The Locked Room: A Martin Beck Police Mystery (8) (Martin Beck Police Mystery Series) - Softcover

Maj Sjöwall; Per Wahlöö

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307390497 ISBN 13: 9780307390493

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009

Synopsis

The stunning eighth installment in the Martin Beck mystery series by the renowned Swedish crime writing duo is a masterful take on a classic locked room mystery. With an introduction by Michael Connelly: "One of the most authentic, gripping, and profound collections of police procedurals ever accomplished."

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.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

A woman robs a bank. A corpse is found shot through the heart in a room locked from within--no firearm in sight. To the eerily intuitive Inspector Martin Beck, these seemingly disparate cases are facets of the same puzzle, and solving it is of vital importance.   Only by finding our what happened in the locked room can Beck--haunted by a near-fatal bullet wound and the demise of a soulless marriage--escape from an airtight prison of his own.

From its classic premise, The Locked Room accelerates into an engrossing novel of the mind. Exploring the ramifications of egotism and intellect, luck and accident, and set against the backdrop of the inspired deductions and monstrous errors of Martin Beck and the Stockholm Homicide Squad, this tour de force of detection bears the unmistakable substance and gravity of real life.

From the Back Cover

"The Wahlöös best--their densest in person and place, their most penetrating in sociology and psychology." --Judith Crist

"[Martin Beck is] a man driven to solve puzzles, with a small tragic intuition swimming deep is his mental waters that will surface suddenly to give a muted howl and then dive down again." --The New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0307390497
• ISBN 13: 9780307390493
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336