Description: The shocking penultimate novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Sjwall and Wahl finds Beck investigating parallel cases that have shocked a small community. After a woman is brutally murdered and a shootout between three cops and two teenage boys occurs, Beck and his partner Lenart Kollberg are called in on the cases.
Review Quotes: "The first great series of police thrillers. . . . Truly exciting."--Michael Ondaatje
"The [Martin Beck] series has maintained such a degree of excellence that comparisons are near impossible."--Minneapolis Tribune "It's hard to think of any other thriller writers (apart from Simenon perhaps) who can capture so much of a society in a couple of hundred pages and yet still hold true to the thriller form."--Sean and Nicci French "Sjöwall and Wahlöö write unsparingly and unswervingly. . . . Their plots are second to none."--Val McDermid "Sjöwall and Wahlöö continue to be tops for discriminating crime book readers."--Denver Post "Ingenious. . . . Their mysteries don't just read well; they reread even better. . . . The writing is lean, with mournful undertones."--The New York Times "Martin Beck is as always very believable: this, we feel, is what it must mean to be an honest and intelligent policeman in modern Sweden, or anywhere else."--Times Literary Supplement"In the hands of Wahlöö and Sjöwal . . . the police story - with no loss of suspense or action - [has been] brilliantly fashioned into a sharp instrument for social commentary."--Washington Post "Edge-of-the-seat suspense."--San Francisco Examiner