On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by an unknown assassin. The press, anxious for an explanation for the seemingly random crime, quickly dubs him a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad suspects otherwise. This apparently motiveless killer has managed to target one of Beck s best detectives and he, surely, would not have been riding that lethal bus without a reason....

Someone is killing young girls in the once-peaceful parks of Stockholm killing them after having his way. The people of Stockholm are tense and fearful. Police Superintendent Martin Beck has two witnesses: a cold-blooded mugger who won t say much and a three-year-old boy who can t say much. The dedicated work of the police force seems to be leading nowhere, and with each passing day, the likelihood of another murder grows. But then Beck remembers someone or something he overheard....

The Martin Beck mysteries dont just read well; they reread even betterIngenious.New York Times Book Review...

A young blonde in sunglasses robs a bank and kills a hapless citizen. Across town, a corpse with a bullet shot through its heart is found in a locked room with no gun at the scene. The crimes seem disparate, but to Martin Beck they are two pieces of the same puzzle, and solving it becomes the one way he can escape the pains of his failed marriage and the lingering effects of a near-fatal bullet wound. Exploring the ramifications of egotism and intellect, luck and accident, this tour de force of detection bears the unmistakable substance and gravity of real life....

When a powerful industrialist is casually shot during an after-dinner speech, the repercussions are widespread. As Martin Beck investigates, he discovers that he has nothing but contempt for the victim and sympathy for the murderer!...

Martin Beck faces one of the greatest challenges of his professional life when his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption and brutality in this incredible seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series. The bloody murder of a police captain in his hospital room exposes the particularly unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horribly brutal brand of strong-arm police work. Nonetheless, Martin Beck and his colleagues scour Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman. As Beck is gripped by an increasing feeling of impending danger, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That's when an even stronger sense of responsibility, and something like shame, urges him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster....

A young blonde in sunglasses robs a bank and kills a hapless citizen. Across town, a corpse with a bullet shot through its heart is found in a locked room with no gun at the scene. The crimes seem disparate, but to Martin Beck they are two pieces of the same puzzle, and solving it becomes the one way he can escape the pains of his failed marriage and the lingering effects of a near-fatal bullet wound. Exploring the ramifications of egotism and intellect, luck and accident, this tour de force of detection bears the unmistakable substance and gravity of real life....

The masterful second novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck searching for a well-known Swedish journalist who has disappeared without a trace.

Inspector Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad has his summer vacation abruptly terminated when the top brass at the foreign office pack him off to Budapest to search for Alf Matsson, a well-known Swedish journalist who has vanished. Beck investigates viperous Eastern European underworld figures and--at the risk of his life--stumbles upon the international racket in which Matsson was involved. With the coolly efficient local police on his side and a predatory nymphet on his tail, Beck pursues a case whose international implications grow with each new clue....