The Abominable Man
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The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle) is a Swedish crime novel by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö from 1971 in the series revolving around police detective Martin Beck.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
On a quiet night high-ranked police officer Nyland is literally slaughered in his hospital bed. It is not hard to find people with a motive to kill him, as Nyland was an extremely hated man; rather the problem is to narrow down on one suspect.
This novel differs notably from the others in the series because the protagonists act like true heroes. In that sense it is an American rather than a European novel. The unfortunate result of this for Martin Beck is that he gets shot, and only the next novel reveals that he narrowly escaped with his life.
[edit] Characters and their development
Martin Beck and his now grown-up daughter Ingrid develop their friendship; they eat out together.
[edit] Trivia
This is one of Donald Knuth's favourite novels:[1] he calls it "one of [Sjöwall and Wahlöö's] brilliantly Swedish detective novels".
[edit] Film
The book was made into a film in 1976, by director Bo Widerberg, renamed The Man on the Roof (Mannen på taket).
| Preceded by: Murder at the Savoy | "Martin Beck" timeline, part 7 of 10 | Succeeded by: The Locked Room |
