This year I’ve been reading all ten of the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. All but one. The Laughing Policeman was my first exposure to the Martin Beck Series. I read it back in October of 2009. While I decided not to re-read it, I did think it would be worth my while to re-read my review of it and to … Continue reading The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
A drunken man so frightens and embarrasses his grand children that they vow revenge. After some planning and a short wait for the perfect moment young Asger seizes his chance and pees into his grandfather’s beer before serving it to him. His sisters both laugh as they all watch their grandfather pick up his glass and take a healthy, full drink. Unable to contain himself, … Continue reading Doghead by Morten Ramsland
The fourth word in Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo is “corpse.” There will be no beating around the bush in this mystery novel. A victim, a detective and a suspect. What more do you need? No quirky characters. No digressions about dog show politics or the history of Irish pub goers. Just a crime and a detective trying to solve it. If you … Continue reading Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
I came to Knut Hamsun by way of George Egerton. Two writers few modern readers have heard of outside of academia and Norway. George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) wrote two volumes of wonderful short stories, Keynotes and Discords, in the late 1890’s and became one of the prominent figures in the feminist literary movement known as the “New Women.” She had a romantic attachment … Continue reading Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A terrorist kidnapping in Kenya, a series of email death threats in Copenhagen– The Exception grabs the readers attention from the start. We’re immediately focused on the suspense–familiar territory for readers of thrillers. But then Mr. Jungersen does something completely unexpected. Once he’s got our attention, he lets it go. The story moves from international thriller to inter-office politics. From the political to the very … Continue reading The Exception by Christian Jungersen
Late one rainy night in Stockholm, a gunman boards a double decker bus and kills everyone on board. He leaves no clues behind. No hint at his motive or identity. Just victims. And questions with no answers. As soon as Superintendent Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad begins his investigation he finds that one of the victims was a member of his own squad. … Continue reading Is this the best police procedural ever written? The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and translated by Ebba Segerberg is for people who like their vampires monstrous. There are no cuddly creatures here, no misunderstood, sexy, brooding handsome young men, no one one who really has a soul, no one fighting an urge or repressing it with non-human blood substitutes. The vampire in Let the Right One In is an … Continue reading Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Translated by Ebba Segerberg
My thanks to Amateur Reader who blogs at Wuthering Expectations for pointing this book out to me a couple of months ago. Amateur Reader is a much better student than I have been with The Quintessance of Ibsenism (I confess to both skimming parts and not reading it all the way to the end) so please check his posts out if you’d like a more thorough and … Continue reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism by George Bernard Shaw
The thing I liked best about Karin Alvtegen’s novel Missing is the main character. Missing’s narration is focused on Sybilla, who has become the prime suspect in a murder she did not commit. When we first meet Sybilla, she is trying to con a meal from wealthy businessman in a hotel bar. Sybilla, we learn, is a young homeless woman, still together enough to … Continue reading Missing by Karin Alvtegen
In addition to writing the ten book Martin Beck series of police procedurals with his partner Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo wrote several novels one his own. Judging solely from the one I’ve read so far, The Steel Spring, they are not his best work. Written in 1968, The Steel Spring covers much of the same ground the Martin Beck books will explore. In The Steel … Continue reading The Steel Spring by Per Wahloo translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
I was not exactly ecstatic when I drew Isak Dinesen once again this week. Last week, I drew another of her stories from Winter’s Tales a collection of “fairy tales” and did not enjoy it much at all. So I was surprised to find how much I really loved “Peter and Rosa” which is the penultimate story in that volume. Ms. Dinesen went up against … Continue reading Isak Dinesen vs. Raymond Chandler for the Deal Me In Short Story Challenge
May Contain Spoilers 