Cop Killer

Martin Beck #9

by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

In a Swedish country town, a woman is brutally murdered and left buried in a swamp. On a quiet suburban street a midnight shootout takes place between three cops and two teenage boys. Detective Inspector Martin Beck and his partner Lennart Kollberg are called in on both cases. In the unfamiliar small-town setting, they encounter figures from their earlier cases...

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Thriller, Scandinavian Literature, Nordic Noir, Sweden

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Maj Sjöwall was a Swedish author and translator. She was best known for the collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö on a series of ten novels about the exploits of Martin Beck, a police detective in Stockholm. In 1971, the fourth of these books, The Laughing Policeman (a translation of Den skrattande polisen, originally published in 1968) won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel. They also wrote novels separately.

Sjöwall had a 13 year relationship with Wahlöö which lasted until his death in 1975.

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote their Martin Beck series in the sixties and seventies. They wrote ten novels in ten years. They wrote about a time without computers and modern gadgets, but apart from those conveniences themselves, the books could have been written yesterday.

These books are about everything that continues to be wrong in our societies. They are about carceration, misplaced conceptions of justice and the omnipresence of injustice. They are about the militarization of police forces and police culpability in the crimes they are expressly formed to fight. They are about an environment under siege by our way of living. They are about our fears of sexuality and society's role in controlling our desires. They are about rape culture and the fight of women to control their bodies and own their sexuality. They are about the disaffection of our children and young adults. They are about failing economies, people without work, the haves having more and the have-nots having so little that they turn to crime in despair. They are about the need for forgiveness. They are about guilt and conscience and ethics. And they show that not a damn thing has changed (at least in the Canada of today, the country I live in, it hasn't. Canada right now is the Sweden of the seventies and that is fucking depressing).

Into all of these issues, spanning nine years a this point, are thrust Martin Beck and Lennart Kollberg. They solve murders for the National Police Squad. They are men of conscience, actively struggling everyday with the issues Sjöwall & Wahlöö drop in their path. By the close of the book, one of them resigns from the force he once loved and now disdains. The other goes wearily on. People die over the course of Cop Killer, even a cop (though the "actual" cop killer is rather surprising). The wrong man is railroaded into prison to await trial for a crime he didn't commit simply because it is the path of least resistance. Other men are hunted and ear-marked for death because of coincidence. A girl is bitten repeatedly in the groin by an attack dog because she helped some friends (though she'd already surrendered when the dog attacked). A cop and a man he helped convict of murder (now free after serving his sentence) sit down over a seltzer water and an aquavit to share their guilt over the people they've killed. And one cop looks forward to eating a meal with the woman he loves. It's all here in this marvellous book.

Make no mistake, these books are not to be taken lightly; they are literature. They should be the canon of police procedurals. If you love detective stories and you've not read the Martin Beck books you need to get started. You'll see why.

p.s. If you decide to read this series take my advice and reread Roseanna just before you read this for the first time. I did quite by accident and a happy accident it was.

Later ... Cop Killer is even better this second time through. I won't add much, but the fact that we return to the character of Folke Bengtsson eight years on and take our time with him, and get to know him further, and that he is even sadder than when we first knew him way back in Roseanna, is a wonderful bit of character study by Sjöwall & Wahlöö. This decalogue is a dream. If you've not read it, you should.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two seemingly unrelated events happen in this book: A woman is found strangled in Anderslöv, a small village in southern Sweden, an incident that takes about half of the book to investigate, but then a cop killing takes place, and the two crimes are linked. The series is really a planned, ten-book series about Sweden in the late sixties and seventies, a kind of close look at the underbelly of a place revered by socialists and hedonists alike: Free love! Cheap drugs! Happy happy!

But author team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo pull the curtain back on this apparent wonderland. They are critical of cops and they are critical of criminals, but they are mainly critical of the social and economic system that makes decline and crime inevitable, social and economic issues that are largely unaddressed. In each book, the cops are getting more and more burned-out, and Beck’s best friend Kohlberg actually resigns with a letter that speaks the authors’ views. Free love, and a woman is strangled in an apparent act of misogyny?

In the process, two suspects from former books are seen by higher-ups as suspects they insist should be arrested, but jumping to these conclusions is not good police work, of course, and underneath all the grime is the importance of careful, good and principled detectives committed to doing the right thing.

Malm, the incompetent and effete snob police commissioner, is the cartoonish model for a guy in the same role in Jo Nesbo’s thriller series. Comic relief? I just can’t take these guys seriously. But I more and more like Beck, who after an eighteen-year unhappy marriage, seems to be in love with a woman named Rhea. Yay for a little light and sweetness. Beck is a model for so many tight-lipped, miserable detectives in a range of novel series in the decades that follow.

