I came fairly late in life to detective fiction. The first detective novel I remember reading was The Underground Man by Ross MacDonald about 1978, and I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I stumbled on Roseanna by two Swedish authors whose names I didn’t know how to pronounce–Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. I later learned it would be considered a “police procedural” It featured a middle aged Stockholm homicide detective named Martin Beck.
I was so delighted when I learned there were more Martin Beck mysteries, ten in all. I have all of them in my bookcase upstairs, and I have read them at least three times. The series stopped when Per Wahloo died in 1975.
One time a student was in my office complaining about San Jose State, how political science was a crock, how I wasn’t telling the truth about American politics, how I was part of the lying establishment. She was crying, I was upset, and I said, “Yeah, well, I’d rather be at home reading Martin Beck mysteries.” She stopped crying, looked at me, and said, “You read Martin Beck?” From then on we were ok. It was one of my best teaching experiences ever.
The Martin Beck series was the forerunner of what is today often referred to as “Swedish noir.” If you liked the Steig Larsson books or Jo Nesbo, thank Ms. Sjowall.
No comments:
Post a Comment