Roseanna
A Martin Beck Police Mystery (1)
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4.0 • 109 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
With a New Introduction by Henning Mankell. The masterful first novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö ("the best writers of police procedurals in the world"), finds Beck hunting for the murderer of a lonely traveler.
On a July afternoon, a young woman's body is dredged from Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. With no clues Beck begins an investigation not only to uncover a murderer but also to discover who the victim was. Three months later, all Beck knows is that her name was Roseanna and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people on a cruise. As the melancholic Beck narrows the list of suspects, he is drawn increasingly to the enigma of the victim, a free-spirited traveler with a penchant for casual sex, and to the psychopathology of a murderer with a distinctive--indeed, terrifying--sense of propriety.
Customer Reviews
The Weather in Sweden Seems Harsh
The police procedural was alive and well in Sweden in the mid-‘60s, and this book proves it very well. Taut, with great pacing and believable human beings as police whose personalities never overshadow the crime they work tirelessly to solve. A fast and well-crafted read, which immediately compelled me to purchase the second in the series.
What was the point
Oh my, what a boring book. I kept reading just to see what the point was. There was no real story here, no build up, no suspense, finally the murder was solved, and I asked myself again what the point of taking the time to write this story was. I could find none. A random woman was killed, we learned very little about her, and along the way we were given far too many tedious details that were dull and had nothing to do with the story. Worse, the police officers working the case weren’t fleshed out and the reader was left with not a single character to care about.
Roseanna
To think this was published in 1965!