And Sjowall and Wahloo’s overall purpose to examine society through the lens of crime, as intro writer and detective novelist Michael Connelly says, is a model for so many social critiques in the guise of mysteries ever since (though you could say that that was what Dostoevksy’s Crime and Punishment was also about: society seen through a society’s crime).

Oh, and this one is in rural Sweden, not urbanStockholm, which now is touched by murder more and more. It’s not just about Stockholm, but Swedish society.

And in these books, so much rage against cops and so much rage by cops against criminals. That ambiguous title. Cops as killers and cops killed by cop killers. In the early seventies? Prescient of our current cop/crime wars?

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought: oh no, there's only one more book left!

It's been about a year now since the events of The Locked Room. Martin Beck's life has gained some stability since he met Rhea Nielsen, the landlady of the victim in the previous novel. Now he's called to the small rural town of Anderslöv, where a young woman, Sigbrit Mård, has gone missing. Described as a "highly normal" person, Sigbrit isn't the type to just up and wander off into another life, so the police suspect foul play. The two main suspects in the case are her ex-husband and a returning character from the first book in this series, Roseanna, and it is because of the latter that Beck becomes involved in the crime. Things heat up when Sigbrit's body is discovered, and the press has a field day, putting immense amounts of pressure on the police to solve the crime, and literally trying the case in the newspapers. Beck's superiors in the National Police feel that the public will be happy if Beck takes the most obvious suspect into custody, but they're not the ones directly involved and Beck is frustrated. His instincts tell that him something is just not right here, and that the obvious may not be everything it seems. While this investigation is going on, there's another crime -- this time against three members of the police force when they make a traffic stop where things go very badly and a shooting occurs. One of the accomplices in this crime gets away, and the police must try to find him -- but not solely for his participation in this crime. In the meantime, one of the members of the Homicide Squad begins to wonder if maybe he's had enough.

The ninth of out ten books in this series, Cop Killer is a very thought-provoking novel, with one of the key discussions that runs throughout the story centered on whether or not police should be armed, and whether or not an armed police force is the cause of so many gun-related deaths. But beyond this debate, the book's title also gives a clue into the growing disenchantment of more seasoned members of the national police force, who realize that their abilities are being hampered by the rise in bureaucratic ineptitude. For example, Stig Malm, Beck's boss, begins to call the shots from his comfy desk and tell the detectives how to do their jobs, even though in Beck's murder case, Beck knows that if he follows Malm's orders, he may be committing a miscarriage of justice. The same is true for the other case, but Malm is more concerned with pleasing the National Police Commissioner than anything else. Even worse, to get his name and face in the newspaper, he takes command of operations in which he has no business being involved, and time has proven that things turn out very badly when he insinuates himself into these situations. But on the whole, the police force has changed both from within and from without, and not always for the better, and for some people it's just too much to deal with any more.

Once again, these authors have given their readers a terrific story while continuing their tradition of social critique of what they see as the betrayal of the ideals of the welfare state. You may or may not agree with them or care about a Sweden of 40+ or so years ago, but you can't help but admire their sophisticated plotting talents, their ongoing characters who act and think like real people, and above all their literary talent. Personally I'm rather sad that the series is almost at an end, because I know I'm never going to experience anything like it again. While there are some well-known modern writers of Scandinavian crime fiction that are quite popular right now (for example Henning Mankell or Stieg Larsson), I would hate to think that these fine books are being overlooked when they are clearly a part of the best that the Nordic countries have to offer.

Definitely recommended, but you should read the series in order to get the most out of it.

-sigh. On to the last book.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman goes missing in rural southern Sweden and Martin Beck is sent down to find out what has happened to her. An old adversary and convicted sex offender just happens to be the woman's next door neighbour and was the last person seen talking to her. Surely he has been up to his old tricks.

As ever Beck grinds his way to a result, clue by painstaking clue. I liked the way that he warmed to the pace of life in the Skane region.

In parallel a shoot out between a couple of car thieves and the police leave two dead (a 1-1 score draw), hence the title of the book, though not all is what it seems.

A clunky coincidence links the two issues and I found that this jarred with what was otherwise a good read, hence four stars instead of five. There are also odd passages of lefty liberal anti police and capitalist society invective, almost as if the authors remembered to pause every now and then to add the message alongside the compelling plot. As a card carrying liberal I found this quaint.

