men both have 'the same thought', voiced by Kollberg:'One can't communicate merely by telepathy.' Naturally, though, they do get on each other's nerves, as when Kollberg's irritation at Beck's persistent cough causes the latter to rudely tell him he gets 'more and more like Inga every day. Still, they function brilliantly together and they are 'a good complement to one another' When Beck first learns of the incident on the bus and that one of his colleagues has been shot, he immediately fears that it's Kollberg, whom he left after their walk together earlier and whom he discovers has still not returned home. But at the scene of the crime, as Beck silently scans the feces of the victims, Kollberg suddenly appears as if nothing had happened. Too relieved to trust himself to speak, Beck says nothing, as Kollberg gives him 'a searching look’. In such brief and telling instances as these, the reader comes to understand just how the two men 'had learned to understand each other's thoughts and feelings without wasting words'.
Sjowall and Wahloo took the novel's title from the famous 1920s music hall song of the same name. Sung by the aptiy named Charles Jolly, but under the pseudonym of Charles Penrose, it's a song about a fat policeman who laughs all the time and has been unaccountably popular over the years. A record of it is given to Beck for a Christmas present by his daughter, Ingrid, who clearly thinks it's hilarious and tells him it's 'Pretty appropriate, eh?' As his family sat around him and 'howled with mirth', Beck himself, this driven, dyspeptic detective, 'was left utterly cold. He couldn't even manage a smile.' It is only at the very end of the novel when the two cases have been solved, when Stenstrom's death has been avenged and when the final twist is delivered by the authors, that Beck starts laughing. The joke is on him and the rest of the police force, but still he laughs.
Beck at the Box Office
The American success of
Further Interrogation of Maj Sjowall
Unlike the hot, sultry summer of the previous book, this is set in the winter, near Christmas, with lots of rain and cold winds. How important was the weather as a backdrop to the events in the novels? In Scandinavia we have shifting seasons and to make a book's setting the cold winter or grey autumn or slushy pre-spring or hot summer can spice up the story a little. Sometimes we simply used the weather as it was at the time of writing.
You seemed particularly interested in what you call the ‘poison' of status in this book. Did you think Sweden especially succumbed to this?
I'm not sure I understand the question, but I suppose that the development we described in Sweden was similar to that in the rest of the world.
There is a very powerful use of the past in this novel, more so than in the preceding books. Was that deliberate and, if so, why did you wait until now?
I think it turned out to be the right time to look back in history and give both the reader and us some background. We hadn't really planned it or postponed it, though.
This novel won the Edgar Award in 1971 and remains the only European novel to have done so. Why do you think this book was so popular with American readers? I honesdy don't know. Perhaps it took time for American readers to find their way to our books and that particular tide might have created an interest for Sweden and the so-called 'Swedish Model' which Prime Minister Palme spread abroad.
Maj Sjowall was born in 1935 in Stockholm, Sweden. She studied journalism and graphics and worked as a translator, as well as an art director and journalist for some of the most eminent magazines and newspapers in Sweden. She met her husband Per Wahloo in 1961 through her work, and the two almost instantly became a couple. They had two sons together and, after the death of Per Wahloo, Sjowall continued to translate. She also wrote several short stories and the acclaimed crime novel
