Order of Martin Beck Books
Martin Beck is the lead character in a series of Scandinavian crime fiction novels by Swedish novelists Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Martin Beck is a Stockholm police detective. Martin is described as a tall smoker and has a weak immune system. He has two teenage sons. Al of the novels have been adapted to film and/or television in various languages, most notably by Walter Matthau in the 1973 film The Laughing Policeman. The series is also known as The Story of a Crime.
Sjowall and Wahloo started their Martin Beck series in 1965 with the novel Roseanna. The series lasted ten novels, concluding in 1976 with the novel The Terrorists. Below is a list of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo’s Martin Beck books in order of when they were originally released (which is the same as their chronological order):
Publication Order of Martin Beck Books
(By: Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö)
| Roseanna | (1965) |    |
| The Man Who Went Up in Smoke | (1966) | |
| The Man on the Balcony | (1967) | |
| The Laughing Policeman / Investigation of Murder | (1968) | |
| The Fire Engine that Disappeared | (1969) | |
| Murder at the Savoy | (1970) | |
| The Abominable Man | (1971) | |
| The Locked Room | (1972) | |
| Cop Killer | (1974) | |
| The Terrorists | (1975) | |
Note: The Laughing Policeman was also published under the title of Investigation of Murder.
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Martin Beck/The Story of a Crime Synopsis: The Laughing Policeman is the fourth novel featuring Martin Beck by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. The book starts off on a cold and rainy night in Stockholm, when nine people on a bus are shot and killed. The press has a theory that it’s an attack by a lunatic, but Superintendent Beck has his own theory, citing that one of his young detectives was one of the victims. Beck doesn’t believe this to be a coincidence.
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Wonderful series. Set mostly in the 50’s and 60’s Stockholm. Police procedurals, but highly entertaining. The world before cell phones and
computers.