The Laughing Policeman (original 1968; edition 1992)

This was only the second of the Edgar Best Novel winners so far that I knew for certain I had read before. But, I decided it would be worthwhile to reread it, and how right I was. Martin Beck, the protagonist of this series, is the spiritual ancestor of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. He pretty much bears out any stereotype you may have about gloomy Swedes. But he's a heck of a policeman.
One thing I don't recall noticing when I first read this book back in the 1970s was how it is set in a definite time -- 1967, with protest demonstrations worldwide about America's involvement in Vietnam. The book opens with such a demonstration in Stockholm, with most police detailed to keep order. Shortly, however, Beck is called to a crime scene -- someone has shot all the passengers and the driver of a city bus. And one of the victims is one of his own homicide detectives.
The solution of the case leads to the solution of a "cold case" from the early 50s, and owes more to good, solid, routine police investigation than to any stunning intuitions on the part of Beck or his colleagues. (As is my wont, I had forgotten "whodunnit" long ago so that I enjoyed not only the writing, but the mystery.) I very seldom reread mysteries, but the Sjowall and Wahloo series is well worth a reread, or a first read if you haven't encountered them yet. ( )

Mass murder in Sweden? A group of people are gunned down on a Stockholm city bus. Inspector Martin Beck is unhappily married and has a bad cold, so – not really laughing all that much. Sort of the archetypal morose, middle-aged Scandinavian detective. This married author team wrote the first Scandinavian mysteries readily available to English language readers – a ten book series collectively titled The Story of Crime. ( )

I can’t really explain the circumstances that led me to read a Swedish police procedural published in 1970, but I’m glad I discovered this gem of a book. It is written in a straightforward style with spare, precise language that propels the story along. The mystery begins with the discovery of a bus on which all of the passengers have been brutally shot. One of the passengers is a police detective who didn’t belong on the bus in the first place. A team of detectives take on the case, and despite the absence of leads, eventually work out the convoluted solution. The resolution may seem like a bit of a stretch, but it’s the getting there that provides all of the enjoyment. I had some difficulty following the plot with all of the unfamiliar Swedish names and the roundabout way the case was solved, which only means that this may be worth rereading someday. ( )

La coppia di autori e' una garanzia . Gialli classici , ben ambientati in una svezia , ordinata e pulita all' apparenza, ma che nasconde un malessere diffuso. Iprotagonisti non sono ne eroi ne antieroi, bensi persone "quotidiane" con le loro opinioni e caratteri che vivono a pieno la loro appartenenza alla societa'. ( )

At a recent author event Norwegian mystery writer Jo Nesbø was asked why he thought Scandinavian mysteries were such a hot commodity these days. His answer was that the primary driver for this was husband and wife team Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö. Their ten books featuring Martin Beck and his team blended crime fiction and social commentary so ably that the mystery genre in Scandinavia was pulled out of its niche market and blended in with general fiction. The result was to attract many of the region’s finest authors to the genre.

The Laughing Policeman has been on my TBR list for a long time and Nesbø’s remarks tipped the scale. First published in 1967, it is a well-written police procedural, with a diverse cast of officers each following different leads in their efforts to solve the case of a mass murder aboard a double-decker bus that took the life of one of their fellow officers.

Reading the book almost half a century after it was written, it’s interesting that it is liberally sprinkled with reminders that the so-called ‘free love’ era of the 60s was really a lot more repressed than it seemed to be at the time. Unmarried couples who cohabited were ‘living in sin’. Murders involving rape were ‘sex murders’. Women who enjoyed frequent sex were ‘nymphomaniacs’. I can’t tell if Sjöwall & Wahlöö were actually trying to actively point out the hypocrisy of these views or if they were as much a victim of them as everyone else. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20. ( )