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The Abominable Man (1971)

by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Martin Beck (7)

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1,0632618,969 (3.82)50
The striking seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his professional career. The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality. Martin Beck and his colleagues feverishly comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds and a feeling of imminent danger grips Beck, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That’s when an even stronger sense of responsibility and something like shame urge him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster.… (more)
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English (19)  Spanish (3)  Swedish (2)  Norwegian (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (26)
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
I loved pretty well all the books in this classic detective series featuring Martin Beck and for me, this is the best. ( )
  louislouis | Jan 19, 2024 |
The Abominable Man (1971) (Martin Beck #7) by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo. The title character is killed off at the beginning of the novel which sets all the following actions in motion. The murdered, older man, is killed in his hospital bed, knifed by a stranger and unseen by security. When the homicide squad is alerted they are only surprised the killing took so long to happen. The dead man is a former policeman known for his bad treatment of perps, trainees, and fellow officers, lying while under oath and manufacturing evidence when it was needled. He was a hard man with hard ways for everything except his own family. He was nicknamed the Abominable Man by his coworkers and they meant it.
But he was a cop so there has to be justice. This book differs from the previous editions in the ten part Story of Crime series in that there is a great deal of immediate action. Spanning roughly 24 hours we read from muder, through the manhunt for the “crazed” killer and finally to the confrontation with the self same. There is the usual collection of police including Martin Beck, and there are the usual political views expressed by the authors including taking on the code of silence rampant in most police departments while also belittling the out-of-date methods of the strong-arm police tactics.
This is not your standard Police Procedural tale nor is it the normal Martin Beck story. It is something more powerful than either or those. Writing this more than 50 years after it’s original publication, I am stunned to realize that the things reported in this and the other books in the 10 volume series, are to some degree or another, happening in cities and towns all around the world. Or maybe I’m not stunned at all. It is true, the more things change… ( )
  TomDonaghey | Aug 9, 2023 |
I realize that much of my liking for this series is due to the excellent audiobook narration by Tom Weiner. After seven novels, I can tell who is talking just by his tone of voice. He does a super job. This story is pretty grim, though not as bad as the child murders in an earlier book. Plotwise, it is pretty linear, but it gives the authors a chance to comment on unrestrained police brutality as Beck and company pursue the murderer of a police inspector with a very nasty reputation. ( )
  datrappert | Nov 4, 2021 |
This was one tough read, despite a dramatic beginning and ending. Very, very little happens which I guess reflects a lot of police work. I guess police corruption and lack of responsibility also happens. Any organization will have those who do more than their fair share and those who do the absolute minimum. ( )
  Stephen.Lawton | Aug 7, 2021 |
Book 7 looks critically at the problem of police brutality and how it is covered up within the infamous code of blue, even in Sweden. A senior policeman is murdered in the hospital, and as Beck investigates, he learns that the policeman often took the law into his own hands, dispensing justice. Apparently the book was published in 1971, the same year that "Dirty Harry" was released in the U.S. The final 25% was action-packed, putting the reader in the middle of a terrifying inner-city Stockholm scene: gunman-on-the-roof, lone-madman vs. the entire police force, with many innocents in between.

( )
  skipstern | Jul 11, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Sjöwall, Majprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Wahlöö, Permain authorall editionsconfirmed
Bouquet, PhilippeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dahmann, SusanneTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Guillou, JanPrefacesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hoekstra, FroukjeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hoff, TrulsTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ipsen, HenningTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Larsstuvold, RuneForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nielsen, BjarneTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schultz, EkkehardTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Teal, ThomasTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Weiner, TomNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zatti, RenatoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Just after midnight he stopped thinking.
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If you really want to be sure of getting caught, the thing to do is kill a policeman.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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The striking seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his professional career. The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality. Martin Beck and his colleagues feverishly comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds and a feeling of imminent danger grips Beck, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That’s when an even stronger sense of responsibility and something like shame urge him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster.

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