First published in Swedish in 1968, The Laughing Policeman is set in Stockholm, against a backdrop of anti-American protests. When all nine people on a bus are gunned down, the assumption is that a psychopathic mass-murderer is at work. But is it just a coincidence that one of the dead is an off-duty policeman?

The Laughing Policeman is fast-paced — I read it in an evening — and has good suspense and interesting characters. The protagonists are all policemen — series lead Martin Beck and two of his colleagues — but the procedural element is played down, with the emphasis on their private lives and on aspects of Stockholm's grimier side.

June 2008

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Related reviews:

- more Swedish literature
- more detective fiction