Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Martin Beck Series
Posted by Sgt Pluck on 3 July 2011 - 7:30pm.
I was in Smiths earlier on and saw that the Martin Beck novels by Maj Sjowall have been republished with glossy new covers and blurbs linking them to Jo Nesbo, Henning Menkell etc. They're much better than either and it's really worth reading all 10 in order if you can. Plus Sjowall and Wahloo were avowed communists; what more could you really want. Walter Matthau was in the film of The Laughing Policeman.
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Good Man
I just ordered the first one yesterday as I keep hearing such fine things about them
The first one
is on Kindle for 99p at the moment. Would have been wrong not to have bought it at that price.
I agree
See my Reads review, which thanks to the kind folk at Word and last issue's Massive Attacks page, means that for no doubt the one and only time in my life I can call myself a published writer... Wahey!
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/the-martin-beck-series
On your recommendation and that of others, Madrid...
...I'm looking forward to buying/reading them at some point (having read most of the Mankell books and pining for more of the same-ish).
I'm kicking myself for not buying all 10 for a tenner via The Book People a year or so back. Now that they've 'caught on' it's impossible to find a good deal on them in hard copy form. I'll have to bide my time...
grossly overlooked and may i venture superior?
although not really comparable with Nesbo and Menkell, they deal with Sweden coming to terms with the changing world of the 60s
Although the lefty leanings became a bit more ranting in the later books of the series, they still stand up so well.
I re-read them whilst convalescing last year alternating with the fine BBC "Complete Smiley" - both dealing so well with the mundanity of their protagonists' lives as well as the succcesses. I recommend them to the Massive
I'm three-quarters
... of the way through the 2nd novel and nothing's happened yet but, despite this, it's really, really good. The first one (Roseanna) was outstanding. If the rest are as good as this it will be the best tenner I've ever spent (bought on the recommendation of one of the Massive a while back).