[Seher Andaç · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ekibe yeni katılıp neşeli kahkahalar atanlar olduğu gibi, eskinin suçluları da yeni bir hayat peşindeler; anlatıldı ben de okudum. Eski suçlu ve polis, tanışıklığın güven dolu sohbetini bile yapabildiler ki hikayeye insani bir sıcaklık kattı.
Kitap o kadar akıcı ki okumak için elime aldığımda farkında olmadan yüz sayfa bitmiş oluyor:)

[Choco Con Churros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué sencillito!. Qué bueno!. Qué sabor agridulce en la boca!.
Toda una crítica desencantada de la policía sueca de la época, viviendo para la galería, montando persecuciones a nivel nacional de un veinteañero que saben inocente (entre otras cosas porque saben que el crimen, en realidad, ni siquiera se cometió), acusando sin pruebas, conflictos provocados por la propia policía al acercarse arma en mano, provocando reacciones de pánico, etc.
Cambios que según los autores se produjeron al cambiar el sistema de financiación de la policía, en una crítica durísima muy bien insertada en la trama, de la que se desprende sóla, de alguien verdaderamente muy, muy desencantado de la policía de su país y época de la que no espera nada.
Como siempre, todo está contado a través de unas historias de gran sencillez y simplicidad, unos casos que no son gran cosa en realidad, pero que los policías empeoran notablemente y hace que acabes poniéndote de parte de las víctimas (los "supuestos" delincuentes, en este caso).

[Marisol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per y Maj son una pareja de escritores suecos que a 4 manos escribieron la serie del detective Martín Beck que comenzó con el libro mítico de Rosseane. Y que fundaron las bases de la novela negra nórdica, dándole el empuje que necesitaba para convertirse en lo que es en la actualidad.

En este libro No 9 El asesino de policías, vemos a un Martín Beck un poco más viejo, divorciado y con un bajón en su carrera debido a un ascenso prometido que el no quería y que al final no se dio, pero que afectó por así decirlo su imagen en la policía, pero al mismo tiempo es un tipo que encuentra el amor en Rhea y esto le insufla vida, lo cual se nota en su renovado vigor.


De que va la trama: “Los hechos son muy sencillos, se investiga una desaparición. La mujer en cuestión se llama Sigbrit Mard. Tiene treinta y ocho años de edad y trabaja en una pastelería en Trelleborg. Divorciada, sin hijos, vive sola en una casita en Domme. Eso está en la carretera de Malmö.”

A partir de aquí se inicia una investigación que parece seguir el cauce hacia un vecino de la víctima, un asesino confeso que cumplió condena y que vive tranquilamente, tiene gallinas, peces y hortalizas, que le permite vender los productos derivados. Pero Martín Beck no esta convencido de esto y continúa investigando el caso.

Aquí vemos varios temas que son constantes en la serie de Martín Beck ambientada en los años 60 y 70, critica a la política económica y social en Suecia, el hartazgo de los ciudadanos hacia las instituciones que los representan, a la policía que en pro de mejorar, han contribuido con violencia a generar más violencia, también se profundiza en que muchas veces los casos se resuelven más por suerte y trabajo duro que por inteligencia y despliegue de fuerzas.

Siempre disfruto leer libros de la serie de Martín Beck, y este no fue la excepción.

👩‍❤️‍👨📚📝La anécdota: Per y Maj: se casaron y concibieron el proyecto de una serie de 10 novelas protagonizadas por una brigada de policía donde el personaje principal sería Martín Beck, aunque hay otros integrantes de la brigada que son muy buenos personajes.

✔️🔝Pros: No se quedan en el mero entretenimiento, a través de sus historias hicieron criticas bastantes duras al sistema sueco, el realismo es una parte importante, ademas ponen en tela de juicio los métodos policiales utilizados más para impactar que para solucionar.

❌‼️Contras: La serie se va acabando y sólo queda un título para completar los diez.

📚📖Cita: “En un año ella había cambiado su vida y le había dado más satisfacciones que veinte años de matrimonio con una persona a quien una vez amó, una persona que le dio dos hijos y muchos momentos de gozo. ”

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started book nine (out of ten) in the series with some trepidation, hoping nothing terminal will happen to Martin Beck or one of his colleagues. Beck already came pretty close to snuffing it in book 7 - "The Abominable Man. For more than half of the novel I was then baffled about the title, as the ongoing investigation was about the disappearance, possibly murder, of a divorced single woman from a small village near Malmo, and none of the Criminal Bureau members were injured or threatened.
The reason for my confusion is the change of focus in the Story of Crime from catching bad guys to pointing out the social injustice that creates the conditions for crime, from the personal to the national issues. This close to the finish line, Beck and his colleagues still chase criminals, still meticulously investigate clues and interview witnesses, but they are throughly disillusioned with their jobs and their society. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo are as good at sketching characters and providing realistic dialogue, but the reader is insistently directed to see the big picture, to look at the root causes and not at the external manifestations of evil.

