History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 8/10 · Translated from Swedish

• Plot: Martin Beck, back at work after a shooting, investigates a dead man in a room locked from the inside, while another squad chases a bank robber.
• Clues: A genuine locked-room puzzle worked out through procedure and old-fashioned legwork.
• Reveal: Clever, and satisfyingly ironic about police competence.
• Science bonus: The locked room is solved by physical reconstruction: wound analysis, ballistics and working out exactly when and where the shot could have been fired.

Martin Beck returns to work after recovering from a gunshot wound. He is given an unfashionable case: a man named Karl Svärd was found shot dead in a flat locked from the inside, but there was no gun in the room. The case has been neglected, and Beck, restless and newly independent after the end of his marriage, takes it on.

Meanwhile, a bank robbery ends with a customer shot dead, and a special squad of detectives, confident and incompetent, pursues the wrong suspects. The two storylines run in parallel.

The Locked Room is the funniest book in the Martin Beck series. The satire of the bank-robbery squad is merciless, full of pompous officers, bungled raids and overlooked evidence. Sjöwall and Wahlöö are also doing something serious: showing how an increasingly militarised police force serves the state rather than the public.

The locked-room puzzle is a homage to John Dickson Carr, and it is solved not by a flash of brilliance but by Beck’s patience. It is a clever solution, carefully prepared.

The book also brings Beck a new relationship, and it gives him a sense of personal hope rarely seen in the series.

The weakness is that the two plots are loosely connected, and the satire occasionally becomes heavy. But the 8 reflects a playful, intelligent entry that is among the most enjoyable of the ten novels.