Ebook Download the Terrorists (The Martin Beck Series, Book 10
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE TERRORISTS (THE MARTIN BECK SERIES, BOOK 10) PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Maj Sjowall,Per Wahloo,Dennis Lehane | 288 pages | 05 Jan 2012 | HarperCollins Publishers | 9780007439201 | English | London, United Kingdom The Terrorists (Martin Beck Series #10) by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. Chapter 1 The National Commissioner of Police smiled. Only one of the three men smiled back. Stig Malm had beautiful white teeth and liked smiling to show them off. Over the years he had quite unconsciously acquired a whole register of smiles. The one he was using now could only be described as ingratiating and fawning. The chief of the Security Police suppressed yawn and Martin Beck blew his nose. He often did not appear until late in the morning and even then he was usually inaccessible even to his closest colleagues. He had even had a Thermos of coffee and real china cups brought in, instead of the usual plastic mugs. Stig Malm got up and poured out the coffee. Martin Beck knew that before he sat down again he would first pinch the crease in his trousers and then carefully run his hand across his well-cut wavy hair. Stig Malm was his immediate superior and Martin Beck had no respect for him whatsoever. His self-satisfied coquettishness and insinuating officiousness toward senior potentates were characteristics that Martin Beck had ceased to be annoyed by and nowadays found simply foolish. What did irritate him, on the other hand, and often constituted an obstacle to his work, was the man's rigidity and lack of self- criticism, a lack just as total and destructive as his ignorance of everything to do with practical police work. That he had risen to such a high position was due to ambition, political opportunism and a certain amount of administrative ability. The chief of the Security Police put four lumps of sugar into his coffee, stirred it with a spoon and slurped as he drank. Maim drank his without sugar, careful as he was of his trim figure. Martin Beck was not feeling well and did not want coffee this early in the morning. The National Commissioner took both sugar and cream and crooked his little finger as he raised his cup. He emptied it in one gulp and pushed it away from him, simultaneously pulling toward him a green file that had been lying on the corner of the polished conference table. You're not planning to be ill again, are you? You know we can't afford to be without you. He already was ill. He had been drinking wine with his twenty-two-year-old daughter and her boy friend until half-past three in the morning and knew that he looked awful as a result. But he had no desire to discuss his self-inflicted indisposition with his superior, and moreover he didn't think that the "again" was really fair. He had been away from work with the flu and a high temperature for three days at the beginning of March and it was now the seventh of May. A bit of a cold, that's all. There was not even feigned sympathy in his voice, only reproach. I assume we're not here to discuss my appearance or the state of my health. Judging by the contents—three or four sheets of paper at the most—there was some hope that today's meeting would not drag on for too long. On top lay a typed letter with the mark of a large green rubber stamp beneath the scrawled signature and a letterhead that Martin Beck could not make out from where he was sitting. So did Kosygin's, organizationally as well as security-wise. And the Environmental Conference, to take a maybe slightly different example. What I'm referring to is the visit by this senator from the United States at the end of November. It could turn out to be a hot potato, if I may use that expression. Martin Beck is assigned the case, while at the same time trying to protect a conservative American Senator from being assassinated during his visit to Sweden. The book begins with Det. Larsson in South America, observing preparations for a similar state visit- it goes horribly awry and the head of visiting Prime Minister ends up in his lap, separated from its body by a large explosion. Events move very quickly: Beck solves the murder of the pornographer- it turns out he had seduced his gardener's daughter into a life of drugs and dissolution, and in revenge, the gardener had murdered him. Beck's team fails to catch the terrorists as they enter the country, but he is able to stop their assassination by having the State Television stations display the motorcade on a 15 minute tape delay, which causes their explosion to miss. This, however, does not stop Rebecca Lind, the young naif from the bank robbery, from shooting the Swedish prime minister in the head, in revenge for her ill-treatment by the state. She is arrested, tried, and convicted, but not before giving a short speech that fully encapsulates the authors views on modern society: It's terrible to live in a world where people just tell lies to each other. How can someone who's a scoundrel and traitor be allowed to make decisions for a whole country? Because that's what he was. A rotten traitor. Not that I think that whoever takes his place will be any better- I'm not that stupid. But I'd like to show them, all of them who sit there governing and deciding, that they can't go on cheating people forever. A few months after she is jailed, she commits suicide. The remaining terrorists are captured one is killed. The book ends with a famous scene. Martin Beck, with his beloved new girlfriend, are over at his friend Kollberg's place. Kollberg has resigned from the force in the previous book in disgust at the way the police are forced to protect the owners of property at the expense of the people. Sjowall and Wahloo are fundamentally humanists, not Communists- they distrust all large institutions, including big businesses and state controlled police forces. Their main character, Martin Beck, has never shown any interest in politics, but throughout the series he has shown the deepest sense of compassion for the victims of the crimes he solves, and a deep sense of camaraderie with his fellow officers. He is stolidly middle class in his aspirations and morality, and one gets the sense that the authors believe that if everyone would just act more like him, the world would be a much less horrible place. Dec 12, Sun rated it really liked it. It's quite sad to read the last of the Martin Beck series and to farewell the weary policeman and his idiosyncratic crew. Did Sjowall and Wahloo foresee the role terrorism would play in today's world? Or did they just recognise that terrorism would overshadow other crimes and would become increasingly important as a threat to modern society? The novel begins as Martin Beck is called as a witness for the legal defence of Rebecka Lund, an 18 year old single mother charged with robbing a bank. The p It's quite sad to read the last of the Martin Beck series and to farewell the weary policeman and his idiosyncratic crew. The prosecutor is the gung-ho Bulldozer Olsson featured first in The Locked Room , but even he takes a backseat to the comical defense attorney Theobald Braxen. Meanwhile, Gunvald Larsson is sent overseas to learn about security measures for state visits. That all goes horribly wrong, of course, ruining his new, tailor-made suit in the process. Back in Sweden, a director of pornographic movies is killed in Malmo and Per Mansson investigates. All of these are somehow tied to the preparations for a state visit by an unpopular US senator to Stockholm. Martin Beck is put in charge and must prevent harm to the senator from the unseen terrorists of Heydt and Kaitan and Kamakazi. The anti-capitalist sentiment is not subtle but makes sense given Sjowall and Wahloo's surreal plot and extreme twists. A very enjoyable tale with unforgettable characters and a clever stroke of heightened suspense near the end. Feb 14, Marisa rated it it was amazing. I read all 10 books in this wonderful series, one after the other. What a joy to read. A police procedural set in 's Sweden, this has become the basis of modern police fiction. Martin Beck is not your typical 'cop'. He's miserable, has an ulcer, is unhappily married, with kids who don't understand him. The detective mysteries he's engaged in are varied and interesting - and gasp are not always solved with Beck in the lead -a real tribute to teamwork and the well-defined characters who are I read all 10 books in this wonderful series, one after the other. The detective mysteries he's engaged in are varied and interesting - and gasp are not always solved with Beck in the lead -a real tribute to teamwork and the well-defined characters who are his colleagues. The authors also provide some incisive social commentary into Swedish society. Only 10 books in the series, and by the time its all read, one wishes there could have been many more. I do think that Per's illness did. Please note that nothing about the final offering does not shame the series at all, but, alas, it does not crown the achievement either.