In the disappearance of the woman from Malmo, the first thing that strikes Beck and Kollberg is how much better it is to live in a small rural area than in Stockholm. The second is about how easy it is to jump to conclusions under pressure from the scandal sheets and from impatient superiors worried about their reputation. Since the neighbor of the missing woman is none other than the murderer of Roseanna from the first book in the series (released after a dodgy psychiatric investigation), everyone is convinced of his guilt and cries for his arrest in the absence of any hard evidence. Only Beck's and Kollberg's integrity keep the investigation going. The theme of prejudice and misconceptions is reiterated with another returning character, the killer from book two - "The Man Who Went Up in Smoke" - who is also released, and now works as an investigative reporter under an assumed name.

The cherry on the cake of rushing to judgement comes in the second half of the novel, as a separate incident that should have resulted in a quiet arrest on a night road, ends instead with three corpses - two policemen and one robber. The second robber is the subject of a nationwide manhunt. The previous book - "The Locked Room" - used a similar plot device of solving one case accidentally by mixing it with a totally unrelated second case. I was curious how Sjowall and Wahloo will link the investigations this time around and I was not disappointed : a lot of luck and a touch of alertness and attention to details, a healthy dose of common sense and courage.

Coming back to the issue of the cop killer that takes over the second part of the novel, my first observation is how close the details of the case reflect the debate at the end of 2014 about suspects dying when resisting arrest:

He also knew he was being pictured as some sort of public enemy number one. A cop killer, pure and simple. A person who had to be put out of action by any and all means.

---

They've got in the States, believe you me. Just let a policeman shoot somebody, and it's always "justifiable homicide". Legitimate murder, or whatever we'd call it in Swedish. It happens every day.

The second observation is a reiteration of the role of the press in feeding mass hysteria while blissfully ignoring the absence of real information about the case, a knee-jerking reaction that is often translated in shooting at shadows and collateral casualties. The whole debacle of the chase for the cop killer may be the funniest sequence in the whole series (sending the reader elegantly back to the mental state at the end of "The Laughing Policeman"), if it wasn't for the bitter awareness that such cases still crop out every year, in every part of the globe:

Martin Beck and Kollberg both knew that being a policeman wasn't especially dangerous, even if the higher echelons and a lot of individual policemen did like to overdramatize their profession.

Yet this novel was published in 1974, not in 2014! Visionary or simply observant? The authors are at their best as they deploy their blackest shade of humor and sarcastic dialogue to portray police incompetence, starting with the patrolman on the street and going up to the top of the piramid, to Superintendent Malm, who dreams himself the general of an army and assembles a crack team of special operations forces to catch of a single petty criminal. Unlike in the early books of the series, the duo of left-leaning writers are quick to apportion blame and to point out how the individual cases are only symptoms of a widespread disease, of a whole society self-destructingn through greed and incompetence. It gets too much for Kollberg, who hands in his resignation in the form of an angry manifesto against the militarization of the police force and the corruption of its mission to serve and protect:

Nevertheless, the crime rate continued to climb, and violence steadily increased. There seemed to be no one within the police administration capable of grasping the simple truth that violence breeds violence and that, in fact, it was the police who had struck the first blow.

In conclusion, the ninth book in the Story of Crime has an interesting mystery surrounding a missing person and a too likely suspect, but the actual procedural is pushed somehow in the background as the spotlight is put on larger political and social issues. An added bonus is the tying up of the story from single episodes into a coherent big canvas, bringing back characters and situations from all the earlier installments and putting them in context. Wahloo and Sjowall are still impressive in their narrative skills, and I am real sorry there is only one more book to read.

[Berengaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up to 5

Polismördaren (eng: Cop Killer, dt: Polizistenmörder) is the excellent 9th instalment of the Martin Beck series (1960s-70s) and would have been my vote for the best one of the series...until it fell apart somewhat at the end. The title for Best Beck stays with Den Skrattende Polisen (eng: The Laughing Policeman) and this one gets silver.

What a load of fun this mystery is for Beck fans! Not only are characters from previous mysteries brought back in surprisingly inventive ways, but we are also treated to seeing where Beck's original team have ended up 9 years after the first book.

The writing is superb, of course, and even better in the original Swedish.

The mystery is very well done...until the last 30-odd pages, where the authors painted themselves a little bit into a corner and had to sprinkle some "lucky hap" fairy dust to get themselves out again. (Forgivable to a point.)

One thing to note:

Over the course of the series, the plots and characters become more and more political, as the authors used the series as a way to express their anger and dissatisfaction with the state of Sweden and the Swedish authorities at the time.

At book 9, the ranting is fairly loud.

In some ways, that makes the later books stronger, more interesting and the plots more compelling. In other ways it makes them one-sided and at times, they contain characters that are not real characters, but vehicles to demonstrate a point or act as a mouthpiece for the authors' political convictions. Today, many of these rants read like world-building, the painting of how the world of the characters works, and not as lava-hot rage at a reality the authors themselves were living in.

