychopath that his constant dilligence had finally dug up but it is then buried by the following relentless tension as Beck and his team lay a trap that you desperately hope will succeed.In the P.S. section of this publication Richard Shephard refers to the writing style as literature verite, the first time I have seen the phrase used and I think I will cling to it tightly from here on out. As a film graduate the verite style is dear to my heart, bringing to mind Ken Russell or even Jean-Luc Godard at the more stylised end of the spectrum, and provides an instant visual reference for what these authors were trying to achieve; the capturing of the beauty and mundanity of the everyday, the life and the very existence of these people formerly romanticised by novelists intent on skipping over the many periods of waiting and hoping and boredom that fill the days of a police detective. In this Sjowall & Wahloo succeeded and I hope that further dabbling with their ten book series is fruitful.
—Tfitoby
I found out about this book through a recommendation for something similar the Henning Mankell, and it is revealing that Mankell is the one who writes the foreword of this true classic of police procedural novels.Indeed, Kurt Wallander and Martin Beck seem cut from the same cloth, 40 years apart: middle aged, slightly depressive, with broken marriages, stubborn and unrelenting in the pursuit of justice. I'm not talking about any plagiarizing, each series stands on its own merits and has distinctive touches. More likely Mankell recognizes the influence it had on him as a young reader and the enduring quality of the themes presented in Roseanna.One of the reasons I think this story has endured is its realism and no frills writing style - a cold enumeration of facts and great dialogue that suggest rather than declame the human hearts behind the investigation. The authors have avoided both the Agatha Christie style of intellectual detective exercises and the American flashier detectives with their racing cars and blazing guns. What we have here is "the banality of evil" , not the evil masterminds or the gang lords but the persons living next door to us. And the resolution will come not from the armchair deductions puffing a pipe or from a shootout, but the from the slow accumulation of facts and a lot of gumshoe.
—Algernon