Given that, this book can simply be read for the story, but also as a historical snapshot of a time and place that was suffering from very similar problems we still are today, some 50 years later.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't help noting the similarity in titles between this book and the first of the Ed McBain books that I read earlier this month. McBain's book was Cop Hater. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo stated that McBain's work was an inspiration and model for their Martin Beck series, so was this title an homage to McBain?

Whether it was or not, Sjowall/Wahloo's writing style continues to owe much to that established by McBain in his police procedurals. The writing is spare and straightforward, although the series does allow for considerable character development. We've gotten to know Martin Beck and the members of his team very well in the course of these books.

The books have gotten progressively better as the series has continued, in my opinion, and I have to say that this one, the penultimate entry, is my favorite so far.

Cop Killer focuses on the working relationship between Martin Beck and Sten Lennart Kollberg, his most trusted colleague. Together they go to the village of Anderslolv in southern Sweden to investigate the disappearance of a woman. A few days into the investigation the woman's body is found in an out-of-the-way location near a lake. She has been murdered, so now the two have a murder case on their hands. They are aided in the investigation by a local policeman, Herrgott Allwright, who seems to know everything about everyone in the small village.

Suspicion immediately falls on the woman's next door neighbor who turns out to be the culprit who was apprehended by Beck and his team in the first novel, Roseanna. The man had been released from prison and was trying to make a new life for himself in Anderslolv.

Beck's superiors insist that the neighbor be arrested and Beck and Kollberg reluctantly comply although neither really believes the man is guilty and they continue investigating.

Meanwhile, in another part of the country, two inept young criminals have burgled an unoccupied summer cottage and taken everything that wasn't nailed down. In their escape, they drive without turning on their headlights which gets the attention of a police patrol and they are stopped by the infamous Karl Kristiansson and his new partner (His first one was killed in The Abominable Man.) Kenneth Kvastmo, who is just as inept as his old partner but is much more zealous in the pursuit of criminals. It is Kvastmo who insists on pursuing and stopping the car and he emerges from the police vehicle with his gun drawn. Before the encounter ends, two policeman are shot and another is injured in a very weird way and one of the young criminals is dead. The other one escapes and later ditches his car and steals another one. As serendipity would have it, that car turns out to be connected to Beck's murder case!

It all turns into a typical horrible mess, again exemplifying the ineptitude of the Swedish police system. As always in these books, Sjowall/Wahloo are very critical of the brutality and excesses of the police which they see as an outgrowth of failings of the Swedish welfare state of the period. All of this is portrayed in a very sardonic way in their prose. They use humor very effectively to make their points and often the reader can't help chuckling over some of the Inspector Clouseau-like episodes.

At the same time, individual policemen like Beck and Kollberg and several of their colleagues - Gunvald Larsson, Fredrik Melander, Per Mansson, etc. - are shown as dedicated and hard-working, if flawed, professionals who doggedly pursue their investigations of criminality, even in the face of bureaucratic indifference or ignorance.

On a lighter note, we finally see Martin Beck in a satisfying romantic relationship after so many years in a very unfulfilling marriage that ended in divorce. Rhea Nielsen, a woman that he met in the last novel, has become his lover and for the first time since we've know him, he actually seems happy! But will it last?

Only one more book to go in the series. I miss Martin Beck already and he's not even gone.

[M.J. Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only bad thing about the Martin Beck series is the fact that there are only ten stories and this is the ninth! The only consolation is the possibility of reading and enjoying them all over again! Excellent.

[suzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

馬丁貝克刑事檔案《弒警犯》

從《上鎖的房間》開始，可以感覺到兩位作者對於社會議題有更深的關懷，到了《弒警犯》，這種透過故事剖析社會結構問題的感覺更強烈了，也讓我更期待故事中的平民百姓出場。

如果問我《馬丁貝克》系列要不要從第一集開始看，我會說要。
《弒警犯》就是最直接的答案。
單看這本還是可以知道柯柏的心境轉折，也能看出斯德哥爾摩和特樂柏（Trelleborg）兩地警民關係的落差。但看到某些配角出現時，無法產生那種……見到曾經一起合作的同事，可以安心信賴的親切感。對於故事中描寫警界近年轉變對社會所造成的影響，感受也不會那麼敏銳。

撇開系列作的包袱（？），只說《弒警犯》吧，這本書是看了很過癮的好小說！細節環環相扣，將線索串連起來的過程也精彩，真的會有「這就對了」的暢快感！
馬丁貝克系列有幾本書的收尾會給我懸而未決的感覺，但這本還挺圓滿的。

想到下一本就是最後了還頗不捨，但又覺得這樣的安排對大家都好，想祝福大家未來的日子都平安健康、事事順心～ (Hand Over Heart)

電子書：http://moo.im/a/09jkmG

[Tom Donaghey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cop Killer (1974) (Martin Beck #8) by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo. Like the first seven books in the Martin Beck series, this too is great. A woman disappears in a small Swedish town. This is an almost daily happening somewhere in the world and nothing to be too alarmed about. People walk away from their lives for thousands of different reasons, while a small percentage are taken from their routine life against their wishes. This woman might have been abducted by her neighbor, Folke Bengtsson. He was once convicted of murdering an American tourist. That murder was detailed in the first book of this series, Roseanna.
With his return in this crime novel, the powers that be decide to send Martin Beck and Lennart Kollberg from of the National Police Squad to assist in the investigation. The woman is missing and signs point to Folke as possibly having given her a ride back from town to her house. A house that is down the road a bit yet the next house along from Folke’s.
While the investigation drags along slowly, a second event, seemingly unrelated occurs. Three policemen, during a traffic stop, are shot at by one of the two young men in the stopped car. One young man escapes, the other is killed. One of the police is killed by the unexpected and surprising “Cop Killer” of the title. A nationwide alert is put out for the car the second man drove off in, but he soon ditches it and steals another, then heads off for Stockholm.
As in each of the previous books, seemingly random events lead to the actual criminal. Beck and Kohlberg talk to a lot of people, eat many meals, and wait for the puzzle to break. The woman’s body is discovered by hikers almost at the end of the book. Folke is arrested though neither of the detectives is convinced he is guilty. There is the usual interference from higher authorities that called for his arrest, quietly wanting the case ended without further ado.
But this book is not meant to be only a police story. This decade of novels written over a decade is a cry from the authors calling out injustice in Swedish society of that time. The books are about the overwhelming injustice felt at all but the highest levels of society. Look to the streets of any country today and you can see what they were writing about almost 60 years ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
While these books are now relics from a former age, you might be surprised at just how alive they are and relevant to the world of today. And they are among the first of the “police procedural” novels out there, framing the structure for what was to come. Read these as fun, as a journey to the past, as a harbinger for today and tomorrow, but just read them. And I suggest you start with Roseanna and go straight through the series. You won’t be disappointed.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a bit taken aback when the book seemed to leave the main mystery about two-thirds of the way through to tackle the case of the 'cop killer' but the two cases do connect up in the end. The name is a bit misleading as the 'cop killer' case is clearly the secondary mystery; however, it does illustrate the authors' point about the police & government bureaucracy perfectly.

This 1973 Swedish book and what the authors are trying to say about relations between police & citizens struck me as strikingly relevant to 2016 U.S. In the police, in this book (and I assume in today's forces), the individual policemen vary from the lazy & incompetent to the honest & hard-working, from the bullies who revel in the power that the badge gives them to the naive foolhardiness of some rookies to the tired experienced men. What is scary to Kollberg and Beck (and to me!) is the organizational mindset of a bureaucracy which views aggressive confrontation as the natural and best response to any situation, with bigger and more weapons as an improvement. And encouraging this mindset is the journalism which is uninterested in waiting for "the truth" as long as a good headline can be found.

Into this scenario enters the 'cop killer' -- a teenaged boy who was present when another boy shoots at a couple of patrolmen after one of them begins to threaten him. The cop who dies does so as a result of a bee sting he gets when he is hiding from all the commotion in a ditch! But that doesn't factor into the police chief's decision to start a country-wide man hunt for the "Cop Killer" complete with attack dogs, tear gas and assault weapons... This sort of over-reaction is part of what leads to dead black kids in America.

[Timothy · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 1/2 stars.

Personally, I'm scratching my head over all of the great reviews for this book. I admit that it starts off fairly well with the murder of a divorced woman who's body is hidden in the woods and the subsequent search for her killer. Unfortunately, about half way through the book the authors suddenly start up an, apparently, completely different story about two youths involved in a shoot-out with police and the search for one of the survivors of that incident.

It is at this point that they take the long way around, by way of Coincidenceville, to tie the two threads together and solve the mystery of who committed the murder at the beginning of the book. Add to this the schizophrenic feel of the final few chapters - it's a murder mystery, no it's a police procedural, no it's a man-hunt, no it's a slapstick farce, no it's a diatribe against the Swedish police who are nothing more than a bunch of lazy bastards/thugs/incompetents - and what started out being a well-written, engaging mystery turns into a forced, unbelievable, disappointing mess.

[Rafa Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otra magnífica novela dentro de la serie Marín Beck, la autora depura su estilo y no distrae al lector de su mensaje principal: las sociedades modernas atropellan y someten a los ciudadanos mientras en la propaganda oficial aseguran que todo lo hacen por tu bien. El estado benefactor te aliena y desespera. Pequeños delincuentes son empujados a cometer graves delitos, policías burocratizados son capaces de acusar falsamente y sin remordimientos, en un ambiente de corporativismo. Y todo sin dejar de lado el humor y algunos gags, como en las últimas entregas. Una novela imprescindible.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful writing, characters, and the social and political commentary sadly as valid today as it was over 40 years ago ... Only one more of the series to go sadly, but hey, then I can read them all again!

Six years later, read for the second time with just as much enjoyment!

[Tittirossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo giallo pochissimo giallo e molto romanzo a tesi è coinvolgente più che avvincente, ed anche abbastanza straniante per chi, come me, ha della Svezia un'idea di socialdemocrazia avanzata, di società garantista, di stato illuminato. Infatti, rispetto ai due libri precedenti, gli autori delineano una critica feroce verso la società ed il gruppo di potere che governa la Svezia (le loro opere risalgono agli anni '70). Questo però senza intaccare il valore dell'opera, cioè senza che questi excursus con opinioni personali appesantisca l'impianto narrativo. Anzi, si inseriscono in modo congeniale alla trama. Che a sua volta costituisce un notevole gioco di incastri e di analisi sociale e psicologica. Ma la cosa più bella del libro è che fa venire voglia di fiondarsi in libreria e di comprarne degli altri degli stessi autori ....

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know if Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö planned for there to only be ten books in the Martin Beck series but here, at book nine, things seem to be wrapping up. This book is the most self-referential of its predecessors by far, even going as far as bringing a former convict from one of the past crimes back as a minor but important character. It acknowledges the journey you go on with these people.

At the heart of this one is Martin Beck. The series bears his name only because he’s the highest ranking officer in the homicide department. Usually, these pieces feature an ensemble cast. Yet with few exceptions, he mostly takes the lead. And I think there’s a clear reason why the writing team does that.

Previous books had been critical of the criminal justice system in Sweden. There have been strong hints at the rise of police militarization and the problems that causes. Usually, they’re but a few brushstrokes on the painting. Here, they’re dragged to the center. Whatever Beck’s faults are as a (fictional) human, Sjöwall and Wahlöö clearly see him as the moral balance of the police force, just by nature of him being competent and not hot-headed. He has prejudices but he rarely acts on them in his job.

The case itself becomes two cases and they’re resolved in typical Sjöwall/Wahlöö fashion, with luck and shoe leather police work. As Beck is working on the case, he reads in the paper that he’s been referred to as “the Swedish Maigret”, a reference to Georges Simenon’s legendary Parisian detective. Beck scoffs at this and those who have journeyed this far in the series will too. It’s an anti-thriller. Crimes get solved and the big picture never gets resolved.

This is the most didactic of the Beck series since Murder at the Savoy. It’s clear the writers have an axe to grind with their native land. That impacts the book a little bit but not enough to shake its standing as another good entry in a great series. Sadly, I have but one book left.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

C'era del marcio in Scandinavia e questo bel giallo della saga di Martin Beck ce ne da' conto. Un libro scritto come sempre bene dalla coppia di autori, dialoghi veri e attendibili con una sottile vena ironica che non guasta. Il sarcasmo rende piu' lieve anche le parti di piu' esplicita denuncia sociale, fermo restante che la trama piu' strettamente gialla e' come sempre ben condotta. L'aura e' crepuscolare, riflessiva, lontana mille anni luce dalle chiassate dello stile USA ad esempio, ma per questo piu' apprezzabile.

[Vanja B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skitbra
2022: läste om den! Uppskattade den nog lite mer nu

[fiza nasri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught my attention at the very first chapter-- a woman was murdered and dumped in a swamp. And Folke Bengtsson is back after the Roseanna's incident. I really love the plot this time, Herrgott Allwright was a lovely policeman and Beck and Kollberg doing great like usual.

Love on how the book shows me about the crime and given me few suspects but with no how and whom exactly. Giving me so much chills and nervousness, guessing and assumptions.

The side case about Caspar was another engrossing part. Loving Kollberg so much here. I keep on assuming and guessing on how both cases could be related like how both Kollberg and Beck will cross path during the investigation-- so much thrill and action. Quite unputdownable-- those seriousness and something-is-missing-but-what is somehow making me can't wait to finish this off.

Interesting plot structure, quite excellent though few chapters in between changing perspectives and such but the flow was still great and gripping. Another favorite from Beck's series!

[Jesus Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cop killer

This one was an interesting one, the case was kind of solved because of luck, but all the detective work Beck did to find the hints and evidence that would help them capture the killer was very interesting. Also one mayor character makes a big decision, unfortunately only one book left.

4 stars

Beck goes to some small town where a woman is missing, they have an immediate suspect, the woman’s neighbor is the guy Beck captured as the murderer of the case in the first book. But Beck is not convinced he is guilty this time.

Some investigative work is done, then the body is found, they find a new suspect but no-one knows who he is except for the main suspect, they find he drives a specific car and is named Carl. While this is going on, in some other city a patrol stops a car and one of the guys shots the cops, one dies. But the other man escapes.

And then we see the critic part, when the man in charge of finding the fleeing suspect, manages to make the suspect scape because he tried to capture him in a big operation, with lots of armed police, canine units, even a helicopter.

In the end everyone solves their cases, but some major change is going to happen for next book after one character decides to quit the police force.

[Karmologyclinic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Random thoughts.

This is how a crime novel would look like, if Bertolt Brecht ever wrote one. He didn't (at least I think he didn't) and so Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo wrote it for him.

They use crime novel format to make their point, yet they take it and flip it over to show you how it looks like underneath. They use cliches as bricks and build tension, only to pull it down in the end in a small pathetic debris. The term "real life" is inserted back into the equation. Not everything needs to be dramatic, heroic or proportionally large.

I really like how they use the titles of the books. My favorite one is what they do with "The Fire Engine That Disappeared". "Cop Killer" is quite unusual, from the start of the book you wait for a cop to get killed right? And there are numerous moments when one of the heroes is very close to being shot. But it never happens. A cop gets killed, sure, but it's because he got stung by a bee. The whole setup is an ironιc critique on an intolerant and misinformed police force.

It makes me sad that there's only one book left in the series.

[cloudyskye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another really good one set in Skåne (southern Sweden) and Stockholm in 1973.

The story is well-told, both the crime and its solution and our protagonists and their development. We have a return of the criminal from book 1, and Martin Beck's Skåne colleague answers to the - for Germans - hilarious sounding name of Herrgott Nöjd.

As an aside: Much as I enjoy reading this series, I'm part amused, part exasperated by the authors' attitude throughout. It is a mix of bitterness and pessimism, certainly for some good reasons, towards a faceless "system", "society", and the strongly lefty views seemingly obligatory to all "intellectuals" of the time. Or all time. Mind, they do what we call "Jammern auf hohem Niveau" (whining on a high level, roughly translated from German). First World problems.
Now, decades later, that moral pointing finger feels rather naive.

On to the last one, my favourite.

2025 reread: Nothing to add to my original review.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story begins with a young woman, Sigbrit Mård, picked up and murdered on the outskirts of a small town by someone she knows. Martin Beck arrives in Anderslöv to help with the disappearance, with suspicion pointing to her ex-husband, a violent, sea-faring drunk, and Folke Bengtsson, a paroled sex-murderer from an earlier novel. The book is a bit slow though, with the second plot emerging mid-way involving a shooting that is arguably police-triggered and a countrywide search for the accomplice. Martin and his team resist the relentless pressure of the bosses, and find the criminals without fanfare or violence. Sjowall and Wahloo's political messaging is loud and clear in the letter written by Lennart Kollberg. I enjoyed the local policeman in Anderslöv, Herrgott Allwright, who seems to know everything about everyone in the small village and neighboring area.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tedious. I'm utterly mystified by the high average rating this book has.

I was a bit surprised to see "nigger" used (I always take note of this in novels). I wondered what Swedish term resulted in this translation. "It doesn't work right, and at night it gets colder than nigger hell in here."

There was also this:

[The dog] threw itself directly at the woman and knocked her to the floor on her back. Then it bit her on the left thigh, in the groin.

"By God, that dog sure knows where to bite a whore," said one of the policemen, laughing.

Since they could see right away that Caspar and The Breadman were gone, they let the dog bite her again in roughly the same spot.

"Well, at least we'll have some use for the ambulance," said the policeman with the sense of humor.

[Iblena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se nota que a Martin Beck ya le queda poco para su retiro: atrás queda el policía de aspecto triste, gris e hipocondríaco. En El asesino de policías, el lector se topa con un protagonista nostálgico, relajado y enamorado, que sabe reír e incluso se muestra empático, hasta el punto de dar consejos a un sospechoso.

Aunque la trama se resuelve de forma anecdótica, su punto fuerte son las críticas al estado de bienestar; unos dardos que, pese a los 41 años transcurridos desde su publicación, siguen plenamente vigentes en nuestra sociedad.

[Martin Hernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confirmo lo dicho: entre más voy avanzando en esta colección de novelas, más decepcionantes me resultan.
Repito lo dicho: El personaje principal, Martin Beck, es cada vez menos protagonista, ocuma menos espacio en la narración que sus colegas (aunque a veces es interesante la interacción entre los diferentes policías de su equipo). Gran parte de la narración se dedica a reflexiones y críticas de los autores sobre la sociedad en ese momento, que me parece no vienen mucho al caso en una novela de detectives.
Tomo todavía más plano, menos interesante como los volúmenes previos.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm in the position of looking at that box of candy, when only one piece is left. Cop Killer was number nine, a bit slower than the last few, but at this point Martin Beck & company are like an old group of friends whom I'm just happy to hang out with. As is their habit, Sjöwall and Wahlöö throw in plenty of wry laughs along the way.